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Technology has played a key role in creating new solutions, opportunities, and successes for contact centers, especially outbound campaigns. However, choosing the right technology that will fit your business and your business objectives is not as simple as that. From this perspective, here are 5 important points to check when choosing your automated telemarketing software.
Contact Injections in Automated Telemarketing Software
Of course, telemarketing campaigns vary widely, which implies differences in business and also technical objectives. This is why there are 3 methods of contact injection, namely:
- Importing contact files into your software: In this case, it is done manually in the telemarketing solution which will then contact your prospects one after the other. The advantage of this method is that it requires no integration. However, it lacks flexibility.
- Querying a contact file: Very similar to importing a contact but with fewer manual actions. In other words, you are not going to import your file into your technology, it is the software that queries your file via the integrations.
- Injecting leads as your campaign progresses: It is the most popular method in the digital age! According to the defined workflows, leads will be automatically added to your customer base and your outbound campaigns through other communication channels (website, web chat, etc.). As you can guess, this method brings great flexibility and reactivity thanks to powerful automation. However, it requires upstream development efforts.
Different Dialing Technologies
Now that you have injected your contacts and are ready to reach them the next question is, which dialing method to choose for your Telemarketing Campaign? Should you go for Preview? Progressive or Predictive? Let’s break them down.
- Preview Dialer: Your software will detect when one of your agents is available and present him with the form containing all the useful information to talk to the customer. This way, your agent can consult this information before triggering the call with a click.
This mode is the best for outbound campaigns with a qualitative aspect but it will not allow you to optimize your teams’ productivity due to the accumulated number of waiting times.
- Progressive Dialer: When your solution detects an agent who is available, the call is triggered and the record is uploaded to the agent interface. Unlike the previous mode, the agent does not trigger the call but is done via the dialer. In addition, answering machine detection saves time by leaving a pre-recorded voice message. Therefore, the progressive mode allows you to have quality and productivity.
- Predictive Dialer: The most advanced mode that not only allows you to detect by the second when an agent will be available but also to trigger calls automatically. Predictive Dialer works through an algorithm that takes into account several important data. In particular, the average call handling times, the average duration of customer interactions, the number of available agents, etc. Of course, no technology in this world is perfect, it can happen that the predictive dialer triggers a call before the agent is available.
If the goal of your outbound campaign is telephone prospecting then a predictive dialer is the most suitable for your contact center technology.
Technology vs Hit Rate
Technology and KPIs are two intertwined elements of the contact center world. For Outbound campaigns, the first two KPIs closely monitored by business owners and managers are conversion rate and hit rate.
The latter expresses the reachability of your target on the phone and in a telemarketing campaign, this rate can be positive or negative. This notion is defined in relation to the offer made over the phone for a specific action. Now, what is the link with your automated telemarketing software?
Whether your contact center operates in prospecting, canvassing, surveys, or other outbound call activities. In order to stimulate or maximize this hit rate, call and callback rules based on defined criteria will allow you to obtain excellent results. Imagine that you try to call a base of workers in the middle of the day, and your hit rate is pretty low. Now imagine the same situation but with clients that are retired. This is where your Automated Telemarketing Software comes into play with an option of defined criteria that are suitable to your campaign targets.
On the other hand, a technique that also works well is to supplement your outbound calls with pre-recorded messages. After 2 or 3 unsuccessful attempts, send a recorded message to your unreachable clients to let them know that you tried to reach them and that you will try to contact them again later.
Scripting & CRM
As the saying goes “First Impression Matters” and it’s never been truer. In an outbound call with a customer, the first few seconds will determine how the call will go.
The mistake made by most contact centers is to consider the telephone script as something that should be read word for word and in a monotone tone. Whereas it is there to accompany the agents’ speech by highlighting keywords from it, while also providing answers to customer refusals. Moreover, the more up-to-date your customer data is in your CRM, the more personalized your speech will be and the more efficient your teams will be.
In this aspect, a good telemarketing software integrated with your CRM allows you to adapt your scripts as you go along. This will improve the performance of your agents and the results of your campaign.
After the Calls, it’s not really over!
You have finished your calls, you have finished your day and you have achieved your results for the day. What comes next for your telemarketing software?
All the information exchanged and collected from your customers must be entered into a database and a CRM to be used for the next step of your campaign.
The harsh reality of telemarketing campaigns is that one call is rarely enough! Follow-up must be part of the daily routine of agents and supervisors.
This means having software that allows you to automate workflows, set predefined conditions for call-backs, have a complete history for each customer file, and implement as many strategies as possible to succeed in your outbound campaign.
Let’s not forget that we now live in the digital world and that clients are more and more present on social media. This means you will need software that can maximize your productivity by assigning any interaction to agents. A solution that expands and gives more information to clients across all communication channels and allows a seamless transition from one to another. And a technology that can perfectly blend with your CRM and Scripting to Capture customer information while increasing your KPIs. Such properties can be found in Omni+ from NobelBiz, a true and all-in-one software technology that offers to contact centers a true omnichannel solution.
Abdelmounim Benharouga has always had a strong passion for writing and digital marketing. He started as a Digital Content Writer part of marketing department then moved to being Customer Success Manager for the African Region within the Nobelbiz team.