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The following five reasons could be why your telemarketing foray did not produce the fruits you were looking for:

1. You had the wrong person (or company) in the role

It is important to separate the role of cold caller from the person, or company, doing the job. The role itself is incredibly important, but it could be you had the wrong person in that role, or you outsourced it to the wrong company. Many MSPs I have spoken with admit it is challenging to find the right person, and have cycled through their fair share of recruits trying to fill the role. But, because they value the outcomes telemarketing plays in helping to drive leads into their sales funnel, they persevere, and never consider abandoning the role. Rather, they continue their search for the next candidate, or outsourced telemarketing firm, if the incumbent isn’t cutting it.

2. You didn’t provide them with any sort of sales mentorship or training program

What sort of training program did you provide when they first came onboard? Did you review your ideal target profile? Your company’s vision, mission, and value prop statements? Did you show them how to properly prepare for their calls? Did you provide call scripts or training around how to handle objections? Did you role-play in mock-call sessions to help them practice their techniques and build confidence? Did you teach them how to sleuth and research to find their own leads? Did you provide any sort of sales mentorship to help guide and show them the ropes, working to help make them feel part of the team?

3. You didn’t make regular check-ins a priority

As with any role, regular one-on-ones are vital. How is anyone supposed to develop in their role if they don’t receive ongoing feedback, training, and support? Scheduling weekly one-on-ones is key if you want your telemarketing employee to flourish. These meetings are critical to review questions or challenges your cold caller may be having, and to provide feedback, advice, and additional training on how to improve. They shouldn’t be pushed aside and treated as something you’ll get around to at some point. Rather, they should be treated as a high priority, no matter how busy you may be.

4. You hired them to cold call, but have them doing everything

Take an honest look at the tasks and activities you had your telemarketer doing. Were they given ample time to research and complete their calls? Or were other tasks dumped on them because no one else had time to complete them?

5. You didn’t compensate them correctly

I have seen many types of compensation plans implemented by various MSPs, so I know this point could be controversial. But if you fell into the camp of offering a commission-only pay structure, that might be where your issue lies. Offering a commission-only pay scheme can be demotivating and unfair to the person doing the job, especially because you are putting 100% of the sales process—from prospecting to closing—on their inexperienced shoulders. If they don’t get the appointment booked at the outset, no lead can be given to the sales exec, meaning no new contract is being signed. So when building your compensation plan for your telemarketing role, you want to structure it in a way where they are motivated to do the job well, which works to help maximize productivity and efficiency in your organization.

So if you have previously tried incorporating the telemarketing motion into your MSP and didn’t get the returns you were hoping for, do one better than poor ol’ Wylie Coyote and take some time for internal reflection. Try and see where you can make improvements in your process and consider giving it another go.

For big businesses, the unknown is something to be taken seriously. Although a leap of faith in business deals and investments can be good every once in a while, it does create risks that can ruin a business’ potentials when it occurs. To avoid that, a wise entrepreneur would exert all effort to reduce the unknown and retrieve information critical to a company’s survival. And what better way to go about this task than going for telemarketing? It’s one of the most powerful tools that a marketing campaign can ever use. It can deliver excellent marketing leads that can be converted to a sale or a closed deal for a client firm.

Telemarketing, as a tool for business, unexpectedly excels in solving this type of concern. It’s unexpected, in terms of it being a very old marketing technique and the question of it still being applicable for the modern times. But that shouldn’t be the case. In terms of effectiveness, professional telemarketing services have been the best in the field. Telemarketers are known to deliver results in such a way that companies would not help but appreciate its efficiency. There are also no doubts about its power to turn the tide for a struggling business enterprise. How many cases have been cited where a company was able to maximize their business potentials with the help of marketing leads produced by telemarketers?

Marketing leads are a necessity for the growth of any business. No matter what industry they belong to, there is always a need to use marketing strategies to improve market share, as well as better the chances of entering a new market. All these can be done if the right kind of marketing leads are used by the firm. To ensure quality, it really pays to hire professional telemarketing firms that provide lead generation services. They have the knowledge, the experience, and the skill in judging whether a prospect will be profitable or not for their client. Lead generation is a task that only professional telemarketers can do.

Since there is business to business lead generation, it only stands to mention appointment setting services. What good are marketing leads, no matter how qualified these are, if no sale or closed deal would take place? This requires the skills of telemarketers with experience in appointment setting. This is the next stage in the marketing process, perhaps the most important. It’s because being able to make the sales pitch depends entirely on the willingness of a prospect to meet or listen to the firm. If the prospect says no, then it’s considered a lost opportunity. Appointment setting services of professional telemarketing firms ensure that firms get the most number of qualified appointments for their clients.

