Should you capture phone number with an order?

Andrew Sutton Silver
Digital Marketing Manager at Halfords

19 May 2010 15:48pm

I'm constantly getting pushed by our call centre to add a mandatory field on our website to capture customers phone numbers when they place an order as they want to call them if anything goes wrong.

My argument (right or wrong - answers below please!) is that if they ordered via the web, and they have to give an email address, why should we then call them?

I'd be really interested to hear if anyone has done any testing on what impact capturing this has on conversion rate? I suspect that as its another field it will reduce conversion - is this the case?

Thanks,

Andrew
Matthew Curry Silver
Head of Ecommerce at Lovehoney

20 May 2010 08:52am

Not necessarily, depending on how it's worded. You could say you need the telephone number to ensure correct and prompt delivery, which is quite likely the case. That would also fight shopper worries that they may not get their goods.

If the field's there and not mandatory, how many shoppers voluntarily submit it?

Matt
Andrew Sutton Silver
Digital Marketing Manager at Halfords

20 May 2010 09:39am

Good question and one we haven't tested as of yet and thanks for the suggestion on the wording - I think this will make it much more 'user friendly'!
Charon Matthew
Web Manager at Stoneridge Electronics

24 May 2010 10:43am

We always take the phone number and everyone always fills it in for us. What we don't do is phone them unless we have a reason to eg: they haven't renewed their license, so we ring to see if they want to just after it's expired.

We also get email addresses but only send useful updates. It's worked well for us, but just make sure whatever you get you use properly and make that clear in the t&cs etc.

Cheers

Charon
Chloë Thomas Silver
Managing Director at indiumonline

27 May 2010 17:58pm
Hi Andrew,

I do agree with what's been said by the above, and my natural reaction would be to say that you should be asking it to improve customer service. This is especially true in the B2C marketplace where consumers may only check the email they've given every once in a while whilst they check their phone more regularly.

But as you are focused B2B I guess there's much more chance of your customers being welded to their work emails all day - so an email might be preferable for them anyway... Also I see from your site that you've got a customer service rating over 90% (according to Feefo), so on the face of it your customers are happy with no one being able to phone them.

I'd say overall the customer service need for capturing phone numbers needs a bit more exploration. So I'd suggest:
- finding out why customer services want the phone number (if it's because they don't like waiting around for an email response then it's not a big issue, but if it's because customers are getting annoyed then it is)
- Take a look at the unsatisfied reviews and see how many could have been made satisfying if you'd have had their phone number
Hope that helps

Chloe
Laura Brown
Online Marketing Executive at 192.com

03 June 2010 13:55pm

I work for a company involved in fraud prevention, and we always encourage our customers to complete the phone number field.

As well as being helpful in case of order issues and queries, we can screen the customer details against reported fraudulent transactions.

What we have found is that fraudsters can easily replicate email addresses, but phone numbers are much more difficult to create in large numbers.

If a number of retailers are reporting fraud with the same phone number, we can flag this up, and you have more chance of stopping a transaction and avoiding a chargeback and all the related hassle that goes along with this.

On a personal note, I never mind giving a phone number, but hate being asked for it when the transaction is obviously a gift (such as sending flowers to a non billing address)!
Stanley Mathew
Digital Marketing/Online Marketing Specialist at Ecommerce Freelancer

24 June 2010 02:45am

I agree with Matthew Curry but I doubt if the collection of phone number is solely for the occassion of where something goes wrong as said on the topic.

"Being pushed constantly by the call centre" to collect phone number cannot honestly be to contact customers when and or where something goes wrong. It does not tally up.

If the original poster had talked about collecting numbers to generate more business leads and or upsale other products, then I will certainly agree.

Right, the call centre can generate more business or leads with phone numbers. However, based on tested methods and treating customers fairly, one will need to be honest with the customer why their are required to provide telephone contacts.Therefore this field must be optional to allow for the collection of "quality leads".

By letting the customer know the genuine reasons behind the collection of such data, allows for the collection of "quality contact numbers". In other words it means it will increase convertion when the reason is honest and presented in a professionally crafted style.
Jim Buchanan
PR Consultant at JBPR

16 July 2010 10:42am

Approached in the right way, capturing phone numbers with orders is very important. In fact, before the order point is even better! It’s a lead generation, customer service and clean data exercise. Look at it like this: around 90% of customers drop baskets, according to industry stats (yes some sectors will be better, but some are worse!), so 10% of your hot leads turn into actual customers. Only 10%.

So these 90% of ‘nearly-customers’ need to be treated separately to encourage them to order – many companies trigger an email follow-up which is ok to a point, but if you call your best customers and offer help and advice your conversion rate will go through the roof. Why? because the telephone is proven to be the best closer of these hot leads, it’s the ultimate personalisation tool – and customers welcome a friendly call especially if they have unanswered questions, or were confused by something. Clearly you need to capture their telephone number first!