missed calls

How to Solve Your Problem With Spam Calls Right Now

Last Updated: February 15, 2018

Are you being dogged by spam calls all day long? Telemarketers and robocalls are running rampant these days, and small business owners are getting the brunt of it. Average Americans are certainly getting their fair share of spam calls, too, but it’s nothing compared to what business owners are experiencing on a daily basis.

Spam Calls Are Unavoidable

Since your company phone number is plastered all over the web, it’s super-easy for spammers and robots to add you to their databases. Now, that’s no reason to throw up your hands and remove your number from your listings. This temptation is understandable. However, you need your contact details out there consistently for SEO purposes and, of course, so real customers can call you.
When you’re getting spam calls every hour, it may also be tempting to stop answering your phone altogether. After all, who has the patience to endure that many solicitors day in and day out? Never mind how busy you already are with that little thing called “running a business.”
As frustrating as this constant barrage of calls may be, it’s important not to completely ignore your phone—because some motivated customers are mixed in there, as well. As we’ve discussed previously, missed calls are missed opportunities. And missed opportunities mean lost revenue.
So, if you can’t remove your number from the internet and you can’t afford to take your phone off the hook, what are your options? What’s the solution to your spam call problem?

How Can You Get Around Spam Calls?

First, it’s important to understand why it’s so challenging to eliminate spam calls completely. Due to the nature of our ever-advancing technology, it’s all too easy for spammers and scammers to robo-dial countless numbers simultaneously. They’re also getting smarter about gaming the system, obtaining new phone numbers regularly, and targeting local area codes to make the calls seem more legit.
Can you imagine having an email account without any spam/junk filter? What a nightmare! And yet, this is exactly what we’re all dealing with right now on our phones.
That’s why we developed Kulinda, a smartphone app designed to completely eliminate your spam call problem. We modeled it after email spam filters, so it blocks unknown or unverified callers BEFORE they even reach you, unless our algorithm deems them safe. This means spammers can try to game the system and change their phone numbers all they want—they won’t be able to get past our filter. With Kulinda, you’ll only receive the calls you want, and you won’t be bothered by anything else.
Kulinda is a simple, easy-to-use app that won’t hog up space on your phone. As soon as you install it, it will start blocking those spam calls. With this one easy step, you’ve solved your spam call problem for good!
Right now, Kulinda is available on the Google Play Store for Android devices. Very soon, it will be available for iPhones, too. Download it today for a FREE, 7-day trial!

How Much Money Are You Losing From Missed Calls?

Last Updated: April 20, 2017

Do you even notice your phone buzzing in your pocket or ringing on your desk anymore? Many business owners find themselves tuning out their ringing phones for the sake of their own time, energy, and sanity. After all, an endless stream of phone calls comes with the territory of owning a small business—and a good chunk of the time, they’re useless calls from solicitors. Usually, though, there are a lot of customer calls mixed in there. So if you’re just letting your phone ring and not picking up, you could be losing a bunch of business.
It’s perfectly understandable that you don’t want to tie yourself up talking to telemarketers all day. You’re busy, and you simply don’t have time to waste on unwelcome calls. However, by ignoring all incoming calls, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. Rock, meet hard place.
In this post, we’ll look at how missed calls impact your business and what you can do to reduce them. Let’s jump in!

Missed Calls = Lost Money

Did you know that roughly 30% of our clients’ incoming calls go to voicemail? That’s not good, especially when you consider a recent report from Forbes telling us the overwhelming majority of callers hang up as soon as they reach voicemail.
It’s truly unfortunate, particularly because you do have a good chance of turning a caller into a customer: Our proprietary data shows that approximately 60% of answered calls turn into successful sales.
Using these statistics, we’ve broken down roughly how much revenue you’re missing out on by not answering the phone. You can see the numbers in the table below:

Is it safe to assume you don’t want to lose thousands upon thousands of dollars in revenue each year? Then you have to find a way to answer customer calls without wasting all your time on pesky solicitors. If only we had some tips for you…

How to Answer Only the Calls You Want

It actually is possible to answer your customers’ calls without dealing with the annoyance of telemarketers. You have a couple of options:

Use a spam-blocking app on your phone that blocks known solicitors. It may not block spam calls 100% of the time, but it will significantly reduce the number you receive.
Hire a call answering service to answer your phone for you. They’ll answer all your calls, represent your business with professionalism, and take messages from customers. They may even be able to perform other secretarial duties like scheduling appointments and answering basic customer service questions. This frees you up big time.
Stop using your personal cell phone number as your business number. Get a separate line or a forwarding number to use for all of your business needs. This won’t actually cut down on solicitation calls, but at least you won’t be bothered by them when you’re spending time with your family at home.
Take advantage of Prospect Genius’s CallTrax line or a similar call-tracking service. You’ll benefit from our extensive list of blocked numbers, which is constantly updated to keep unwanted callers from wasting our clients’ time.

