Telemarketing Services: Our Evaluation
Below is the criteria we looked for when evaluating telemarketing services. Customer support is critical, because telemarketing representatives are ambassadors for your company, and their interactions with your customers have a direct effect on your business.
Services Offered
The best telemarketing companies provide several types of inbound and outbound calling services. If you need help reaching customers, look closely at the telemarketer's outbound calling services. Many companies, including TeleContact Resource Services, assist with lead generation, market research, seminar and event registration.
However, inbound calling services are critical too. Some popular inbound calling services are customer assistance and technical support for a program or software. Not every telemarketer offers inbound services, but companies like West or Sound Telecom offer customer and technical support and are worth checking out.
Campaign Success Features
There are many different aspects of telemarketing services that influence your goals and campaign. Look for a telemarketing solution located in the U.S. Many telemarketing services are located overseas and hire employees for whom English is a second language. This may be an issue if your customers have a difficult time understanding and communicating with representatives, frustrating them and costing your business money. Every company on our list is based in the U.S. and employs native English speakers.
Another tool that can contribute to a successful campaign is script development. A well-developed script makes or breaks a phone call. The best telemarketing services help you create the perfect script for representatives to follow when speaking with your customers. This preparation helps telemarketing reps provide knowledgeable, professional customer service to your clients. It also ensures that the representatives deliver consistent information, which is important for marketing and sales.
Reporting
As with any type of marketing campaign, it's important to track the results of your efforts to measure your progress. Many call centers provide call completion and refusal reports.
A call completion report shows how many agents were able to complete the entire script with a customer before the call ended. A refusal report shows the number of agents who were not able to complete the script or how many individuals declined to make a purchase or take the survey. Many companies also offer customizable reporting options, so you can receive key statistics on the progress of your campaigns.
The frequency of reports is another important factor, especially if you are contracting with a call center on a time-sensitive campaign. Many telemarketing companies, including GenSales, give you the option of receiving daily reports, so you stay abreast of your campaign.
Help & Support
The support you receive from a telemarketing service is critical. After all, telemarketers will be interacting with your customers, and you want them to receive the best assistance possible.
In the event you have a question or problem, it's critical that you can reach the telemarketing service quickly and easily. All of the services on our list provide telephone and email support, and a few provide live chat. In addition, many telemarketing services have online resources such as FAQs and articles for finding answers on your own.
Which Telemarketing Service is Best for You?
Your business type and calling needs ultimately determine which telemarketing service provider is right for you. Some issues to consider, however, are how many outbound calls you want the telemarketing service to make or the volume of inbound calls the service can expect.
Also, if you're not looking for outbound callers, you may want to partner with a service that operates as a call center for your company and takes incoming calls from customers. Or perhaps you need a service that actively contacts customers and follows up on leads.
In addition to understanding the needs and goals of your business, also consider the following:
Necessary Telemarketing Tools
When you look for a telemarketing company to partner with, some services you may want to take a closer look at include business-to-business calls, lead generation and market research. Each of these tools is imperative for running a successful telemarketing campaign that can grow your business and all of the companies on our lineup offer them.
Business-to-business calls help you develop relationships with new clients, including other businesses. Lead generation is important, because it builds leads for your company and follows up with potential customers to convert them into sales. By outsourcing your business-to-business calls and lead generation, you can save your in-office staff valuable time so they can focus on other aspects of your company's daily operations.
Market research is another valuable practice that can save you money when it's outsourced correctly. A telemarketing service will conduct surveys of your target audience and gather data for you.
Telemarketing Services Contracts
Some telemarketing services have minimum requirements you have to meet for each campaign. These requirements can include a minimum time commitment as well as a minimum number of calling hours within a defined time frame.
You will want to carefully review and consider the contract before signing on with a telemarketing solution. Some companies may not require a long-term contract but, instead, require a minimum number of calling hours. For example, you might have to agree to at least 100 hours of representatives interacting with your customers.
Before agreeing to engage with any telemarketing service, understand the requirements. If you fail to meet them or break a contract early, you could be charged a fee or for the hours remaining in your contract, even if you have not used them.