How one company can survive the business environment depends entirely on his ability to make a profit. No matter what industry they belong toFeature Articles, being able to reach prospects is best done with the help of professional telemarketing firms. It’s a sure-fire way to success and an investment worth making.

There are many companies who successfully manage their telemarketing campaigns in-house and, on the surface, this might appear a very cost effective option that uses spare capacity. You could be forgiven for thinking that anyone who can communicate over the phone is capable of being a telemarketer. And surely, someone from within your organisation should be better able to represent you than someone from an outside organisation ……right? As with most things, it isn’t quite that simple…

1. Specialist Skills

The ability to hold a conversation on the phone does not make for a qualified, competent telemarketer or telesales professional. It takes a particular set of skills and natural aptitude to sustain high volume calling at the standard required to produce good quality outcomes, particularly in the B2B lead generation environment. An agency will take great pains to recruit the right individuals, putting a pool of callers at the disposal of the client, to be assigned according to the needs of each campaign – including multilingual agents for overseas campaigns.

Some skills can be taught but others are inherent to an individual’s personality, including self-confidence and the tenacity to stay focused and maintain performance, despite repeated rejection. There is nothing easy or attractive about cold calling and even hardened salespeople shy away from it, especially those accustomed to warm, sales qualified leads. The strong persuasive skills required for demand generation, are very different attributes to those needed for a research task or survey, and agencies recruit and match skills accordingly.

Here at The Telemarketing Company, our agents undergo industry standard training – Institute of Sales Management for our persuasive team and Market Research Society/Interviewer Quality Control Scheme for our CATI market researchers) – to equip them with baseline skills – solution selling, rapport building, listening skills – in line with their specialism’s. This is then supplemented by campaign specific training on the client’s brand and proposition, the competitive landscape, product benefits, and customer pain points.

This level of training puts tools at the disposal of agency staff that are not available to the average individual in a typical office environment.

2. Proactive Account Management

Whilst telemarketing can be a catch all phrase, it encompasses many different activity types including lead generation, appointment setting, transactional telesales, inbound call handling and, in some cases, pre and post sales telephone research. An experienced account manager with broad and deep knowledge of these areas will apply best practice from previous campaigns, whilst working to understand what needs to be done differently, as no two campaigns are the same.

They will:

• Assign agents with the right skills and experience for your campaign profile.
• Work on a detailed brief capturing your proposition, USPs, key messages and desired outcomes using a framework such as BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) to understand the key criteria that define value for you.
• Implement an early stage campaign review capturing client and agent feedback so that barriers and pain points not covered by the brief are addressed from the start.
• Listen to call recordings to understand which agents and approaches are most effective so that best practice is shared across the team.
• Identify pockets of data and sectors that are getting more traction than others, so that resource can be targeted where it brings most return.
• Establish an ongoing feedback loop using reporting tools, regular reviews and regular communication with agents and client to optimise campaign performance.
• The level of expert account management ensures that each campaign has the best chance of delivering strong ROI.

3. Structured, Systematic Approach

An account manager within an agency also has the benefit of detailed insight into campaign performance provided by a bespoke calling platform:

Productivity
The calling platform increases the fluidity of the calls and allows agents to track pipeline, capture notes and feedback. Productivity levels in this environment are naturally higher (15-20 calls out per hour) than in-house where the individual may be grappling with a standard CRM, or potentially calling from and manually updating a list in excel.

Reporting and Metrics
This type of platform also provides a wealth of reporting and metrics giving the account manager increased visibility, enabling them to optimise campaign performance at both the agent and campaign level.

Data Management
The platform, and the reporting it supports, facilitates data management –a natural cornerstone of any successful calling campaign. It will highlight where data quality is poor and which pots of data are feeding the pipeline and results. Rather than burning through data for quick wins, agents can nurture the pipeline, schedule call backs, send literature to follow up and develop opportunities for both the short and long term.

Call Recordings
Call recordings add a further layer of visibility and transparency, providing the perfect tool to monitor ongoing performance, giving clients clear insight into how their proposition is presented and received, enabling them to provide feedback to optimise results.

These increased layers of visibility and the consistent, structured approach coupled with bespoke platforms and systems provide a much better foundation for success than a typical office infrastructure.

