Account Center by CallRail: The ideal solution for busy agencies

If you are an agency or marketer overseeing several clients, you stand to benefit from CallRail’s Account Center, the best way to manage multiple accounts all in one place.

Account Center brings all client information into a single dashboard, while empowering clients by giving them ownership of their own data. Account Center also helps agencies keep their margins in check and can even become a new source of revenue.

Let’s break down the differences between Account Center and the House Account model, so you can decide which option is best for you.

Overview: Account Center vs. House Accounts model

There are two options for managing clients in CallRail, each designed for different types of users.

Account Center is the ideal model for agencies that manage many different businesses. It gives an agency’s clients more ownership over their own numbers and data, while making it easier to monitor individual accounts and maximize margins.

House Accounts are better suited for individual companies, including those that own multiple locations or several related brands. All accounts within a House Account will share numbers and data and are grouped together in terms of reporting, billing, and ownership.

Account center was designed with agencies in mind, and offers a number of benefits over the House Account model:

Account Center gives you and your clients more control over your numbers

If you use CallRail to create unique numbers for some of your clients but not others, it makes sense to use Account Center rather than a House Account. With Account Center, your clients own their own numbers, and the account holder can choose which clients share numbers and key data.

House Accounts, on the other hand, have their numbers allocated across all clients listed under their account (though this may vary depending on the subscription plan). If not every client is using the numbers, switching to Account Center could significantly decrease how much you’re paying.

Account Center makes it easier to track and forecast account usage

With a House Account, all of the data around forms and call minutes are shared across all accounts, which makes perfect sense if you’re managing multiple locations or brands.

However, agency owners need to have deeper oversight over how their clients use CallRail. Within Account Center, usage data is shown specific to each client, making it much easier to track usage on a per-account basis.

At the same time, Account Center simplifies the process of forecasting individual account usage. With the ability to monitor individual accounts, agencies can alert their clients if they are about to go over their call or form allotment, allowing the client to either reduce usage or add more budget.

Gathering forecasts like this is possible with a House Account, but it can be very tedious and time-consuming when compared to the simplicity of Account Center.

Agencies can keep a better margin and develop a new revenue stream with Account Center

Account Center gives an agency’s clients ownership over their own numbers and data. This includes billing—all clients are invoiced individually, and responsible for making their own payments to CallRail.

This means that if a client goes over what’s allotted to them in their account, they’ll be responsible for paying the overage fees. Agencies that are still using House Accounts often have to foot that bill by reducing their margin instead.

But it gets better than that. CallRail offers a partnership program, which allows agency owners to earn revenue share on any new clients that sign up for their own CallRail account if they’ve previously been part of an agency’s house account setup.

For those that qualify for the partnership program, CallRail essentially becomes an additional revenue stream, while decreasing the amount of work necessary to manage multiple accounts.

Account Center gives agencies more security and stability

CallRail collects a lot of important data for its clients, and keeping it secure is vital to maintaining clients’ trust.

Unfortunately, using a House Account to manage multiple clients compromises data security. It’s risky for any agency to have ownership over sensitive data—which is why giving clients ownership of their information through Account Center is a wise move.

This is particularly important for agencies managing businesses that need to comply with HIPAA and GDPR. A House Account will give these clients peace of mind, knowing they are the ones who own their own data.

Agencies can trial new products for individual clients

CallRail frequently releases new products to help businesses attract and manage leads. With Account Center, agencies can experiment with these new products without forcing them on clients that may not want or need to use them.

All new products, like form tracking and conversation intelligence, are available to House Accounts as well. However, within a House Account, any new products you test out will be applied to all of the accounts within, whereas Account Center allows you to pick and choose which clients get access to what– to best fit their needs.

Making the switch: When to move clients to their own accounts

A marketing agency’s goal is to help its clients grow and win new business. As they do, the agency needs to be agile and give them new options and opportunities to suit their evolving business.

With Account Center, you can decide when it’s time to let clients leave the nest and move them out of your Agency account and into an account of their own.

There are a number of signs that it’s time for a client to transition into their own account:

• They want to increase their plan usage, and will soon have a lot more data to own
• They are showing more interest in their data and success with CallRail, and want to have more insight and control
• They are frequently going over the amount of numbers or forms they’ve been allotted in the agency plan, and need something more
• They are requesting more security and privacy for their data

In any of these scenarios, moving clients to their own account with Account Center will deliver the control and flexibility they need as their business grows.

Is it time to switch to Account Center?

Still unsure whether you should switch over to Account Center? Use this checklist to see if making the shift will improve your business:

1. You manage multiple different businesses as an agency or marketing service provider
2. You want to save time and effort by offloading ownership of call data to your clients
3. You’d prefer your clients pay for CallRail’s services directly, rather than footing the bill out of your own margins
4. You’d like to streamline and enhance the way you track, review, and manage multiple accounts
5. You’re interested in becoming a CallRail partner and earning new revenue by moving clients to their own account

If any of these statements ring true, then you can make your life easier and your agency more lucrative by switching to Account Center.

Looking to get started with CallRail for your clients? Start a free trial today.

If you're already a CallRail agency, log in to start a new Account Center account for a new client.