Call routing and reporting is the measurement layer under every other piece of multi-location marketing. Each branch gets its own local tracked number, the main marketing sources get their own numbers where useful, routing rules send each call to the team that can book it, and a monthly report shows calls, booked jobs and cost for every location. Without it, branch budgets and branch pages are judged by opinion.
What goes wrong without it
In a single-location company, the phone rings at the shop and someone answers. With several branches, a call has to find the right place, and the number it dialled is often the only clue to where it came from.
Typical problems we find on the first audit:
- All branches share one head-office number, so nobody knows which branch area the caller is in until the dispatcher asks.
- After-hours calls go to one answering service with no branch information.
- Calls from Google profiles, ads and the website use the same number, so nobody can tell which source works.
- The CRM records the customer's address but not the branch that booked the job, or the marketing source.
What's included
The setup has four parts. We design all four, and either set them up or specify them for your team or vendor.
1. A number plan
One local tracked number per branch for that branch's profile, page and print. Separate tracked numbers for paid search and for major campaigns where the volume justifies it. A written register of every number, where it appears and where it rings.
2. Routing rules
Business-hours routing to each branch's dispatcher, with overflow to a second branch or head office when nobody answers within a set number of rings. After-hours routing that tells the answering service which branch the call belongs to.
3. CRM fields
Two required fields on every job: booking branch and marketing source. We help your CRM administrator set them as mandatory, so a job cannot be saved without them. If you need help choosing or setting up a CRM, HVACCRM.ca specialises in that.
4. The monthly branch report
One page per branch, plus a company summary. For each branch: calls, answered rate, booked jobs, average job value where available, marketing cost and cost per booked job.
Privacy and recording
Call tracking collects personal information, so it falls under privacy law. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner explains that PIPEDA applies to most private-sector businesses, while Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have their own private-sector laws for businesses operating entirely within those provinces. A company with branches in several provinces may deal with more than one regime. We set up the marketing side; your lawyer should confirm your notices and recording practices.
Timeline
Most companies with two to six branches are reporting by branch within six weeks.
- Weeks 1–2: number register, current routing map and CRM review.
- Weeks 2–3: new numbers provisioned and routing rules written.
- Weeks 3–4: numbers swapped on profiles, pages, ads and print (print is changed at the next reprint, not thrown away).
- Weeks 4–6: CRM fields enforced and the first branch report produced.
How results are measured
The service succeeds when branch numbers are trusted enough to make decisions. We check three things:
- Coverage: the share of booked jobs with a branch and a source recorded. Aim for above 95%.
- Answer rate by branch: the share of calls answered by a person. Low answer rates at one branch are often the cheapest improvement available.
- Reconciliation: booked jobs in the report match booked jobs in the CRM within a small margin.
Once those hold, the report feeds your branch marketing budgets.
Mistakes to avoid
- Too many numbers. One per branch and one per major source is plenty. Fifty numbers become impossible to maintain.
- Changing numbers every year. Customers save your number. Keep tracked numbers stable.
- Counting calls instead of booked jobs. A branch with many short wrong-number calls looks busy and isn't.
- Leaving the source field optional. Optional fields are left blank on busy January mornings.
- Ignoring missed calls. In a cold snap, unanswered calls are lost work.
We are a marketing and business consulting service, not a heating contractor. The services overview shows how this fits with the rest, and pricing explains costs.
Frequently asked questions
Won't tracked numbers confuse customers?
Not if they are local numbers for each branch and stay the same for years. Customers see one number per branch. The tracking happens behind it.
Should we record calls?
Recording is useful for training and for checking whether a call was a real lead, but it carries privacy obligations. Privacy law differs between provinces, so get advice from your own lawyer before you switch recording on.
What if a customer calls the wrong branch?
Then the routing rules decide. Usually the receiving branch transfers the call warm and logs it, and the lead is credited to the branch that books the job, with a note of where it arrived.
Do we need new software?
Usually only a call-tracking service and a CRM field for branch. Many companies already own the CRM; it just isn't set up to record the branch and the source on every job.