The success or failure of your outbound calls can depend on a lot of factors. Most of these can be tipped in your favor with the right planning and preparedness. Making an outbound calling campaign requires a solid strategy to help your team achieve whatever end game you want.
Outbound calling definition
An outbound call is initiated by a company’s call center agent. These calls are typically focused on sales, generating leads, telemarketing and fundraising.
Phone calls can also be made to an existing customer for renewal services, updates, debt collection, research or pre-emptive customer service.
Sales teams usually call potential customers about their products. Companies may also make outbound calls to do surveys and market research.
How to improve outbound calls?
Understanding the meaning of outbound calls brings you a step closer to maximizing your outbound sales. Outbound calling, when done right, can be an immensely profitable revenue stream.
If your outbound calling strategy is not making enough deals and sales, you may need to start thinking of a new approach.
Here are five tips to improve your outbound calling strategy.
Define your goals and KPIs
The first step in improving your outbound calling strategy is setting reasonable goals for your team.
Discuss these end goals with everyone and make sure they understand thoroughly and know how to achieve them.
Additionally, you should identify the relevant key performance indicators (KPI) to measure your employee’s performance.
There are four common KPIs associated with outbound and sales calls – average handle time, first call resolution, conversion rate, and occupancy rate.
- Average handle time refers to the length of calls in relation to the total number of calls. Longer handling times may indicate difficulty in closing deals, poor persuasion skills, or insufficient knowledge of the product.
- First call resolution is about the number of calls resolved on the first call in relation to the total number of calls. High first call resolution means that your employees are doing well and are able to sell effectively.
- Conversion rate measures the efficiency of agents in bringing customers and closing a sale. Low conversion rate means low numbers of sales are being made.
- Occupancy rate is the time the agents are spending in calls in relation to the amount of unavailable time spent. A low rate for an agent means that they are struggling with the post-call work and losing overall productivity.
You can use these KPIs to assess the effectiveness of your outbound calling strategy.
Draft a call list
To be able to make great sales you have to make sure that you are targeting the right audience and demographic for your business.
Conduct a market research and collaborate with the marketing and sales departments in creating ideal buyer personas for your product.
Put the contacts of people who are within the range of your target market in a list. If your team has a drafted call list made up of qualified leads, then your agents are more likely to succeed. Doing this step gives your agents an advantage when it comes to making a connection with a prospect and guiding them to a sale.
Prepare a script
Preparing a script is one way to make sure that your agents are prepared when talking with a prospect.
A good script will give your employees something to rely on if they are struggling without making them sound unnatural.
One way of drafting a script is to let the agents give their input and let their concerns be represented. It’s a nice idea to implement A/B testing so that your team could find the most effective wording to convince clients.
Engage the prospect
One essential thing to know when talking to a potential customer is to engage them in the conversation. Don’t dominate the call with your pitch to try and sell a product.
Listen to your customers and pay attention to their needs, concerns and issues. Make them feel valued as individuals and not merely as a means to do well in your sales job.
Grab their attention from the very beginning of the call. If your agent failed to do this, prospects would most likely just hang up.
Call the client by their name, show them that you are interested in their situation and don’t center the conversion around yourself. Showing that you care about them will most likely make them a loyal customer.
Don’t trash the competition
Refrain from bad-mouthing your competition during your outbound calls. It is extremely unprofessional and may destroy your prospect’s trust in your brand.
Focus on telling your prospects what makes your product great, and not why your competitor’s product is worse.
Remain polite towards your competitors and do not comment unnecessarily about them even if a client asks.
