Outbound Telemarketing Buyer's Guide

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Introduction:

Would you like to grow your business with sales and lead generating calls but don’t have the resources to do it effectively? Or, like many businesses, maybe you have put off cleaning and updating your customer database because you don’t know where to start. Perhaps you need to conduct a survey on the population but don’t know how to obtain objective results. If so, then you should consider hiring an outbound telemarketing service provider for your needs. They can bring their years of experience to your business, helping it grow the right way, for the right price. Follow me as I answer some of your telemarketing service questions and help you to make the best telemarketing service decision for your business.

What is an Outbound Call Center?

An outbound call center, also known as a telemarketing call center, is a company that specializes in making multiple sales, survey, or service calls on your behalf.

Typically, telemarketing companies make: direct sales calls, lead generation calls, appointment scheduling calls, information verifying calls, and research and survey calls.

Depending upon the contract between the telemarketing call center and your business, telemarketers can follow scripts or ad-lib when dealing with customers—in short, their response to your potential customers is completely customizable to your needs.

Why should I use an outbound telemarketing call center?

Most often (unless you are exempted from the Do Not Call legislation)outsourcing your telemarketing services needs is a much more effective business solution than opening your own in-house call center.  If you try to create an in-house call center you miss out on several of the key benefits of outbound telemarketing service providers discussed in the next section (such as expertise, timeliness, cost efficacy and flexibility) in addition to having the extra disruption and hassle of a new business venture.

How will an outbound call center benefit my business?

There are several immediate and long term benefits to hiring the right outbound call center.  They include:

Timeliness.  Outbound call centers are able to start working for your business overnight—without the time and hassle it would take for you to equip your own telemarketing center.  Once a service agreement is reached, you can get out of the way and let the telemarketers do their thing!

Expertise.  Due to their experience, telemarketers are able to anticipate and cope with business developments an inexperienced, in-house call center might find challenging. 

And, they are able to deal with these inconveniences cost-effectively and successfully. Telemarketing agents have been trained both in the “classroom” and in the field to anticipate and diffuse a number of problematic situations (irate customers, unanticipated call volume spikes, linguistic and time differences, etc.). Remember, when you pay for an outbound call center you are not only paying for convenience, but for expertise as well. 

Flexibility.  Whether you need a multilingual call center for the foreseeable future, a consolidated staff for a few months of survey or anything in between, outbound call centers are capable of being a great solution.  Because they have large, well-trained staff at their disposal, telemarketing call centers are able to serve a variety of needs for a variable amount of time and money. 

Cost.  Instead of buying telemarketing equipment, hiring and training telemarketing agents and reconfiguring the set-up of your current office to accommodate changes, you can pay an already operating outbound call center to accomplish the same thing—without the overhead cost of setting up an operation.  While not all telemarketing service providers are going to be cost effective, it is likely that you will find many that offer a less expensive alternative to setting up your own, in-house call center. 

Are Custom Options Available?

In addition to the services I talked about earlier, outbound call centers often offer a bevy of additional services that include:

 

Sales/Service Script Development. Depending on your needs, many telemarketing firms may help you develop sales and service scripts for the telephone sales representatives (TSRs) to use while making calls for your business. It is imperative that you and your outbound call center agree on the level of involvement you will have with their sales and service process. Script development is a great way to stay involved with the sales process while allowing the outbound telemarketing center to utilize their expertise.

 

Results Reporting. In order to gauge the efficacy of your telemarketing you will need to have quantifiable reports delivered to your office at regular intervals. Before deciding on a provider, discuss the kind of statistics they are prepared to provide you with and how often they will provide them to you. Some common statistics to look for in a report include:

-total sales and revenue over time

-sales and revenue per list

-sales and revenue per representative

-call duration

-handling time

-calls per time

-revenue

 

Monitoring Solutions. In order for you to get a true sense of how your potential customers are being handled on the phone, many telemarketing service providers offer you the ability to listen in on actual calls. Depending on the company, and depending on your contract, you can do this several ways; you may have the power to listen in at any time without informing the telephone sales representative, you may have to go through the outbound call center manager, or you may only be able to listen to recordings. If the ability to directly monitor your telephone sales representatives is important to you, make sure to discuss it with your service provider before making any decisions.

How do I Choose a Provider?

A great way to get acquainted with potential telemarketing service providers is to meet with them (face-to-face, if possible, although a phone meeting is also telling) and discuss potential service. Ask to speak with a TSR or two, and get their employee records to see how long most TSRs stay at the company. As discussed earlier, the longer they retain representatives, the more hospitable the working environment is and the better your service from them is likely to be.

If you are unable to visit the call center in person, ask to be patched in to a few sales calls so you can get a feel for the way their representatives talk to potential customers. Although you can develop your own sales script, it is important to note things like the tone of voice and the enthusiasm of the TSRs, because even a perfectly written script cannot control those aspects of telemarketing.

It is also smart business to request a few references, especially if the references are for companies that are similar to your own. By speaking to former or current customers of the telemarketing services provider, you will be able to get a feel for how effective, ethical and accommodating they are.

How do I get the Best Price?

The best way to get the best price on telemarketing services is to shop around and let telemarketing services providers compete for your business.  While, ordinarily, this can involve a lot of time spent on frustrating research, 360Telemarketing makes it easy to get quotes from multiple reliable vendors.  All you do is fill out a single form discussing your telemarketing services needs and up to five telemarketing service providers will contact you with their bids…for FREE!  So, click here to get started on finding the perfect telemarketing services provider.