How Does Outsourced Telemarketing Work?
You’re thinking of outsourcing your telemarketing.
Great idea.
Even if we do say so ourselves.
Outsourcing means you get all the benefits of a dedicated telemarketing team, without the recruitment costs, operations bother, and HR hassles.
But you’re also probably wondering, how does outsourced telemarketing work? What’s the process? What does it actually look like?
And one of the biggest questions we get, can I trust that you’ll represent my company in the best, most impactful way?
Well, we can’t tell you how other telemarketing companies do it, but we’re a very transparent bunch. So, we put together this handy breakdown of how we do things.
How we do it
First and foremost, implementation.
We often hear from new clients that they’ve tried outsourcing their telemarketing before and it didn’t work.
When we dig into this a little more it almost always comes down to poorly executed implementation.
Because when this is done right, everything else flows seamlessly.
Implementation is where we get into your company on a granular level so that we can build your campaign from a solid foundation. Because a solid foundation is essential to an effective telemarketing process.
It starts with a call where you’ll meet our Team Leader and the Operations Supervisor who will be leading your campaign.
We’ll spend time getting to know your company.
We’ll dig into:
- Who you are, what you’re offering, and who are you offering it to.
- How you help your customers, your unique value, USP, any common objections to buying, and why you’re better than the competition.
- Questions your customers frequently ask.
- Information about your competitors.
- What you want to achieve. Do you want us to book sales calls, get feedback from past clients, clean data, complete surveys, or something else?
- What success looks like to you, because we don’t make assumptions.
- What a qualified opportunity looks like to you.
- Your current customer base, as well as the customer base you want to reach, because these aren’t always the same.
- We’ll get an in-depth understanding of your target audience so that we can speak their language and segment the data.
- Your expectations and the kind of reporting you want to see.
- Do you have quality data you’d like us to use, or do you need us to provide this?
- We’ll also establish clear and measurable objectives so that you can track your campaign progress and ROI.
We’ll mutually agree a start date for your campaign. This will usually be within 7-10 days of the implementation call.
Then we’re onto…
Preparing the script
Once we’ve scooped up all the necessary information, we’ll weave all that wonderful detail into a script that’s unique to your company. With a tone that reflects your ethos and speaks to your target audience.
We’ll use consistent and persuasive language that aligns with your brand messaging and value proposition.
We have over 20 years experience in telemarketing, so if there’s something we know works well for your industry, we’ll incorporate it. Otherwise your script will be unique to you.
And you’ll get to see the script before it’s used. In fact, we don’t go ahead until you’ve approved it.
We also use role play to prepare our staff for calls on your campaign. Which brings us nicely onto…
Training your telemarketing team
A complaint we often hear from new clients is that when they’ve worked with other telemarketing companies in the past, they’ve dug into the weeds of the onboarding process, only for the telemarketer on their campaign to leave.
Meaning all that work building knowledge and constructing a campaign was abandoned, half-baked, leaving the campaign to fall flat.
We do three things to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Firstly, we train three telemarketers on your campaign. So whatever happens, your campaign carries on seamlessly.
Secondly, we invest in our staff with training, development, and pay that’s above the market average. This means our staff tend to stay with us, they’re motivated, and they know what they’re doing.
And finally, you’ll work directly with both the Team Leader and Operations Supervisor during your implementation process. The Operations Supervisor will liaise with you to put the campaign together, and the Team Leader will oversee campaign delivery and results.
So there’s minimal chance of information or insights falling through the cracks.
We keep things consistent, steady, and thorough.
All this prep happens in the first 7-10 days of implementation. Then we’re ready to go live.
Your Campaign
Once the campaign is live we create a feedback loop. This is crucial, especially in the early stages.
Because if there’s something we need to fix, we want to spot it and deal with it, straight away.
That’s why we encourage you to take advantage of our live call listening feature, where you can listen in on calls as they are happening.
There are lots of telemarketing services who provide call recordings to clients. But we want the feedback to be instant, so we can fix any issues there and then.
We’re proud of what we do. So it’s essential to us that we get it right.
What reporting will I get?
Throughout your campaign we’ll meet with you weekly so that we can review the results and make changes where needed.
Feedback and review are key to any successful telemarketing campaign, so this is a non-negotiable for us.
In addition, every week we’ll send you a report with a detailed breakdown of the previous week’s results. So that together we can spot trends and adapt.
Speaking of your results…
How many calls do you make to each data record?
As many times as it takes.
No, really.
We keep trying until we get a qualified conclusion.
This means getting a conclusion from an actual decision maker. We equip our staff with the skills to get through to the right person. And we’ll call as many times as it takes to get this.
If it’s a yes, we’ll qualify it by gathering all the information you need. If it’s a no, we’ll make sure we find out why the prospect thinks you’re not the right fit.
In fact, we often hear from prospects, ‘we went with you because you’re the only one who didn’t give up’.
That’s why our motto is, we won’t do our best, we will do whatever it takes.
Do you send follow up emails?
Yes.
If we can’t get through on the phone or we confirm that a company decision maker only takes emails, we’ll switch as needed.
And if a prospect asks for follow up information, we can send this for you too. We’ll also ask you for email addresses under your domain so that the prospect gets consistency.
What about leads?
When we get a lead, we’ll let you know.
The Team Leader will listen to it first to make sure we have all the relevant info and detail that you need.
Then it’s all written up and sent over to you immediately, with a follow up email to check you’ve received it.
We’ll also review these with you in our weekly meeting.
What do you class as a qualified lead?
Whatever a qualified lead looks like to you.
We’ll make sure we get clarity on this during the implementation process so there are no misunderstandings.
What happens if you book a sales call and the lead is a no-show?
No-shows are frustrating but they do happen.
If the prospect cancels or doesn’t show up to a meeting with you, let us know and we’ll get on the case. We’ll either re-book the meeting, or we’ll find out why they’ve changed their minds and fix it if we can.
We can’t help you if you cancel the meeting though, you’ll need to re-book those.
We also know that sometimes you’ll send off a quote only to hear nothing back.
Crickets.
We’ll be happy to follow up on these. And if the follow up results in a no, we’ll find out what you could have done better and feed this back to you.
We’ll say it again, continuous feedback, review and adaptation are the key pillars of any successful telemarketing strategy.
What if we need to add a new product to the campaign?
Things change. We get it. Services and products evolve.
If you want to make a minor amendment to a campaign once it’s in full swing, we’ll incorporate the necessary changes without charge.
If you decide to introduce a whole new product or service, or you want a complete overhaul to your offering, then we’ll have to give it the time it needs. This means a thorough deep dive into the new offering, so a new implementation fee will apply.
How do you do the actual selling?
We don’t.
No one likes being sold to.
So we don’t sell.
Instead, we ask questions so that we can get to the core of what a prospect needs.
We take the time to understand what really matters to them.
This all sounds great, but how much does it cost?
We’re glad you asked.
We answer that question in detail here.
There are other outsourced telemarketing services who will give you a cheaper price. But with that you get a leaner service. This might mean low paid staff and higher staff churn, an onboarding process that only skims the service, re-usable scripts and a poor quality campaign.
Ready to find out for yourself?
To get a sense of how we work, why not book a call?
We’ll take you through a similar process that we would use when speaking to your prospects.
We’ll ask questions, find out what you need, and let you know how we can help.