Outbound Telemarketing 101
People often asked me what why it was called Outbound Telemarketing.
Outbound Telemarketing gets its name from the fact that an agent is placing a call out to a consumer as opposed to Inbound, where a customer is calling in to the agent.
The outbound industry has been greatly impacted recently by two significant events, governmental regulation and off-shore competition. The Do-Not-Call, and the related Telephone Sales Rule legislation has greatly altered the landscape for outbound telemarketers. Outbound telemarketers also have to aware of ever-changing state legislation as well.
Outbound Call Centers encompass many of the other vertical categories, such as Lead Generation, Sales, Appointment Setting, etc.
Outbound calling is categorized based upon who the caller is. The two basic categories are calling businesses or calling consumers.
Business-to-business agents need to know how to deal with gate-keepers, the secretaries or administrative assistants that filter access to the target of the call. You want to be careful in making sure that the call center is using the right mix of agents as matched to your target customer. If you are trying to reach a high-level CEO or senior executive, you don’t want your callers to be the average high-school grad telemarketer or off-shore agent that speaks broken English.
Predictive dialers are generally not very effective when calling senior executives in a business-to-business type call. Check with your outbound call center to see what kind of technology they are using. I found that the most effective type of tool was a platform that allowed the operator to keep notes about each attempt (things like secretary's name, email address, best time of day to call, when that executive might get back in the office, etc.) Sometimes this is called preview dialing, because you can preview the customer's information before you talk to them. Sales Management packages like Goldmine and ACT! are a good option if you want to do this in-house.
Most outbound call centers experience very high turnover rates, exceeding 100% per year. Finding and keeping qualified and trained agents is a big challenge for most outbound call centers.
Most outbound call centers prefer to bill on an hourly rate, rather than on a pay-for-performance basis. They still have the expense of paying for the agent’s time and for the long-distance and the overhead and if they do it on a pay-for-performance basis, they expose themselves to the risk that they will not make enough to cover their cost.
Some call centers will do a hourly test first and then evaluate the results and then offer a pay-for-performance rate. You may see hourly tests from anywhere from a 50 hour test to a 500 hour test.
If you do agree to a hourly rate, make sure you define exactly what constitutes an hour of billable time. Does it consist of break time, of down-time, etc? Or do they only bill for time where the agent is actively calling.
US-based outbound call centers generally seek to make $24-$26 per hour, but will go as low as $17 per hour if the volume is great enough.
Near-shore outbound call centers will bill between $16-$20 per hour. Near-shore includes Canada and the Carribean and Central America.
Off-Shore call centers will bill from $8 - $18 per hour. Most off-shore work is done out of India, but the Philippines is rapidly developing as a major supplier. Other off-shore call centers are located in South America, South Africa, Europe, Israel, Pakistan, etc.
I will explain more about SPH later.
With the Do Not Call legislation, both the outbound call center and the client has to register with the FTC. The outbound call center will need your SANS number that you get from registering with the FTC. Compliance to these regulations is critical as it can carry very severe fines for violations.
I will talk more about the DNC rulings later.
Outbound Telemarketing gets its name from the fact that an agent is placing a call out to a consumer as opposed to Inbound, where a customer is calling in to the agent.
The outbound industry has been greatly impacted recently by two significant events, governmental regulation and off-shore competition. The Do-Not-Call, and the related Telephone Sales Rule legislation has greatly altered the landscape for outbound telemarketers. Outbound telemarketers also have to aware of ever-changing state legislation as well.
Outbound Call Centers encompass many of the other vertical categories, such as Lead Generation, Sales, Appointment Setting, etc.
Outbound calling is categorized based upon who the caller is. The two basic categories are calling businesses or calling consumers.
Business-to-business agents need to know how to deal with gate-keepers, the secretaries or administrative assistants that filter access to the target of the call. You want to be careful in making sure that the call center is using the right mix of agents as matched to your target customer. If you are trying to reach a high-level CEO or senior executive, you don’t want your callers to be the average high-school grad telemarketer or off-shore agent that speaks broken English.
Predictive dialers are generally not very effective when calling senior executives in a business-to-business type call. Check with your outbound call center to see what kind of technology they are using. I found that the most effective type of tool was a platform that allowed the operator to keep notes about each attempt (things like secretary's name, email address, best time of day to call, when that executive might get back in the office, etc.) Sometimes this is called preview dialing, because you can preview the customer's information before you talk to them. Sales Management packages like Goldmine and ACT! are a good option if you want to do this in-house.
Most outbound call centers experience very high turnover rates, exceeding 100% per year. Finding and keeping qualified and trained agents is a big challenge for most outbound call centers.
Most outbound call centers prefer to bill on an hourly rate, rather than on a pay-for-performance basis. They still have the expense of paying for the agent’s time and for the long-distance and the overhead and if they do it on a pay-for-performance basis, they expose themselves to the risk that they will not make enough to cover their cost.
Some call centers will do a hourly test first and then evaluate the results and then offer a pay-for-performance rate. You may see hourly tests from anywhere from a 50 hour test to a 500 hour test.
If you do agree to a hourly rate, make sure you define exactly what constitutes an hour of billable time. Does it consist of break time, of down-time, etc? Or do they only bill for time where the agent is actively calling.
US-based outbound call centers generally seek to make $24-$26 per hour, but will go as low as $17 per hour if the volume is great enough.
Near-shore outbound call centers will bill between $16-$20 per hour. Near-shore includes Canada and the Carribean and Central America.
Off-Shore call centers will bill from $8 - $18 per hour. Most off-shore work is done out of India, but the Philippines is rapidly developing as a major supplier. Other off-shore call centers are located in South America, South Africa, Europe, Israel, Pakistan, etc.
I will explain more about SPH later.
With the Do Not Call legislation, both the outbound call center and the client has to register with the FTC. The outbound call center will need your SANS number that you get from registering with the FTC. Compliance to these regulations is critical as it can carry very severe fines for violations.
I will talk more about the DNC rulings later.
posted by Tim Stay at
7:31 PM
