Inbound and outbound call services are two key elements that make up customer service and two functions crucial to a call center.
But over the past years, outbound calling has gained a negative reputation among consumers as it is often viewed as an inconvenience. Other businesses also have started scraping their outbound call strategies and focused more on enriching their inbound call processes.
What organizations fail to recognize is that if this service is done right, it produces an array of benefits. For one, it can be a highly effective tool to increase your revenue and customer satisfaction.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the things you can do to improve your outbound calling strategy.
What is outbound calling?
Outbound calling is when a call center agent or representative initiates a call to customers on behalf of an organization or a client. Your outbound call center agents’ primary role is to help you get additional sales through your existing customers and potential leads.
Outbound calling service is a must if you are the type of business that does the following:
- Urges current customers to renew their plan or subscription
- Makes sales or arranges sales appointments through phone calls
- Offers call support for customer service
- Conducts research or surveys via telephone polls or interviews
Traditionally, customer service and support are executed through inbound and outbound calls. Thanks to today’s technology, inbound and outbound interactions can now be performed through other communication channels like email, live chat, or text SMS.
What processes are part of outbound calling services?
You can use outbound calling for the following purposes:
- Telemarketing – also known as cold calling; aims to turn prospects into qualified leads by marketing your products and services.
- Telesales – often performed after telemarketing teams have filtered good leads. Telesales teams will take over to close some deals and secure your sales.
- Collections – agents reach out to customers to remind them of their payment dues or missed payments. The goal is to get customers to pay their debt obligations on time.
- Donations – usually an outbound campaign to help organizations collect funds to meet their target fundraising goals.
- Surveys – a way of measuring the pulse of your target market. Examples of surveys include market research, political polls, and customer satisfaction surveys.
- Proactive customer interactions – outbound calling can also be used to proactively update your customers regarding your products or services. This can also help you build solid customer relationships.
3 common types of technology used in outbound calling
Here are three commonly used software in an outbound call center:
Dialer software
Through dialer software, outbound agents no longer have to manually dial numbers to call customers. It helps speed up your outbound calling efforts, enabling your agents to have as many targeted leads as possible.
Some examples of dialer software are progressive, predictive, and preview dialers.
Analytics software
Analytics software can help you manage your outbound call center processes effectively by:
- Allowing you to monitor and track your agents’ performance according to specific parameters like call duration.
- Recording your agents’ calls to help you evaluate their conversational skills.
- Giving you valuable insights that can help you craft outbound call improvement plans or performance-based incentives.
Call recording software
Call centers, in general, are required to follow certain laws implemented by Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) or Do Not Call registries.
Through your recorded calls, you will be able to safeguard your company by ensuring that you strictly adhere to their rules and regulations. Companies that are unable to comply will have to pay a hefty price.
3 tips to run an effective outbound calling strategy
Here are three tips to consider when setting up your outbound calling strategy:
1. Setting up your campaign
The basic foundation of a good outbound calling strategy is the campaigns. You should include these project management principles in your campaigns:
- Your KPIs to measure your team’s overall progress
- Timeline and milestones
- The total volume of calls each agent should take per day
2. Create a calling list
In preparing your calling list, you can buy lists of phone numbers from a third party. Another option is to search, collect and store phone numbers in your user database.
Furthermore, it is also your agents’ responsibility to update these lists to identify which ones have already been approached. Or you may use a CRM tool to automate this process.
3. Watch out for the pause
In most cases, people can easily determine an outbound call in the first three seconds of the call. This commonly happens whenever dialer tools try to figure out whether a human is answering the call. Upon confirmation, that’s when they transfer the call to your agents.
This pause can always lead to dropped calls. Make sure to choose a reliable predictive dialer tool to help you avoid this scenario. A good predictive dialer automatically assigns calls to particular agents as soon as they are ready.
Improve your outbound calling strategy now
Your outbound call center efforts are a vital part of your marketing, sales, and support process. So instead of solely focusing on your inbound processes, you must develop an effective outbound calling strategy that will help your teams yield great results!