4. Resource Management

Agency callers are in a results-driven, competitive setting, where everyone is 100% focused on the same, or similar tasks. It is harder to focus when juggling a mix of reactive and proactive tasks, and easier to be distracted in a less controlled environment. Individuals making calls in an office environment where no one else is calling, may also feel self-conscious, especially if they lack training.

Finances permitting, it is possible to recreate a call centre environment in-house, taking the same approach in terms of staff recruitment, training and ongoing coaching, as well as IT infrastructure. Yet, even with the required investment, it may still be difficult to match the capability and flexibility of an outsourced resource.

A larger pool of agents shared across multiple campaigns allows the agency to move callers around to ramp a campaign up or down as required to maintain a consistent flow of leads, or respond to peaks and troughs when managing inbound leads.
If you are looking to expand overseas, an agency can not only provide multilingual agents but can support out of hours calling, which is part and parcel of the environment but may be less acceptable in a normal office set up.
Agency resource can also be applied at very specific times of day according to the target sector profile. Calling into schools, for example, is often more successful later in the afternoon, as you have a better chance of reaching decision makers. An in-house team may not be as flexible with their time or their ability to target calls.
A large team of trained, seasoned callers provides a broader skill set and broader spread of experience to deal with different levels of decision maker, different functions, sectors and outcome types, as well as market stage. If traction is gained in a particular segment, agency resource can be shifted easily to where it will bring the best return, without a significant training overhead.
Aside from the flexibility of resource, an in-house team requires significant management time, not just to ensure campaigns run effectively but also to deal with personnel issues – holiday, sickness, turnover, as well as training and development. With an outsourced solution, the agency will manage all these aspects, without any impact on in-house management time and resource.

5. Brand Reputation

A structured framework, which supports a consistent approach, allows you to control how your brand is presented. A thorough brief, close supervision and ongoing monitoring through call recordings and detailed reports, ensures the message conveyed reflects your brand values and guarantees correct positioning of your propositions.

An in-house employee may already be familiar with your brand and could be perceived as being in a better position to answer technical or probing questions about products or services, but an agency with a strong brief can be very effective in presenting a client’s proposition. Agents are given very specific training on the propositions they present, with a clear process for escalating questions, or scheduling follow ups with sales or in-house teams where required. They typically follow a solution selling approach, asking open questions and capturing feedback and insight, but with a clear understanding of the extent of their remit.

A managed, measured approach based on a solid, thorough brief with a consistent message, continually monitored for quality and consistency will safeguard your brand reputation. A less structured and supervised environment and approach may be less effective.

6. Return on Investment

Whether handled in-house or through an agency, telemarketing can be one of the more expensive marketing channels. However, done well, it can produce a very strong ROI, particularly in the B2B sector where outcomes often have higher values.

In this respect, a controlled, measured approach is critical to secure the quality of output you need. Investing resource without a means to monitor the effort can be a false economy, producing an inconsistent flow of poor quality leads, which sap sales time and divert resource from real opportunities.

Once you have a sizeable team, ensuring they are fully utilised and minimising downtime is essential to ensure a return on that investment, but this can be a challenge as requirements fluctuate. An agency with a large pool of callers, managing multiple clients, can move resource around and re-deploy callers should requirements fluctuate at short notice.

Conclusion

Many businesses have, over time, built very successful in-house telemarketing teams producing a steady flow of high quality opportunities for their sales team, but this will have inevitably brought with it challenges and low points. What’s more, it is rarely the easiest or most cost effective option. Beyond the obvious financial investment, there are many important considerations including management overhead and time, hidden costs such as call charges, IT infrastructure, and of course higher personnel counts and costs.

Outsourcing may not make sense for every organisation but it certainly has advantages, high up on that list must be the productivity levels that can be achieved by dedicated agency teams, and tried and tested campaign management on purpose built technology platforms. And, if you are new to telemarketing or telesales – perhaps exploring a new approach or dealing with a short term requirement – an outsource option allows you to evaluate different models and approaches, in particular ‘build or buy’, to determine what’s right for you and your business.

Outsourcing key services can be seen as a risky move when it comes to large businesses. A large enterprise has a lot to lose including market share, established revenue streams and hard-won brand loyalty. Handing any aspect of the business to an external agency with the risk of comprising quality or service, is a tough choice.

So why outsource?

Ironically, as the size and success of a business grows, it is increasingly limited in its ability to try new approaches, evolve and adapt to fend off younger, challenger organisations nibbling away at its market share.

