Outbound Call Center
The outbound call center refers to outbound marketing or traditional marketing , which includes all actions aimed at the sale of products or services to customers, users or potential customers, but in a single sense, that is, communication is only made from the company towards the customer and not the other way around.
An outbound call center is the place from where agents unilaterally contact their current and potential clients, doing so on behalf of the organization they represent. The reasons for making outgoing calls are many, being able to mention sales to customer prospects, debt collection, apply customer surveys, make notifications that promote the interest of current and potential customers, among others.
The company that decides to use the outbound call center uses channels with voice, SMS, web chat, social networks or email facilities, to carry out proactive outbound communications to its customers, improving their experience through the channel they prefer, sending them notifications and reminders. There are outbound systems that constitute an effective and low-cost tool that allows the company to differentiate itself from the competition.
These outbound systems contribute to the generation of income by carrying out specific and well-directed campaigns, reaching the client using a channel of those mentioned and preferred by the client. Among these computer tools, the interactive voice response solution (IVR: Interactive Voice Response) stands out , which offers a personalized experience using bio metrics and voice recognition.
The company strives to form a call center team with professionals, and must take care to prepare them properly, as this will give it more opportunities to achieve the expected results. For this to work, the organization must understand the reasons why it should have an outbound call center , defining the objectives that aim to achieve those results.
Outbound marketing currently does not have a very good reputation. For a potential client a cold call may be hateful or annoying, from a stranger asking “for the owner” or for the direct name of the recipient, which usually occurs in outbound call center strategies , putting the recipient of the call (prospect) on the defensive, which makes the call center agent’s job much more difficult.
However, there are strategies to segment the profiles of the people who might be interested in the contact and the service offer, thus directing the direct sales strategy by telephone.
The direct sales organization and its agents must bear in mind that they are not the only ones engaged in this type of activity. Likewise, they must remember that any business or any potential client receives several calls and that outbound call centers offer a wide variety of products and / or services, from refrigerators, mobile phones, consultancies, consultancies, online courses, and many more.
Strengthening sales with the outbound call center
The most important thing is to properly prepare to make the call, knowing who you will be talking to, and being clear about what you want to achieve with that call.
Companies must establish key performance indicators to evaluate the performance of the outbound call center and its respective agents. It is not enough to structure them well, it is required that the information collected for the calculation of these indicators is reliable, knowing how to read them, what is their meaning, and more importantly, how to act against the results obtained, to guarantee that the strategy of phone sale is successful.
It is very important to know the results up to date, in real time, to keep them updated and acting to improve them. It is recommended to evaluate its trend over time, using these results to review the initial planning, as well as project into the future.
If a company has structured a good outbound call center , with a team of well-trained professional agents, it can still find other variables that can result in weaknesses, for example, an agent who turns out to be lazy and does not work at the rate that others work. . Another case is that agent that, although it makes a large number of sales, has a high rate of cancellations, which may be due to the fact of exaggerating the benefits it offers to the client, or creating a high level of expectations, that is, which can cause considerable damage to the company and customers.
There is also another type of agent who spends a lot of time talking on the phone, which is not entirely negative, but it is very important to manage the time of the calls. There may be some other outbound call center agent who is unaware of the product that the company offers or does not know it very well, which becomes transparent to the customer and, consequently, causes loss in sales.
Agents must be aware that outbound marketing is not an easy job, on the contrary, it is hard work. You must prepare to move on, however continue to receive negative responses. A cannot become a yes.