Get an Exclusive Discount on Business Answering Services!

To help business owners solve their problem with missed calls, Prospect Genius has partnered with a company called Professional Answering Service, Inc. Their experienced management and well-trained staff are available to:

Answer your phone remotely
Dispatch urgent customer calls when needed
Take detailed messages
Schedule customer service calls and appointments
And more!

The best part? Prospect Genius clients have access to Professional Answering Service, Inc. at an exclusive rate! If you think your business could benefit from an affordable answering service, get in touch with us and we’ll help you set everything up.

Why Does Your Business Have So Many Missed Calls?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Have we told you lately how important it is to answer your phone?
We’ve noticed many of our clients have a staggering number of missed calls.
It all started with Google. In doing our day-to-day marketing tasks for clients, we discovered many clients are consistently missing important calls from Google. Not only is this a pain for us—because then we have to schedule another appointment for you to speak with Google—but it also makes us worry about your phone habits in general.

Why aren’t you picking up the phone in the first place?
In this newsletter, we’ll explore two major reasons to answer your phone. We’ll also offer some tips to help you stay on top of incoming calls.
Let’s get started.

Why Should You Want to Answer the Phone?

The caller might actually be Google.
The caller might be an interested customer.

If It’s Google:

You want to answer the phone because missing this call will prevent your listing from being verified. This is especially urgent at the beginning of your campaign, when we’re setting up your listing. However, we’re constantly checking your listings and making necessary changes throughout the duration of your campaign, so Google may call to re-verify your listing at any time.
Without verification from Google, your local web presence will suffer because your listing will not be visible to users. As a result, you could miss out on serious money in lost business.

If It’s a Customer:

You want to answer the phone because missing this call means your customer will be giving their money to one of your competitors instead of working with you. Consistently missing customers’ calls is another way you could be losing thousands of dollars in business. That’s a pretty strong reason to pick up your phone.

How You Can Take Action Without Much Effort

Now that you’ve discovered what’s at stake, arm yourself with the right knowledge and tools to avoid missed calls in the future. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know:

Legitimate customers may be calling from out-of-area phone numbers. Thanks to cell phones, area codes don’t mean anything anymore.
Always answer any call from the (650) area code. This is Google.
You can use call forwarding for your CallTrax number so you don’t miss calls while you’re out.
You can also use a professional answering service if you’re bothered by constant disruptions or marketing calls.

Don’t Automatically Dismiss Out-of-Area Phone Calls

Many local business owners might see an area code from out of state or even out of their service area and assume it’s not a legitimate customer calling. However, area codes are essentially meaningless nowadays.
An out-of-area phone number doesn’t necessarily mean the call isn’t coming from a local resident. Many people exclusively use cell phones, and they keep their phone number when they move from one state to another. Area codes only tell you where an individual first signed up for their phone plan.
On top of that, unless your business is located in the San Francisco Bay area, Google’s calls will always register as out of area for you. Remember: Google will be calling from a (650) area code. If you see that number, answer it.

Call-Forwarding for Your CallTrax Number Is a Game Changer

Have you tried out our call-forwarding feature?
When set up correctly, our call-forwarding feature will ensure you never miss a phone call. Without it, you miss any calls that come to your main CallTrax number every time you’re out on a job or leave the main office.
Setting up call-forwarding is easy. Through the Client Portal, you can add the phones you would like your CallTrax number to forward to. You can have calls sent to your cell phone instead of the main office during certain times of day, like when you’re back at home for the night. You can also have calls routed to a second and even third phone number after the main phone misses a certain number of rings.
However you decide to set it up, keep track of which phones calls are forwarded to at different times of day. Don’t leave your cell phone in your office all night if your calls are being forwarded to it after hours!

Professional Answering Services Are Available if the Phone Just Isn’t Your Thing

Some business owners just don’t like being on the phone, and that’s why they avoid answering it. While we totally understand how uncomfortable it can feel to talk to strangers, and how disruptive it can feel when you’re in the middle of a job, we can’t let you miss that many phone calls. It’s harming your business.
If you really can’t stand being on the phone—or you’re simply too busy—hire a professional answering service to do it for you. While we don’t endorse any particular company, we have clients who successfully use AnswerConnect as their answering service.
(Bonus: An answering service will screen out marketing calls so you never have to deal with them!)
Explore other strategies for handling missed calls.