By outsourcing selected functions, an enterprise can have the best of both worlds, maintaining established revenue streams and approaches, whilst simultaneously testing and benchmarking new strategies through a flexible outsourced resource.

Let’s look at the benefits of outsourcing a telemarketing/sales function:

Agility

Recent events have shown us that the ability to adapt and pivot is critical for a business to survive and thrive.

Larger businesses are often less agile, with resources fully utilised or constrained by legacy systems and processes. This lack of flexibility can limit their capacity to test and refine strategies, react to market changes and stay competitive, particularly in fast-moving, technology sectors, or when faced by more nimble challenger firms. An outsourced agency, integrated with internal teams but with fewer constraints, can extend the agility of any large enterprise.

Compliance

Many large businesses are active in regulated sectors where they need to be 100% compliant to industry standards and codes of practice, which can often change with minimal notice. To avoid financial penalties and reputational damage, large firms must be able to react quickly and remain compliant with current regulations.

A telemarketing/sales agency with the right industry credentials can support those needs, for example communicating policy shifts to customers in a timely manner, handling inbound queries around a new procedure or by running a comprehensive TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) compliance programme.

Proof of concept

With multiple stakeholders involved, the decision-making process within a large enterprise can be complex and any significant change must be supported by a robust business case.

If internal resources are constrained, an outsource agency can deliver a solid proof of concept to make the case for a change of direction or major investment. Systematic testing of different approaches means an enterprise can test and optimise externally and then adopt the most proven approach in-house, safe in the knowledge that the decision is based on reliable data.

Insight

A feed of accurate and actionable insight is essential to inform any business strategy and to drive growth.

A specialist agency has configurable systems that provide full visibility and deep insight to feed strategy. An outsourced telesales team for example will apply a structured and systematic approach whereby agents track pipeline, capture conversation notes and Voice of Customer (VoC) feedback within a dedicated calling platform. They will also have frameworks that provide transparency and share insight such as real-time reporting, call recordings, and data management tools.

Scalability

If an opportunity presents itself, a larger, less agile enterprise may not be able to react quickly and ramp up resources to maximise returns. Recruiting and on boarding new staff with the right skills can be time consuming and labour intense.

Outsourcing to a specialist agency, allows a larger business to quickly extend their team and scale programmes as soon as opportunities are identified. Using an external agency also avoids commitment to long-term investment where needs are short-term, may fluctuate or in the early stages of a programme when it is more liable to fail.

Specialist skills

A lack of skills is a significant barrier to enterprises who need to evolve and grow their strategic capabilities. Finding and recruiting individuals with the right skills can be problematic, however, particularly in the current climate.

An outsourced solution can provide ready access to domain or industry-specific skills such as language skills or Inside Sales expertise that are often hard to find and retain. Having the right skills in place can also protect brand reputation, by maintaining standards, ensuring compliance and high quality sales and service.

Management bandwidth

A programme in its infancy tends to absorb greater management overhead than one that has reached steady state. Large strategic projects involving a sizeable resource often divert senior management away from the core priorities of the business, particularly during set up phase.

In these instances, an outsource partner can extend that bandwidth with experienced managers and proactively drive programmes whilst still providing full transparency to the in-house team through dedicated reporting, data and analytics.

Strategic partnership

These are just some of the benefits available through an outsource solution that can potentially deliver a strategic advantage to large enterprises.

A specialist outsource agency working as an enterprise partner, integrated with the in-house team, can add value with expertise and experience developed across multiple sectors, programmes and propositions. A trusted partner, they bring new ideas and fresh thinking, help test preconceptions and challenge assumptions and, with specialist skills, insight and agility, help large businesses overcome barriers to growth and maintain their competitive edge.

Call handling as a service has many definitions; the perceived value of this function varies dramatically and is often underrated.

Call handling is a far more skilled and diverse function than simply answering a phone and responding to basic customer queries. Expert Call Handling can fulfil multiple tasks from pre- and post-sales customer support, multilingual global response and product recalls, to inbound lead management and lead qualification. This broad scope and the alignment to emotional customer experiences gives this function arguably greater potential impact on the health and wealth of a brand than pure acquisition-based activity.

Call handling isn’t typically viewed as a revenue generating service in the same way as lead generation or appointment setting but is nonetheless intrinsically linked to the bottom line. Here’s how:

Brand reputation

If a customer or prospect reaches out to you at a time when they really need support and reassurance, how you respond dramatically impacts how they perceive your brand. Studies show that negative experiences stay with us longer and, in the age of social proof, an unhappy customer sharing their views on social media can seriously damage your reputation and future revenue.

