Outbound telemarketing is one of the traditional ways of running a sales campaign. This age-old method has been proven to be the most successful method for growing a business. Outbound processes have evolved over the years and are much more refined, thanks to new-age solutions. From engaging a customer to offering detailed personalization, outbound telemarketing is still a reliable marketing format.
These days we have every kind of tools to target the appropriate customer-pool to sell the service or product they need. Proper customer segmentation also enhances the process and gives us insight into customer behavior. But above all, an agent’s oratory skills play the role of catalyst. Keeping all these integrated pointers in mind, we have compiled the top ten essential tips which will lead to successful outbound telemarketing.
1. Agent Behaviour:
The first line of approach for outbound telemarketing is the agent or advisor itself. The agent must be very well-versed with the product, ensuring there are no fog-horns. Agents should initiate the call with an assertive tone, where they introduce the organization and themselves. The agent must always address the customer with their first name to offer an individualized experience.
Furthermore, the agent must be quick-witted to respond to every kind of situation. For example, if the customer is in a hurry or busy with some personal affair, the agent must show empathy and reschedule the call. The agent should be made familiar with these practices during the onboarding procedure.
2. Prospect Information:
Information is key to every successful business. Prospect information is vital for agents to perform better. Agents need to know more than just the name of the person they are contacting. The prospect’s age, gender, demography, and information from the previous contact, if any, help eases the communication. Having additional insight like a prospect’s place of work and income bracket helps make the right offer. These details aid in industry-specific discipline, where they are applicable.
A proper CRM system will bring all these data right to the agent’s fingertips, helping them personalize the conversation as they proceed.
3. Predictive Dialer:
Old school dialers usually use a pre-determined algorithm that often does not meet every organization’s requirements. Compared to this primitive technology, modern predictive dialers consider certain vital factors, for example:
i. Lead Quality
ii. Average Handling Time
iii. Gateway Connectivity Pattern
iv. Call Abandon Percentage.
Based on these factors, the dialer will keep adapting to the ever-evolving shifts and make the calls accordingly. CZ Dialer can be integrated with any existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Lead Management System (LMS) to import existing customer data to streamline the process. The dialer is smart enough to detect busy tones, answering machines, and human responses individually. All in all, it’s time and labor efficient and a one-way ticket to kick-start your outbound telemarketing campaign.
4. Call Rescheduler:
Another great time and labor efficient approach is using a call rescheduler. Often customers/prospects are caught at the wrong time. Most calls usually get rescheduled. The agents need to follow up on these scheduled calls and pick up the conversation. However, the process is tedious and repels the prospects too. Thus, auto-call reschedulers are the way to go. They automatically reschedule the call and send calendar notifications to the prospect’s email. These reminders can be edited to be in any format.
5. Engage Your Customer:
What use is data if you cannot use it to your fruition. Engaging your customer is the priority. Unscripted calls go a long way when the agent takes charge of the flow of the conversation.
Customers these days are often repelled by sales calls. Thus, it is imperative to make a dynamic first impression. Optimising data to pin-point customer’s probable needs and then engaging them from here onwards is the critical move. The agenda here is to add value to the conversation to intrigue the customer.
6. Cloud Calling:
Remote working solutions have always existed in the infrastructure, but they are currently revolutionizing the industry. Agents can seamlessly conduct inbound and outbound calls using their smartphones and at the convenience of their home. Cloud-based contact centers offers tremendous flexibility as tele-calling can become very stressful and working from home can liberate it. You can easily integrate with existing CRMs. The best part about it, it is cost-effective and can be easily switched to an on-premise solution, if you opt for C-Zentrix Remote Agent solution.
7. Omnichannel Marketing:
While traditional telemarketing only depended on phone based outbound calling, omnichannel marketing is making it far more engaging and rounded. When the agent makes out an outbound call, incase the call is not connected, the agent can send a text message. On response to the outbound message, the agent can call back or reschedule the call. With its integration to social media, Whatsapp or other messaging platform, Omnichannel makes the sales process far more inclusive and just don’t miss out an opportunity because of the failure in call connection. The entire outbound telemarketing process is getting redefined with the inclusion of an omnichannel approach.
8. Targeted Skill Training:
The telemarketing team requires regular training on areas that have been deemed necessary in which to improve agent skills, and this can be found using methods like data analysis, reviews and team meetings. Meetings can further help in discussing the various issues faced by agents on the job, like closing a sale, queries posed by customer, objections and refusals etc. They can then be coached to help improve skills in that area. Furthermore, targeted training could be provided about the company’s specializations, products, offers, business traditions or other updates. A weekly mock call session can also be held to enhance agent abilities.
9. Incentivized Work Environment:
Human beings in general respond exceptionally well to incentives and a great way to keep the work environment laden with incentives both, individually and collectively. The nature of this job is tedious and complementary incentives such as employee or team of the month, or similar tools can be utilized to keep the workforce motivated. Telemarketing requires direct human-to-human communication over call, thus it is imperative that agents stay and sound happy – this will directly influence their calls. A happier agent can influence a customer and close a sale, thus, workplace morale is extremely important.
10. Scripts As A Tool:
Telemarketing as a job requires focused mental labour and can often affect an agent in undesirable ways. To reduce some mental load as well as anxiety during a call, invoking the help of scripts can ease the pressure of the agent. Scripts can help to organize, retain and maintain information and ensure consistency over the call. However, they do not need to be completely preplanned out and should be left important to improvisation except a few important pointers. Thus, not only will a good script provide flexibility and information, but also do it at the right time.
Conclusion:
Outbound telemarketing is one of the most important campaign in the toolkit of businesses and entrepreneurs in today’s globe. With the advent of AI based technology, very repetitive and mundane tasks are handed over to machine. In the context of telemarketing, the screening call can be handed by voicebot and as the lead qualifies (detected by bot) it can seamlessly hand it over to live agent. This way the art of selling is still managed by the live agent and the machine takes away the stressful and repetitive job of calling and hearing a refusal. However, the tips for successful outbound tele-marketing holds good as the human to human discussion cannot be left to machines.
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