The Good Outweighs the Bad

Make it a policy to answer your phone as often as possible. What do you have to lose?
Even if the caller turns out to be a solicitor, you’ll only be wasting a minute or two on the phone. Isn’t it worth losing just a minute of your time if it means you’ll be there to speak with Google and countless prospective customers when they call? With literally thousands of dollars on the line, we feel it’s well worth the risk.

Top 5 Online Advertising Mistakes That Will Waste Your Money

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Make sure you’re getting your money’s worth from Prospect Genius. Avoid these online advertising mistakes that are almost guaranteed to ruin your campaign and wash your money down the drain.

5. Hiring Another SEO Company at the Same Time

Many business owners mistakenly believe that hiring an additional SEO company will double their results. In reality, it does the opposite. If you’re already working with us, hiring another SEO company will actually work against our efforts and damage your web presence.
That’s due to a number of reasons. First, we’ve spent years developing and perfecting our lead generation strategies, which are rigidly structured to ensure consistent results. However, since every company has its own unique approach to SEO, the other company’s work may get in our way and potentially counteract our efforts. Second, working with two companies could jeopardize your standing with Google, a far graver consequence. When Google detects multiple account managers updating your listing from disparate IP addresses, it will flag your listing. From there, your listing could be penalized or suspended. Recovering from either of those actions is a long, costly process.
Finally, it’s important to know that there is only a finite number of valuable resources available for optimization. If you have more than one company trying to use those resources, it becomes a battle. Not having access to all of the resources they need will significantly weaken each campaign. Plus, with two companies battling each other and adding different sets of information, you’ll end up flagged by Google for conflicting information.
In short, hiring a second SEO company is a surefire way to damage your campaign—not to mention a huge waste of money. Read more about the dangers of working with multiple SEO companies in our blog post, “For SEO Companies, Two’s a Crowd.”

4. Not Knowing What You Want

We may be online advertising “geniuses,” but we aren’t fortunetellers. We can’t predict what you’ll want in the future—only you can do that. When you sign up with us, make sure you have an idea of what you want for the long term. This is the only way we can tailor our services to your needs. Keep an open dialogue with us about what you want out of your campaign so we can deliver the most satisfying experience possible.
For example, we’ve had clients in the past who decided during their Core campaigns that they actually wanted to focus on their own, preexisting sites rather than their LeadTrax™ sites. If we had known this upfront, we would have been able to save time, money, and hassle for both parties by using our B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Site) package, instead.
If you don’t know what you want out of your Prospect Genius campaign in the long run, you’ll end up spending an unnecessary amount of time and money on a campaign that doesn’t quite suit your needs.

3. Not Answering Your Phone When Customers Call

This one is pretty straightforward. If you’re not going to answer your phone when customers call you for your services, then why are you paying us to connect you with these customers? You may be shocked to discover how infrequently some of our clients answer their phones. These clients are essentially throwing away their money because they’re paying us for a lead generation program and then ignoring the leads that are being generated. This is especially true for PPC clients who are literally paying for each person who clicks on their ad and visits their site.
If you’re having trouble answering the phone, use the Client Portal to reroute your LeadTrax number to your mobile phone or any other phone that you can actually answer with some frequency. For more tips on reducing missed calls, check out “Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?” and “You Might Be Paying Your Advertiser for Nothing.”

2. Not Communicating With Us

Having an open line of communication between us is vital to the success of your campaign. Whether it’s turning in your Google PIN as soon as you receive it, responding to our e-mail inquiries in a timely manner, or giving us pertinent company details for your LeadTrax site content, we need you to actively communicate with us. Otherwise, we won’t be able to advertise your business to the best of our abilities.
For example, if you fail to tell us that Google sent you a verification PIN via postcard, we’ll just be stuck in limbo waiting to move forward with your Google listing. If you don’t answer the phone or call us back when we have a question about your company, we won’t be able to finish creating your LeadTrax site. If you don’t give us the full picture of what your business does and how it works, then your site won’t be very accurate. All of these ultimately lead to an unsatisfying campaign.
The bottom line is this: If you don’t actively communicate with us, we won’t be able to do our job effectively. And when we can’t be effective, you’re wasting your money.

1. Leaving Conflicting Information on the Web

Having inconsistent or conflicting information about your business all over the web is the quickest way to drive your campaign into the ground. This often results from working with a second advertising company and not realizing that they created duplicate listings with slightly varied information. However, it can also result from something simpler, like a recent address change or name change. Regardless of what caused the information inconsistency, no amount of SEO wizardry will be successful until all of your online information matches.
To get the most out of your investment in lead generation services, you’ll need to have a clean, consistent online footprint. We recommend a WebFax^® report to check the status of your online information and CleanSlate to fix any problems that come to light in the report. If you don’t take action to clean up your mismatching information, all of our lead generation efforts will be for naught.