Product acceptance and utilisation

If customers have problems or issues with your products or tools, they need to be able to rely on your support line. Particularly in the early stages of on boarding when there may be greater need for support and greater likelihood of churn, the quality of support will influence their acceptance, enjoyment and future usage of your product or service. This in turn will directly impact their levels of adoption, future upsell, and cross-sell opportunities, subscription renewals, loyalty and retention.

Marketing ROI

If customers interested in your proposition are calling but you aren’t picking up, you are leaving money on the table. Turning your back on customers who already have an appetite to buy whilst spending heavily on acquisition is throwing good money after bad. If you have invested in an expensive product launch or marketing programme that creates high demand, responses need to be fulfilled in a timely manner so that investment doesn’t go to waste.

Not only does lead backlog eat into your acquisition budget, qualifying and routing leads quickly and efficiently ensures a consistent flow of sales-ready leads to your team, improving conversion, driving revenue and ROI.

Compliance

If your call handling agents are well trained and supported with the right systems and processes, you are much better placed to meet client SLAs (Service Level Agreements). If agents fully understand policies, procedures and industry-specific legislation, your business will avoid fines for regulatory non-compliance and damage to brand reputation.

Customer experience

It isn’t as easy to measure as pure acquisition but there is strong evidence to link high levels of customer satisfaction with increased revenue, retention and profitability – simply put, why would an unhappy customer want to buy again or recommend your brand to others? Brands that understand the significant cost of a poor customer experience elevate their CX and differentiate their brand through high-quality, responsive call handling.

These are just some of the ways that a call handling service has potential to either enhance or detract not only from brand reputation, customer satisfaction and loyalty but significantly, the bottom line. If you are interested in solid growth and profitability, this function needs to be given the status it deserves and developed to realise its full potential.

If you don’t have the skills or capacity in-house to meet your call handling needs, outsourcing is a good solution. An outsourced option can manage unforeseen, short-term or fluctuating requirements to ensure SLAs are met. It can deal with lead backlogs if in-house resourcing is limited so marketing investment isn’t wasted and no opportunity is missed. And, it can help you remain compliant and protect your brand reputation in the case of a crisis or product recall.

Your business can be broken down into 4 segments or component parts.
Through extensive research and study of the most successful businesses worldwide, I have likewise determined that there are 4 common focal points found in a successful strategic plan for Business Growth and Profit-Building. These common focal points, or 4 major components, are interrelated and can be made to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

When you clearly identify them in your own business, and then strategically harness their power to function cohesively, the 4 major components can produce exponential business growth. And that kind of business growth leads to an increase in bottom-line profits!

So what are these 4 major components to a successful strategic plan for business growth and profit-building?

The 4 major components

Vision, Goals, & Mission.

When you consider your business’ Vision, Goals, & Mission, your chief aim is broken down into 2 parts. First, you must carefully analyze and clarify what direction your business is currently heading in right now. What is your Vision for your business? What are your personal goals and business objectives? And finally, what is your Mission for your business? Do you have these 3 clearly set out? You need to in order to start seeing real growth in your business.

Second, you must determine whether you need to change course to develop the business growth you want and the increase in profits you need. Having clarified your Vision, Goals, & Mission, you will then know in what direction you want to steer your business to generate the business growth and increased profits that you want.

As you work through and implement any business growth plans, keep referring back to major component 1, your Vision, Goals, & Mission.

major component 1 is the guiding direction for your business, just like a compass pointing to “True North”.

Business Operating Systems, Management, & Training.

I liken major component 2 to the engine that drives a car. When you consider major component 2 in your own business growth plans, you accomplish 4 things:

1. You undertake a review of your business’ engine; that is, your staff and contractors. How can they play a positive role in growing your business and increasing your profits?

2. You consider your hiring practices. How they can impact your successful business growth at the front end…, when you hire others to join you.

3. You evaluate and design your management and training processes to support the business growth that you are striving for. And,

4. Most importantly, you strategically develop the specific operating systems that your business must have in place to effectively and efficiently run your business; whether you, the business owner, are there on the job, or not.

Are you driving a sputtering jalopy or a precisely tuned race car? major component2 answers that question.

Once you’ve got major component 2, your business systems, running smoothly, it’s time to start filling up the tank.

Strategic Marketing, Lead Generation, & Lead Conversion systems.

