Telemarketing Companies

Telemarketing involves processing customer requests rapidly and meticulously. Given the pressures on telemarketing companies to outsource and to computerize their databases, it's no surprise that more and more of these firms are moving offshore. So what can domestic telemarketing companies do to keep pace and simultaneously ensure deliverable customer service?

The answer is complicated, but it generally depends on several factors. One, how big is your business? Two, how important is lead generation and turnaround to your project model? Three, are your telemarketing operators networked, or are they acting as independent agents? The larger, more networked operations tend to have trouble keeping up with overseas telemarketing companies because their resource needs are greater.

Inbound Vs. Outbound Telemarketing

That said, domestic companies can develop their services and capacities to compete. For instance, if your current marketing operation focuses on both inbound and outbound services, you might want to refocus on outbound exclusively. After all, outbound telemarketing involves aggressively selling to disinterested consumers, and this requires a lot more intuitive cultural skill than inbound phone handling--cultural skill you can only acquire as a native.

By focusing exclusively on outbound marketing--such as lead generation, fund-raising, and survey promotion--you can cut costs and revitalize your databases. Moreover, by specializing, you may be able to carve out an industry niche. By keying in on the specifics of outbound telemarketing, you'll attract experts who want to work in the field, not just freelancers.

How to Improve Efficiency in Your Phone Queues

Sales efficiency often comes down to more than just aggressive marketing. It comes down to responsive customer service. Whether your service is international or domestic, specialized or free ranging, you need to train your people to communicate effectively. This doesn’t necessarily mean keeping your staff on a tighter leash. Indeed, the best telemarketing managers allow their workers to use a dynamic palette of both scripted and unscripted responses.

Let’s say that you’re running an inbound telemarketing operation, and your agents are going to all lengths to serve every single customer--your business is going to lose money. After all, if your operators are tied up dealing with minutia, their phone queues are going to build up. You’ll then either have to hire more operators, or accept permanent traffic snarling your phone lines.

Training Your Operators

If you train your operators to be terse and assertive with clients, you can avoid this frustration. Of course, there is a fine line between being assertive and being overly aggressive or obnoxious. That's why training your managers is so crucial. If you train them incorrectly, they will pass bad ideas throughout the organization, and it will become difficult and costly to change staff mindsets.

Telemarketers must respond to multiple variables at once. While it would be nice to evolve a telemarketing science which could suggest equations for how to budget your time and your resources, the truth is that most of your business decisions must be made ad hoc. As a result, it's generally better to operate using a team of loosely aggregated operators than using a network of highly integrated agents.