True believers in outbound marketing tout the high ratio of lead quantity to time costs, and adherents to inbound programs cite the higher net of first-quality leads and lower percent of throw-aways. Once you’ve determined that your company is one that should work both ends of an inbound-outbound call center, then assess some centers to find your new addition to your company’s marketing force.
What makes some call centers dazzling successes and others deficient performers is invariably in the devilish details of day-to-day operations. So, take some tours, and see the signals. Keys to the potential of a call center in today’s market are mostly in its integration of new-fashioned techno-capabilities with time-tested operational basics.
TESTIMONIALS – This quality indicator is too often tagging along last on lists of service shoppers’ assessment criteria. Input from clients who’ve already trusted a call center is the ideal foundation on which to build your confidence in your selection of a facility. Pay special attention to the center’s experience in your niche. Don’t settle for testimonials from companies in different markets than your own. If you need help with lead generation for the education market, insist that your vendor has experience there. Same goes for generating qualified leads in government agencies or other B2B organizations. The more complex the organization you’re selling in to, the more you need reassurance that your inbound outbound call center provider has the know-how to deliver the results you expect.
AGENT TRAINING – Most well-run call centers conduct product and sales training for new employees in formal classroom or individual settings, and they do side-by-side coaching for agents. Surprisingly, however, many don’t train adequately on advanced sales techniques, like answering objections, much less on finer points of selling technique and telephone presence. Ask how skills testing of agents is done and how proficiency ratings are measured and addressed for improvements. Ask about quality control and call monitoring and how these are factored in to training within the inbound outbound call centers you evaluate.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT – Discuss the call center’s strategies and projections for your outbound campaign or inbound call servicing. What do its experts have in mind for your scripting? What’s the extent of their scripting for objection handling? How will your roll-out be managed? What controls are in place to ensure progress of your program after implementation? What percentage of call-monitoring can you expect? What’s the schedule and method for delivery of monitoring samples and performance metrics to you? How are issues tracked and resolved? What is the center’s average, across all client accounts, of first call resolution, and its overall average of longest delay in queue (LDQ)?
TECHNOLOGY – Ask if call-processing equipment, software for automated systems and statistical management systems are fully updated. Discuss the Information Technology team’s skill in troubleshooting. Ask if basics for phone agents’ efficiency, like screen-pop and other telephony essentials, are in use. Find out how involved a “chatterbot” (virtual agent) will be in communicating with your prospective customers. Confirm that the facility’s predictive dialing system is state-of-the-art or close to it. Many issues emerge from glitches in interfaces with outdated dialing systems. (Check online for detailed descriptions of call center technologies.)
REPORTING – Ask to see reporting and metrics that your inbound outbound call center provides. These are going to be essential to evaluating success and ROI on your marketing efforts, so you absolutely can’t afford to skimp in this area. Reporting should be simple enough that you can easily share it with your peers and management team. It should also be detailed enough that you and your inbound outbound call center project manager have the data you need to make decisions and course corrections needed to achieve optimal results.
ENVIRONMENT – Does the facility project an image of professionalism and respect for its clients and employees in its general cleanliness, maintenance and organization? How’s the professional atmosphere? Do employees project a customer service attitude and a sense of positive energy and pride in the business? Or, is the staff a lethargic, crumb-covered, lunchy bunch.
Searches for business services inevitably come around to rediscovery of the natural law of getting what you pay for. Cheap service work can impact your business by employee attrition at the service that offsets your initial savings with their costly turnover. Consequent poor quality can irrecoverably damage your company’s reputation.
Barring factors other than the performance of a call center, you will find that its quality in operational aspects listed above is consistent with the center’s steady delivery of satisfactory ROI (another cosmic law). Select a call center that scores high in your assessments of these functional attributes to become the voice of your business, and your odds will be sound that the group there will speak well for you and your organization.
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