Outbound Calling Strategy
How to get the best from your outbound calling? Being successful with outbound calling does not just happen by accident, it takes planning and strategy. The key points to the thinking about are:
- The source data
- How the data is used
- The people
- Efficient access to the data
- Efficient calling
- The conversations
- The call-back strategy and re-use
- Call monitoring
- Call reporting
Source data
What data are you using? is it a random list or is it highly targetted to to the people most likely to buy your products and services?
How the data is used
What are you going to do with the data – door-to-door, social media, physical mailshots, email campaigns, phone calls?
The people
It takes a certain sort of person to be able to do high volume calling. If you’ve not got the right sort of people, the operation will fail.
Efficient access to the data
Will callers just be doing their own thing using data in a spreadsheet, using a database designed for another purpose, or using a database designed for calling?
Efficient calling
How will callers dial the phone? Will they pick up a handset and press the buttons, or will the database system just dial automatically?
The conversations
What are your callers saying when the call connects? Who are they asking for? How do they get past the gate-keeper? How should they engage the person they get to talk to? What’s their elevator pitch? Are you giving them free reign on what they say or giving them a strict call script to work to or read?
The call-back strategy and data re-use
Having called a record, what next? Is the data dead or do you schedule a call-back, if so, for when? How will it be actioned?
Call monitoring
Do you just leave callers to do their own thing, or monitor them to make sure they’re doing what you planned?
Activity reporting
If you don’t know what your callers are doing then you’ll lose control. The only way to check activity is by constant reporting. It should be possible to call 100+ records per day per agent, if you’re far away from this then there’s something wrong – either the system or caller’s motivation etc