Free Call Center and Telemarketing Quotes for Call Center services.

Free Call Center and Telemarketing Quotes for Call Center services.

This is the website that I publish about the Call Center Industry. I have made it so call centers can add their info into our directory for free and clients can fill out an easy to use form to request quotes on their services. I have also listed the various types of verticals that call centers serve and some relevant information about each vertical.

Tim Stay
August 2004

What I Know About Market Research Phone Surveys

My first introduction to the call center industry was that I worked for a Market Research Phone Survey and data firm to help put my way through college. Most of the surveys were taken by hand and we had a team of data entry people that would enter all the data from each and every survey all night long into a computer so we could have the results for the client the first thing in the morning.

We did both political surveys as well as commercial market research. We would do the phone surveys, compile the data, and at times even do some of the data analysis, which include cross-tabs and compiling and editing open ended questions. Most of the heavy analytic work would be done by a big full service Market Research firm. We would also usually have the survey designed by a Market Research consultant or by the full service Market Research firm.

If you are looking for a call center to do marketing research, there are two main areas within Market Research industry to consider. One is the Full Service Firms. These firms will do everything from create a unbiased survey, by their guy who has a PHd in survey design, to obtaining a statistically defensible sample, to running and managing a their own in-house call center. There are also firms that specialize in just the data collection aspect of this process and all they do is the interviewing and phone survey work.

You can also work with a Market Research consultant. He often will do part of the work of Full Service firm, but he does not have his own in-house interviewing staff. He will subcontract this work out, but he does the management and supervision of the data collection house (survey phone center).

The question is often asked: Can I use a traditional telemarketing company to do survey work? The answer is best determined by how rigorous and statistically defensible do you need your data. Most telemarketing centers that I am familiar with can do a decent job at collecting data, doing customer satisfaction surveys, etc. However, if I needed a project where I needed the results to be as precise as possible, few telemarketing firms have the discipline and strict procedures in place, and I would look to a Full Service Market Research firm or a Market Research Data Collection house.

These firms will know how to rotate questions and responses, they will know how to do unbiased probes for open-ended questions, they will know how to manage complex samples and quotas, and they will know how to edit and code the open-ended responses. They are also used to very tight turn-around times and very strict reporting requirements. And usually, Market Research firms will be very cost competitive with Telemarketing firms.

Most Market Research firms will be able to give you a cost per interview (CPI) range as part of their quote and bill. Most telemarketing firms will seek to get paid an hourly rate.

Reflections of a Call Center Owner

I don't think that anyone that is in the call center industry sat there as a kid and thought - I think I will grow up and work in a call center. Through out my career, it seemed that everyone I met, wound up in the industry through some back channel.

I have a friend who is a veteran of the call center industry and he jokes that once you get into the call center industry, you can't escape. We laugh, because we both have tried to leave the industry behind us several times, but we keep coming back to it.

My background was a civil engineer. I actually worked for a few years as a civil engineer. One of the things that I loved, was the process of building something that didn't exist before. That was one thing that really surprised me about starting a call center - the immense satisfaction of building something of value that didn't exist before, except in my mind.

I started the call center because I knew a little bit about the industry and I knew the key numbers that I had to control to make it profitable. I had worked at a Market Research Survey House during college and I worked in the data center as well as helped with the books. I really got to understand the telecommunications requirements, the importance of watching labor and telcom costs and how to make money at the business.

I didn't start the call center because I was in love with the business - it just was a business that I knew. And I was in love with the idea of running my own business and having that freedom to create, to make mistakes, to become enriched, and most importantly, to learn. Above all else, I have the most incredible education. Sometime the education was incredibly expensive, enough to put a whole class of High School Seniors through Harvard it seemed, but other times the rewards were immeasurable.

So now, I have sold my call center and I am out of the business. Yet, I still publish a website called

http://www.freecallcenterquotes.com

that provides a lot of information for potential call center clients as well as information of the vertical industries served by the call center industry.

Overtime, I hope to give an overview of the types of work we performed, some of the lessons learned, and share some of that hard fought education that I have picked up along the way. Some days we were brilliant, some days we bumbled along, but we had a good time along the path.