Outbound call center proficiency : Outbound call center increases the efficiency to impact good impression on clients. Research shows that trends of inbound calls are decreasing with time and the best and new emerging trend of outreach is outbound calling. Outbound call center follows some tips and practices to improve their performance. Moreover, these are more personalized, selective as well as exactly targeted as compared to any other inbound channel. Due to the rise of this trend outbound call centers mostly used cold calling which produce good results for B2B business.
Outbound call center definition
Two types of a call centers are inbound and outbound. Inbound call center receives calls and does not reach the customers by themselves. While an outbound call center makes calls, often to potential customers. The main goal of outbound calling is to provide customer service and make sales and publicize the company. Representatives of this call center trying to make sales and get more potential customers.
Categories of outbound calls
Outbound call centers focus on sales and to accomplish this purpose these fall into two types:
- Cold calling
- Warm calls
1. Cold calling
Cold calling is the call that customers are not expecting. Outbound call center agents make these calls to sell their products and get potential customers. Besides these, cold calling impacts good or bad impressions on the clients. If agents describe the company and company services in a better way than customers impress on the first call otherwise, they are irritated. Before making these calls train your staff because, in this way, they communicate with the customer confidently and professionally.
Kinds of outbound calls
· Schedule appointments
Agents schedule the appointment or meeting between a customer and the appropriate salesperson. An agent should be active because it is necessary to keep the customer motivated and in touch. Moreover, they decide the best time for a meeting to interact with the company salesperson.
· Generate leads
Outbound agents make leads by cold calling. They tell the company opportunities, services, and product benefits that are interesting for customers and convert the lead into sales. Other than that, they collect information during the call to determine the customer as well as the customer taking interest and becoming a potential client.
· Telesales
Telesales is begun where telemarketing is ended. As compared to telemarketing, telesales is the best part of getting potential customers. Sales agents are patient and influential because both qualities find qualified leads and turn these leads into sales. Furthermore, sale agents need to have the best list of qualified leads meanwhile their performance depends on the conversion rates.
· Telemarketing
Telemarketing is no more similar to lead generation. It is different but it is also used for gaining qualified leads. These sales agents pitch the product on a given targeted list. They create interest in the service by telling customers how it can be an excellent solution for their needs.
· Research on the market base
Outbound calls are not only getting the lead and converting this into a sale. Most of the calls are the pulse of a product, brand, or service. An agent will ask so many questions to be prepared by the market researcher. Collected data will be used to modify products as well as adjust marketing strategies.
2. Warm calls
Warm calls are the interaction with the clients according to some previous interaction. Whether it is an interaction at a convention, meetup, referral, or a previous call. These calls are better received and as result high conversion rate.
5 features to increase productivity
Every outbound call center has its own choice to measure the KPIs.They choose those KPIs that are valid for their business. Here are 7 valuable metrics that help you to hit your goal.
1. Customer contact rate
It is a metric that shows how many customers connect with you. You can find your estimated contact rate. If the rate is low then you can change any policy as well as train your agents on how to convince customers. The formula for finding the connection rate is:
Connection rate=Number of answered calls/Number of made calls *100
In addition, you can measure this KPI weekly, monthly or daily. It is up to you that you can measure this according to your business requirements. With a better lead list, you can get more potential leads.
2. Conversion Rate
It is the percentage of calls that are converted into sales successfully in the defined timeframe. The faster you can close a deal, the cost per lead is low-priced. As a result, your outbound call center enhances the revenue. The formula is to measure the conversion rate is given below:
Conversion Rate=Number of closed deals via calls/Number of calls made*100
Set your target and make calls according to this to meet your goal.
3. Calls per agent
This KPI measures the agent’s efficiency individually. It defines each agent’s performance and helps to improve their performance. Besides this, this metric helps the managers to calculate their teamwork performance. They identify how their team deals with the current workload as well as workflow. In addition, it is the right time to hire new agents or train the agents.
4. First, call close
This is the most important metric of any organization. If an agent finds the potential customer on their phone, then it is the best time to close their deal because the call back is very low performance and a waste of resources.
5. Call quality
Call quality is a scoring metric in which customers give feedback. You can use a normative system for measuring this KPI. For example, set the scale-like one define very bad quality and five define very good quality. Customers give the quality of the calls by assigning numbers. This metric improves the sales result.
Conclusion
The above features of the outbound call center improve the efficiency of agents. It enables them to provide personalized services to each customer with easy access. Boost proficiency and minimize call center cost because minimum resources make minimize the cost and need for an efficient call center industry.