When you consider major component 3 in your business growth plans, you must analyze your systems for servicing your current customers and clients, for identifying and obtaining more of your Ideal customers and clients, for marketing to your unique target market, and for converting more prospects to bring in more sales and increase your bottom-line profits.

Finally, a successful business growth and profit-building strategic plan must never leave out the all-important topic of money.

Financial Position, Cash Flow, & Reporting.

In major components 4, your primary focus is to review the systems that you have in place to know where you’re at financially, to handle your money, to control it, and to keep it coming in. What changes do you need to make in your financial operating systems to ramp up your business growth? Where is your money? How is it being spent? Do you have operating systems that you have designed and put in place to control expenses and costs? Is your money coming in consistently? What Cash Flow “production” strategies are unique to your business? Are there any other “production” strategies that you can implement immediately? Are there any other ways that your business can “manufacture” additional Cash Flow?

Well, there you have them.

Those are the 4 major components of a successful strategic plan to grow your business and increase your profits.

Businesses outsource their telemarketing needs to a professional company because the establishment and maintenance of an in-house telemarketing facility is in itself a challenge. The installation of the required telemarketing equipment and training of an effective telemarketing staff demands the expenditure of a considerable amount of resources. It might not be impossible for companies to make the entire arrangement themselves but it is indispensable for them to have a certain level of maturity and preparedness to face the challenge of training an entirely new team.

While chalking out the blueprint and implementing the process, businesses should consider the following factors to ensure a successful telemarketing operation within the company:

1. Proficiency in conversation: The telemarketing callers being hired and trained should attain a high level of proficiency in the way they conduct telephone calls with clients. They should speak with clarity and correctness in language and should be well aware of the comments appropriate for business calls. Proper care should be taken to inculcate refinement in their speech that befits any business call. Such professionalism in speech and mannerism are the starting point of successful telemarketing call.

2. Compliance to rules and regulations: The noose of telemarketing rules and regulations are always being tightened by regional and national governments. It is important that you comply with the rules all the time. To ensure this, the management of the company has to keep abreast with the changing rules and communicate them in a timely manner to all the in-house telemarketing staff. This may pose a challenge to any in-house telemarketing facility.

3. Familiarity with product: Any telemarketing caller should have good knowledge about the product or service he is trying to sell over the phone. In-house callers have a definite advantage here as they are already well acquainted with the product or service in question. But it is also important that they are kept abreast with any new development happening or product being launched so that they are able to speak to the clients as true representatives of the company.

4. Scripted conversation: Telemarketing callers are provided with a guideline they have to adhere to in form of a scripted conversation with a customer. The script is carefully designed and framed to evoke a positive response from a client. The mark of a good caller is that she roughly keeps track of the script but sounds natural at the same time. In-house callers need to be trained well to follow the guideline as far as possible.

5. Incremental approach: The success of a call depends largely on the way a client is engaged in conversation. From arousing the customer’s interest in the product to extracting information and persuading the client to make the purchase, the conversation should be carried out in a progressive manner. Abrupt attempt at trying to close a deal in the first few seconds of the call will only annoy the client and abort the call.

6. Taking rejection in stride: It is a part of a telemarketing caller’s job to be able to accept rejection from clients. Every call need not result in closing a deal. The attempt should be to try and improve the ratio of successful calls which is what telemarketing is all about. A telemarketing professional should possess the perseverance to keep calling despite facing repeated rejection. This quality may not come through training alone but is an important part of any telemarketing training.

7. Client-based approach: Telemarketers have to deal with a wide variety of audience through their calls and it is a part of their job description to adjust their approach according to the customers they are dealing with. Business-to-consumer calls, for example, need an entirely different kind of approach than the business-to-business calls. Callers have to factor in these complexities on a day-to-day and call-to-call basis.

Thus, in trying to choose between setting up an in-house telemarketing facility and outsourcing the entire process to a professional telemarketing company the challenges and costs involved in training the entire staff has to be taken into consideration.

How to generate better profits? This is a question that keeps echoing in the mind of every businessman because there are competitors, who are more than willing to abate their profits. If you are a businessman then you can certainly understand how difficult it is to achieve business goals and generate revenues that are anything better than satisfactory. Running a business is a constant struggle that requires both expertise and dedication. Employees need to just do the work that will be assigned to them but a businessman has to diligently monitor all the operations and bring about all the required modifications that can contribute to better revenue generation. In case, you want to generate better revenues and expand your business then this write-up can offer you a very helpful suggestion.

