Read our extended resource to learn more about telemarketing and how it’s used by call centers. If you’re writing about telemarketing on your own website, please copy the code below to use this infographic:

[html]
<img title=”Learn About Telemarketing Infographic” alt=”Learn About Telemarketing Infographic” src=”https://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/wp-content/uploads/learn-about-telemarketing-infographic.jpg” width=”836″ height=”7101″ />
<pre><em>Image originally posted on <a href=”https://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/learn-telemarketing-infographic/”>The SAS Blog</a></em>
[/html]

Outbound contact centers are mainly used for 3 types of applications:

1. Customer service
2. Telemarketing (sales)
3. Collections

Within the telemarketing umbrella there are different types of outbound calls:

• Cold calls for telesales
• Proactive notification of deals and offers
• Market research activities
• Fundraising efforts
• Lead follow-up based on customer interest

Contact centers can be classified in various ways:

• Offshore: Usually located in a different state – primarily Asia
• Nearshore: Located in countries close to the United States such as Mexico and Brazil
• Onshore: Usually located in America, employing native English speakers. Onshore is best for telemarketing

Brick and Mortar vs. At Home

Using at home agents is a major trend in telemarketing, but it has it’s risks:

• Agent development, training and quality may be significantly affected
• Untrained agents may directly affect telemarketing sales productivity

Outbound vs. Inbound vs. Mixed

It is best to have dedicated agents handle outbound telemarketing initiatives.

• A dedicated telemarketing agent should have the ability to convince a potential buyer about the benefits of a product or service, and also be able to close a sale
• An inbound agent only needs to follow a defined process to handle callers’ service requests
• The skill set required for telemarketing is very different from an inbound agent

Telemarketing Business Practices

List Management: Maintaining the list of prospects is a key step in the telemarketing process.

• Acquire a generic list of phone numbers
• Make qualifying calls to eliminate fax numbers, disconnected numbers and uninterested parties
• Scrub list periodically to update the database based on call output and other information

Telemarketing Applications: Telemarketing may be used for various business needs such as:

• Mailer follow-up
• Surveys
• Account activation and renewals
• Cross-sales and upsales

Telemarketing Challenges: List quality is an important parameter for telemarketing success.

• Often the list provided by the company many be substandard and the telemarketing center takes the blame for the program’s failure
• To run a successful campaign, a telemarketing center needs to focus on identifying the most desirable accounts, evaluating and improving conversion rates, and prioritizing which accounts to target first

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Since telemarketing is a form of sales, it is essential to monitor and measure metrics on a periodic basis. Some metrics to measure include:

• Call Metrics: deal with the effectiveness of the dialer technology as well as the list that is being used
• Outbound Time Metrics: The time involved in various activities
• Talk Time: the amount of time spent by the agent actually talking to the prospect
• Update Time: The time taken by the agent to update call outcome details in the system
• Total Handling Time: The sum of the talk time and the update time
• Agent Idle Time: The time between calls when the agent is idle
• Sales per Hour
• Conversion Rate
• Average Sale Amount per Call
• Total Sales Revenue
• Total Products Sold

Best Practices in Telemarketing

• Increase the number of calls: Assuming the conversion rate to be a constant, the higher the number of calls an agent can make, the better the sales metrics will be
• Remove non-value adding activities: Minimize non-value adding activities performed by an agent such as dial time, hold time, update time, etc.
• Personalize and customize the service offering: Use data analytics of the prospect’s previous history with the company to customize the service offering and increase sales
• Invest in coaching and training: Monitor how agents conduct themselves during a call

Choosing a Telemarketing Partner

Factors to consider when hiring a telemarketing call center:

• How well does the contact center train them?
• What is the agent attrition rate?
• What is the quality of the agents?

Data Handling:

• Partner with a telemarketing company that can handle data accurately and securely
• Verify whether company complies with regulations such as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards)
• The contact center should also have strong disaster recovery and business continuity plans

Quality Assurance:

• Sales Verification: Every sale is verified by an independent quality assurance employee before the customer is billed
• Shadow Monitoring: Silent monitoring or shadow monitoring capabilities that allow clients to listen to the calls being made at any time
• Hosted Monitoring: Every call is listened to live by a client representative

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Daily Reports: Offer a snapshot of the previous day’s calling efforts
• Monthly Reports: Cover key metrics and call results for an entire month
• End of Term Reports: Capture the end results of the program

Conclusion

Telemarketing has evolved considerably in the past decade, but the fundamentals remain the same. With telemarketing, the contact center is a direct partner for the business and not just a vendor. As a result, the contact center will have to show the same commitment to the telemarketing program, monitoring and measuring it to ensure a successful campaign.

The post Learn About Telemarketing Infographic. appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

In the call center industry, both live-operator and automated solicitation calls use autodialer technology – telecom software that enables a telephone system to call out to hundreds of numbers consecutively. The benefit to the answering service is instant, as the service can maximize marketing efforts while minimizing the time it takes to dial number after number. While this level of efficiency is great for answering services, it’s not so great for business owners who are receiving solicitations on the regular.

If you’re using an answering service, you don’t want to pay for usage not directly tied to your business. However, since all calls that an answering service fields are billable, you’re inevitably going to pay for some sort of inbound telemarketing. With a per-minute plan, this may not affect your bottom line that much, as most per-minute rates bill by the second. But for per-call clients, the tally can quickly rack up, eating into your plan allowance.

While no business can stop solicitation calls entirely, we’ve put together some information below that should help you limit those inbound hits, and simultaneously reduce the cost of your answering service.

As a consumer, am I protected against robocalls?