Help Us Help You

Thankfully, all of these online advertising mistakes are easily avoidable. We don’t expect you to be super-savvy with technology or knowledgeable about Google’s best practices. All we ask is that you are completely forthcoming and honest with us so that we can do what we do best: send leads straight to you.
There’s no such thing as a perfect campaign, but if you’re able to avoid these destructive online advertising mistakes, you can at least know that you’re doing your part to make your campaign as successful as possible.
Questions or concerns? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at your earliest convenience.

Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?

Last Updated: August 19, 2015

As a small business owner, you can’t possibly answer the phone every time it rings, especially if you’re on a much-deserved vacation from work. But that’s no excuse for missing all of those incoming leads. The number of sales you close is directly proportional to the number of calls you answer, but for those times when you just can’t get to your phone, you must at least have a working backup plan. Otherwise, you’ll never even have a chance to get those leads back.
Here are some things you can do to make sure missed leads don’t tank your business.

Have a Professional Voice Mail System

When answering your phone isn’t in the cards, having a proper voice mail system will allow prospects to leave a detailed message and enable you to follow up with those leads as soon as you can.
Set up a professional greeting: The first step is to set up a professional voice mail greeting. Whether you’re frequently out on the job and can’t pick up your phone or you’re going on an extended vacation, you must record a detailed greeting so prospective customers know that they’re calling a legitimate business. Include your company name, an explanation and/or apology for not answering the phone, and assurance that you’ll return their call ASAP.
Keep your inbox empty: If your inbox is full of old voice mail messages, new callers won’t be able to leave a message. If they can’t leave a message, they’ll immediately find another local business to call. To avoid this problem, delete new messages as soon as you’ve returned the call or logged the contact info. If you’re consistent with this, you won’t have to worry about your inbox filling up ever again.

Note: A few business owners who use pay-per-call services might strategically keep their inboxes full as a way to avoid getting charged when they don’t answer the phone. However, doing this prevents all incoming leads from leaving voice mails. The amount of business you lose by doing this outweighs any pay-per-call charges you’re saving. (If you’re dead-set on avoiding pay-per-call charges, you may want to consider adding another phone line dedicated exclusively to this purpose. Ask Prospect Genius about how to do this.)

Leverage the Convenience of Technology

Because it’s 2015, you can always count on technology to pull through. There are several different ways you can use technology to keep track of missed calls without much effort. The most popular options involve receiving text and e-mail notifications on your mobile phone whenever your business misses a call or receives a voice mail. This way, when you’re out on the job and miss a call, you’ll be able to follow up right away instead of waiting until you’re back at the office. Your chances of closing a sale are much greater if you can catch that prospect before they find another business to hire.
While we do not endorse any particular company, we know that RingCentral offers great message alert and notification services tailored to small businesses. You can also ask Prospect Genius to set this up for you.

Use a Professional Answering Service

While falling back on voice mail or text alerts is cheap, it also incurs a significant risk that those prospects will find another business or service provider before you get the chance to call them back. That’s why many business owners hire professional answering services.

Answering services are much less expensive than in-house receptionists.
Operating from a remote office, they can answer the phone and deliver messages to you 24/7.
They’re professionally trained for customer service and interacting on the phone, making them especially useful if that’s not your strong suit.
To make sure they get all the relevant information from your leads, you can even give them a script of which questions to ask.
An answering service is also a useful way to screen out marketing calls so you never even have to deal with them.

Again, we do not endorse any particular company, but we know that some of our clients successfully use AnswerConnect as their answering service, so that might be a good place to start.

But Really: Pick Up Your Phone

One of the things that all successful businesses do is answer their phones when prospects call. As we’ve covered before, missed calls mean missed customers, even if you do have a backup voice mail or answering service. Signing up for a missed call notification service shouldn’t be Plan A. Forward calls to your mobile phone, set up an advanced package with multiple lines, reroute calls to ring multiple phones… Do whatever it takes to connect with a lead. That’s the only truly effective way to create new business.

Prospect Genius

How to Solve Your Problem With Spam Calls Right Now

Spam Calls Are Unavoidable

How Can You Get Around Spam Calls?

How Much Money Are You Losing From Missed Calls?

Missed Calls = Lost Money

How to Answer Only the Calls You Want

Get an Exclusive Discount on Business Answering Services!

Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?

Have a Professional Voice Mail System

Leverage the Convenience of Technology

Use a Professional Answering Service

But Really: Pick Up Your Phone

Contact Us

Business Hours

Let’s Connect!

What Drives Us?

Client Portal App

Helpful Links

Sign up for our newsletter!