Customer Support – The Key Ingredient For Better Revenue Generation

Outsource call center services, no matter how small or big your business is. This is one suggestion that can do a world of good to your business and can help you generate better revenues for sure. If you are wondering how call center outsourcing can be helpful for your business then here is an explanation. As you know that customer support is a major competitive differentiator in today’s business world. This is the reason why you need a team of experienced professionals, who can give a first-time resolution to even the most dissatisfied customer. However, hiring a team of call center professionals can cost you a fortune. So, it is best to outsource call center services for your business; call center vendors can offer the most effective customer support solutions that can give your business a boost for sure.

In case, you are still not convinced to avail call center services then here is something that you definitely need to know. A satisfied customer can bring more business than a thousand dollar advertisement because he will not just stick with you but will also recommend you to family, friends, and acquaintances. Every customer support service should be treated like an opportunity to earn the trust and satisfaction of the customer. This is because satisfied customers do not just maintain revenue generation of a business, they boost it. So, you should without any doubt avail call center outsourcing services for your business. Call center professionals will indefatigably handle the customer support process of your business and will keep your customers satisfied for sure, which of course is the key to generating better revenues.

The decision to outsource telemarketing services depends on a number of factors, the most important of which is whether the benefits accrued outweigh the costs incurred. It is the foremost duty of management to analyze the cost-benefit ratio before going in for outsourcing.

The primary benefits that come with outsourcing are the expenditure spared in recruiting and maintaining an entire telemarketing staff and the costs saved in procuring the equipment. The payroll costs are in part passed on as charges for the telemarketing services but the added benefits depend on how expensive the locally available labor is. If very low-cost labor is locally available to a company, outsourcing may not help save much on this count. As regards the equipment, the seasonal telemarketers are more likely to find outsourcing more efficient rather than the ones who need telemarketing services throughout the year.

However, once the initial costs are taken care of, outsourcing does contribute to saving costs for the company in the long run. Here are a few important reasons why you should go in for outsourcing:

Hiring of personnel

Labor costs are only a small part of the entire expenses that come along with hiring staff for the telemarketing services. The hiring and recruitment of the personnel can prove to be an expensive and cumbersome affair for the management. The money spent on the recruitment agencies and the time spent by management in interviewing the candidates is hardly worth the effort.

At times, the company may be forced to manage with a leaner staff than is actually required and compromise on the opportunity costs in not being able to make enough telemarketing calls due to shortage of staff. Outsourcing the services will not only ensure a well-staffed team to make the required number of telemarketing calls but also help tackle all the problems related to the recruitment of the personnel.

Professional training

Providing appropriate training to the personnel is perhaps, more important than hiring them because it is the kind of training that will determine the quality and success rate of telemarketing calls. Here again, businesses cannot afford to cut costs by compromising with a less professionally trained staff. The company and its products have to be represented by well-trained professionals.

But it is not at all an easy job to design and implement a high-level training program for telemarketing staff with up-to-date techniques by a company whose primary focus lies elsewhere. Professional telemarketing companies, on the other hand, can distribute their cost of training between various clients it offers services. As they specialize in telemarketing services, they can afford to spend time and money on providing intensive professional training to the telemarketing callers.

Compliance to telemarketing rules

With rapidly tightening rules and regulations, telemarketing calls have to comply with the updated restrictions put on these calls by various regional and federal governments. As the rules of various states keep changing from time to time, it gets very confusing for organizations to keep track of them.

In such a situation, it becomes tough for businesses to deal with these legal issues. For specialized telemarketing companies, however, it is a crucial part of their job to ascertain adherence to these rules.

Space for operations

The establishment of an in-house telemarketing facility would mean that the telemarketing staff and equipment would use up good part of the office space while in case of a telemarketing company the cost of space can again be spread among the various clients. A business might be compelled to go in for unnecessary space expansion to accommodate the telemarketing paraphernalia. Outsourcing can help avoid such extra expenditure.

Thus, outsourcing telemarketing services can save costs on a number of fronts and result in net savings for businesses after the initial costs are incurred in buying the services.

50% of the customers say that they switch to a different brand if their needs aren’t met.

On the contrary, customers wouldn’t change their mobile network operator over a single incident of bad connectivity issue. Similarly, even when a customer has to struggle for months to get a wrongly debited payment from their account, they are less likely to stop doing business with that bank.

While increased expectations have led customers to frequently switch brands, there are certain industries like real estate, banking, and telecom where customers stay loyal by default.

