What do your customers carry with them, interact with more than any other device, and panic without? Their smartphone, of course.

Whether you're in a B2B or B2C company and regardless of your industry, your customers are using their smartphones daily and probably hourly (with 52% of smartphone owners checking it a few times within an hour or more).

We all know customers use those devices for texting or WhatsApping friends and family, sharing and commenting on social media, and using email. But there's one common smartphone activity that marketers seem to forget in most conversations about the mobile customer journey: phone calls.

Although customers increasingly use social media, online forums, and live chat for sales and service interactions with companies, phone calls are incredibly common. Customers still make and receive calls regularly to and from banks, retail companies, medical professionals, and so many more. Yet phone calls are often lost in the customer journey, with important details about customer interests and complaints gone forever. 

On this week’s episode of the Marketing Cloudcast  —  the marketing podcast from Salesforce  —  we learn about the perks of live conversations and how to successfully collect and apply data from those conversations. Kyle Christensen, Vice President of Marketing of Invoca, a call intelligence platform, joins the show.

 If you’re not yet a subscriber, check out the Marketing Cloudcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, or Stitcher.

Take a listen here:

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kyle.

Set Up "Trigger Words" for Live Phone Calls

According to Kyle, phone calls aren't “just about the attribution — it’s about the data you can collect and the customer service you can drive as a result.”

By collecting data, allowing call centers to know that data, and pulling out trigger words during a live chat, a brand can create truly personalized customer support. Then, take it a step further by working with tools like Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud to send personal follow-up emails that are truly based on the content of the phone call.

By tracking what has happened in one conversation, “you’ve personalized that digital customer journey based on the phone call that took place,” says Kyle. For example, if you're a travel company, your trigger words might be "Spain" or "Japan." If a customer mentions those places during a phone call as potential future destinations, track them so you can send future marketing communications as a result. This tracking can be automated so service reps aren't tracking trigger word mentions manually.

Phone Calls Are An Integral Part of the Customer Experience

Kyle says one of the most exciting things happening in marketing today is the trend towards the customer experience.

Phone calls shouldn't be a random thread of the customer experience that's not trackable, manageable, or accessible by your company's marketers.

Kyle explains in the full podcast, “Marketing is not just the upfront outreach. It’s about marketing taking over the entire set of actions that make up the entire customer experience.” 

Phone calls are definitely an important part of that entire experience as a customer. I'm sure we can all think of a time when we called a call center, only to be treated like our problems were insignificant or the service agent couldn't be bothered. On the other hand, a friendly and helpful phone interaction makes the brand seem more human and can increase loyalty. How do your phone interactions stack up?

Don’t Forget the Basics of a Person-to-Person Interaction

According to Kyle, “While digital tactics and digital strategies are the topic de jour these days, and people always want to learn more about tech and more about how to tailor the customer journey, at the end of the day, the message behind those marketing programs is what really makes marketing campaigns successful. I think people lose sight of that sometimes.”

A phone call is one of the most basic customer interactions you can have. We start talking on the phone to our grandparents and friends as little kids, but somehow, we forget the fundamentals as marketers — the fundamentals of listening, showing empathy, and communicating clearly and honestly.

Who is talking on the phone to your customers? Make sure they have the ability to treat customers like real people, and act like real people themselves.

Departments Must Come Together For This to Work 

As we explained in a recent blog post, marketing departments have to stop riding solo if this customer journey thing is really going to happen: "In the age of the customer, it's vital to connect across every stage of the lifecycle. A truly connected customer experience is something that should matter not only to marketing, but to everyone in the organization. Marketers must dissolve the boundaries between teams to achieve that holy grail."

And that’s just scratching the surface of our conversation with Kyle Christensen (@kylechristensen). Get the full episode to get more ideas from Kyle on improving your customer touchpoints across devices.

Join the thousands of smart marketers who already subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Stitcher.

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Tweet @youngheike with marketing questions or topics you’d like to see covered next on the Marketing Cloudcast.