Absolutely. Unless you’re RoboCop, and your mother board is giving you a shout out, companies can’t just dial up consumers whenever they want. In fact, according to the Federal Communications Commission, robocalls and telesales are their number one source of complaints. That’s why Congress approved the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 1991. In a nutshell, without prior consent to call or text your home or cell phone, autodialers and automated telemarketing are against FCC regulations. Registering your numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry is the first step to stopping the madness. Bear in mind, though, that there are a few exceptions to the FCC’s rules, e.g., emergency alerts, political polls, charities, and debt collectors.

What about small businesses whose personal phone is also their business phone?

If you’re a business owner, even if your personal landline or cell phone is being used for work, then the aforementioned regulations apply. In other words, it is still within your rights as a consumer to list those numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The tricky part comes when businesses are trying to stop solicitation calls from other businesses. Unfortunately, there is no provision for Business to Business calls under FCC regulations.

B2B calls, when business A is trying to solicit sales from business B, are perfectly acceptable. If you’ve outsourced customer support to an answering service, solicitation calls can quickly jack up your monthly usage. Operators are trained to hang up on robocalls. But hanging up on a live caller? That would be pretty darn unprofessional, not to mention that some solicitors are adept at keeping an operator on the line until they get the information they want.

As a business owner, what recourse do I have?

There are a few things that you can do to reduce or eliminate solicitation calls altogether.

The basics…

1. If you can identify which numbers are from solicitors, ask your phone provider to block them from ever getting through to your line. Taking matters into your own hands, you can likely block callers yourself, directly from your phone or online account. It may also be possible to prohibit calls from “private” numbers or toll free numbers.
2. If you haven’t already done so, add your phone numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry. Remember, even if your home or cell phone doubles as your business line, you are still entitled to the same protection that consumers are afforded. After your numbers have been on the registry for 31 days, if you’re still receiving robocalls, you can file complaints against any businesses that simply won’t leave you alone.
3. For robocalls hitting the answering service, consider the effective software solution of including an upfront IVR that instructs callers to press 1 to reach an operator. As clever as autodialers might be, they can’t press buttons. IVR isn’t free, but the fee is generally minimal, and the benefits will far outweigh any out-of-pocket cost.

Use scripting to your advantage…

1. Include a path in your call script specifically for inbound B2B solicitation. Once the operator realizes what the call is about, they can read a standard closing response such as, “We do not accept solicitation calls. Please remove this number from your list. Thank you.”
2. Add a screening question to the operators’ greeting such as, “Are you a current client?” or, “Is this an emergency?” This should filter out the calls you want from the calls you don’t.

Talk with your answering service about what suggestions they have, or ask them to implement the ideas that we’ve outlined. While no solution is foolproof, these points will go a long way towards helping you beat the bots and bolster your small business’ bottom line.

The post What to Do When Telemarketing Calls Are Jacking Up Your Answering Service Bill appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

1. It unburdens your in-house staff, and it’s more cost-effective. Not only does outsourced outbound telemarketing lighten your employees’ load, but contact center agents will likely reach double the number of people that your team can in the same amount of time, because they have a singular focus. The math is obvious. The more people you call, the greater the chance for a sale.
2. There’s a greater chance for sale conversion. Many online retailers these days will link their websites to their call centers, so that all the consumer has to do is click a button, enter their call-back details, and they will receive a call from a customer service representative just itching to help them make a purchase.
3. It keeps customers on your radar. Or vice versa. Consider car dealerships. After you go in for a test drive, sales personnel will make outbound calls to entice you to purchase or lease from their lots. They may even sweeten the deal by offering you a lower price than they initially quoted, throw in some upgrades, or complementary service plans – and it works.
4. Some retailers use outbound telemarketing as a customer retention strategy. How many times have you received those “how did we do” calls, asking you to provide feedback on a recent customer service transaction? Showing buyers that you are not only interested in their opinion, but continuously striving to improve upon their shopping experience, is a great way to ensure customer loyalty. And statistics have shown that it costs less to keep a current customer than it does to try to capture a new one.
5. Thank you. Those two words have a tremendous impact on your company’s reputation. When you make it a point to thank your customers for their patronage, you lay the ground work for future purchases. Not only that, but it gives you an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell. For example, you might thank a customer for their recent laptop purchase, then ask them if they would like to purchase an extended warranty or anti-virus protection. Think revenue.
6. It’s a fabulous follow-up to mailers or email marketing. Take stock of your mailbox or email inbox. How many ads or messages are there from businesses you frequent alerting you to their most recent promotions? Then, think about how many of those ads you toss, and how many of those emails you delete. Outbound calls from retailers asking if you are aware of their special offers or sales are a smart way of getting you to buy in.

The post 6 benefits of outsourced outbound telemarketing. appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

The Auto Dialer works in one of two ways. It can play pre-recorded messages that the recipient will hear upon pickup, or it can connect a live operator to the call once a respondent has answered. Sometimes, it’s even combined with IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for survey calls or more personalized interaction with the consumer.

Check out the infographic below for a quick overview (including information on installation requirements, types of autodialing, and a service provider assessment). If you want even more information on the technical side of the technology, check out our Auto Dialer research paper.

Copy the code below to use this infographic:

[html]
<img title=”Auto Dialer Technology Infographic” alt=”Auto Dialer Technology Infographic” src=”https://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/wp-content/uploads/infographic-demystifying-auto-dialer-technology/autodialer-comparison-infographic.jpg” width=”710″ />
<pre><em>Image originally posted on <a href=”https://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/infographic-demystifying-auto-dialer-technology”>The SAS Blog</a></em>
[/html]

The post Infographic demystifying auto-dialer technology. appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.