Why?

Well, they can’t keep moving to another network operator or bank as easy as shifting multiple tabs on their PC. Such shifts cost them money and time not to mention the tedious process behind it. As a result, customers choose to deal with bad connectivity or payment processing glitches rather than having to make the change.

So, does this mean these customers will stay loyal no matter what, and the brands can get away with such bad customer experiences?

Actually, it depends on these factors:

– One’s own saturation point
– Level of easiness involved in shifting to another brand

This article discusses the above two factors with instances, their influence on the customer’s decision making, how they affect businesses and what they need to succeed in the long run. If you belong to an industry like banking, real estate, telecommunications or wherever the customer lifetime value is high by default, it’s time you became aware of the shift of power to consumers.

1. One’s Own Saturation Point

Let’s say John buys an apartment from a real estate company. He moves in with his family and within a few months, starts encountering some issues. The walls develop cracks and the ceiling develops dampness during the winter season. He repeatedly asks the real estate company to take responsibility and rectify those issues but the real estate company turns a deaf ear.

Despite being frustrated, John has only two choices – either sell the apartment or go on an endless loop of fixing these issues incurring additional costs. But, the harsh reality is he has already invested so much on this apartment and if he tries selling it off, no one’s ready to buy except for a really low price. He’s caught in a mess with no choice but to keep spending money on additional repairs. And, the worst part is he accepts it even after knowing that the real estate company has been unfair to him.

How Long Before the Brands Begin to Take their Customers’ Issues Seriously

The general view that customer loyalty depends on post-sales experience does not apply to every sector. In industries like real estate, manufacturing, financial services, etc, the purchase is left to the owner’s risk which is why most businesses turn a blind eye post-sale.

In the above example, it’s clear that the real estate company has an upper hand. It might even appear like the customer has no power over them. Yet, something which such brands forget is the bad reputation they are accumulating. While brands were able to survive without heeding to customer issues in the past, technology has amplified the impact of negative word of mouth bringing about their downfall. Customer feedback and their long term satisfaction are taking the forefront. And, let’s not forget the fact that 90% of consumers read online reviews2 before making purchasing decisions.

Here’s where you can turn the tables by making the first move. If there’s something wrong, apologize and own up to your mistakes. Work with your customers in resolving their issues. This will definitely garner your brand lots of positive word of mouth. Over time, this will gain your business a distinct advantage. Before you know, each one of your loyal customers would have turned brand ambassadors, making way for new customers.

2. Level of Easiness Involved in Switching to Another Brand

Let’s take a 10-year challenge. Had it been the late 2000s when Mary experienced problems with her mobile network, things would have been unfavorable for her. Not many people had smartphones let alone mobile internet access. She would’ve had a basic mobile and switching to another brand would’ve been a mammoth task. If she had switched to another brand that offered affordable plans, it meant she would’ve to buy a new number. This process would have taken a few days. And, she would’ve lost her current number which was known to all of her contacts. Unthinkable, right?

If you fast forward to now, Mary’s situation is entirely different. She has a smartphone with internet access. If she feels her mobile internet is lacking speed, all she has to do is buy another brand’s SIM and insert it into her phone’s dual SIM slot. This way, she can still use her old number to make calls while using the new SIM to access the internet. Even if she wants to make a complete switch, she has the option of number portability that lets her retain the same number despite switching to another brand.

As you see, with advancing technology and options to switch brands, customers can’t be forced to stay loyal. But, even after the ball being in the customers’ court, why do they stick to certain brands despite receiving a subpar experience? Here’s where another scenario comes in.

When Brands Take Advantage of Customers’ Loyalty

In some industries, brands don’t have a distinct advantage over another. That’s when they stop offering benefits because customers don’t have a choice to leave. But, when new players enter the market with better deals, customers don’t hesitate to make the switch.

For example, when Jio entered the Indian telecom industry with low priced data plans, it crossed 50 million subscribers within 83 days, taking the position of a formidable opponent to the current players in the market. The user base of competitors like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea started to shrink and they experienced major revenue losses within the same quarter.

Conclusion

Customer expectations have skyrocketed in recent years. Yet in certain industries, customers choose to stay, not out of loyalty but lack of choice. This unfair trend is slowly dissolving with customers getting the chance to switch brands and influence the brand’s long term success.

Be it any industry, every organization has to be receptive to their customer needs to gain their loyalty. It takes years to be on their credible list and the only way any brand can achieve this is by truly championing the needs of customers.