To keep growing, businesses and organisations need to be forward thinking, retaining their existing client base whilst planning future growth through continuous recruitment of new clients. Outbound call centres have a crucial role to play in this process, contributing to a constant flow of revenue.
So what does an outbound call centre do and is it any different to inbound call centre services? As the name indicates, an outbound call centre is one where agents make calls on behalf of a company, to market your brand, convert leads, follow up on campaigns; in one word, turn prospects into customers. As such, high-quality agents will need to possess not only negotiation skills, perseverance and the ability to build a rapport quickly, but also a thorough knowledge of your goods or services.
Sales agents may be required to strictly follow a script developed by the outbound call centre following the company’s brief, or be given more freedom.
Outbound call centres are commonly used for the following tasks:
• Lead generation: sales calls are made to prospective customers, either using a database provided by the call centre, or the client’s existing database if they have one.
• Lead conversion, which can also include cross-selling or up-selling calls to existing customers.
• Market research: the calls’ goal is to identify new markets for products and services, or get feedback during a product testing phase.
• Follow-up calling: this kind of call aims at measuring the response of marketing campaigns, be they advertising, new product launches, targeted promotions, etc… It can be purely about market research, or the sales agents can to tasked to convert respondents into customers.
• Reactivating dormant clients: while businesses often invest a lot of effort into wooing new customers, existing customers can be neglected. Yet, they are a captive audience, already aware of your brand and presumably won over, therefore requiring less effort. So rekindling your relationship with them makes perfect business sense.
• Customer service operations: particularly key in the retail sector, keeping your customers informed if a delivery is delayed for example, will go a long way in fostering brand loyalty.
• Customer satisfaction surveys: they will give you first-hand information about your customer base and the chance to rectify any issues.
In order to be efficient, outbound call centres must be able to make a high number of phone calls per hour, as well as report on their staff’s activity, and state-of-the-art telephony technology is an integral of being able to deliver a first-class service.
For more about how Corporate Connect can help your business with outbound call centre services contact us.
