Call tracking is a vital tool for your business. It allows you to understand your clients and your business better. Call tracking will give you insights into your marketing efforts, telling you what works so you can focus your advertising efforts there. When you add call recording, you can get a more detailed picture of your customer intake process and identify factors that turn prospects into customers—or turn them away.
CallRail offers a wide range of call tracking services in Canada, so your business can start collecting all the data it needs to understand and refine its marketing.
But when you start to consider this business tool, you might wonder: is it legal for my business to track and record phone calls in Canada?
What is Call Tracking?
Call tracking tells you how many calls your business receives and identifies where these calls come from, and why people are calling.
The simplest call tracking technique is to have customers self-identify why they’re calling or have the people who are answering phones ask clients why they’re calling. If you’re using this system, you’re probably painfully aware of its limitations. Customers often forget to self-identify, even if you have an incentive attached. Your people can forget to ask, and asking customers for information can disrupt the sales process.
More sophisticated call tracking is computerized and gathers data automatically. Different phone numbers can be associated with online and traditional media campaigns, allowing the software to track who is responding to what ads, often including the location of the caller. The best call tracking systems can assign different numbers to specific keyword searches and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns so that you know specifically what words bring in customers.
The most sophisticated call tracking can link calls up with website activity. You can see what pages a caller visited, how long they spent on each page, and even what page they’re on now and how they continue to browse the site over the course of a call.
Call tracking can be linked to call recording, which will give your business an even more detailed picture of how your campaigns are working. You will hear know exactly what motivates them to call and hear how your people are handling calls.
But does tracking and recording calls this way violate privacy laws in Canada?
Is it Legal to Record Phone Calls in Canada?
While it’s always best to consult with a legal team to ensure your use of CallRail’s call recording is in compliance with laws in your area, as long as your business follows specific guidelines, it is legal to record phone calls in Canada.
In Canada, call recording by businesses falls under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). In order to comply with PIPEDA, your business must:
- Inform callers that the call may be recorded
- Make a reasonable effort to tell callers why the calls are being recorded
- Clearly define the purposes for recording calls
- Have reasonable purposes for recording calls
- Only record calls where consent is given (implicit consent is allowed)
- Safeguard data that is collected
Informing callers that a call may be recorded and for what purposes can be done using an automated message. If a caller stays on the line, their consent is implicit, if your business gives them reasonable alternatives to calling. Such alternatives include email correspondence, visiting a website, writing a letter, or visiting your business in person. You can also offer to not record calls where the caller objects.
Canada allows a few exemptions to notification and consent guidelines for special situations like debt collection and fraud investigations.
Call Tracking Services We Offer in Canada
CallRail offers all its call tracking services to clients in Canada. This includes:
- Local and toll-free phone numbers
- Instant phone number setup
- Tracking of your current numbers—no need to start over
- Visitor-level tracking
- Website tracking—see how customers are using your site before, during, and after the call
- Call analytics dashboard—see all your call data in a customized display
- Whisper messages—your salespeople can know the caller before answering
- Email notifications of call data
With CallRail, you get a complete package of call tracking services in Canada. This will help you completely understand your customers so you can target them more precisely.
Why Choose CallRail for Your Call Tracking
CallRail’s call tracking services in Canada stand out from the crowd and let you get a fully integrated picture of your call data. You don’t have to get a toll-free number or even change your number. You can keep using your current numbers or get local numbers in Canada that are ready right away.
You will get the call data integrated with caller ID information for starters. This will then be integrated with data from the website that will show you the browsing history of the user, including what kind of device they’re using to browse, and where they’re doing it, if possible.
This information will be given to you the way you want it. You can set up a custom dashboard so the data you want is front and center. Or you can get email alerts for the data you want to act on immediately.
CallRail data can also integrate fully with the data systems your business is already using. You won’t have to learn a new system, you’ll just get more call tracking data added to your WordPress, Google Analytics, Google Ads (formerly AdWords), Salesforce, or KISSmetrics dashboard.
If you are looking for comprehensive call tracking in Canada that gives you the data you need in an actionable format, CallRail is right for you. Learn more about our call tracking here.
