5 Best Practices That Make an Outbound Call Center Successful

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5 Best Practices That Make an Outbound Call Center Successful
Various factors determine the success and failure of an outbound call campaign. However, there are some best practices that make an outbound call center more successful. So, an approaching campaign demands a thoughtful strategy.

1.Set Your End-Goals and KPIs

Before you kick off a campaign, you must set some clear, achievable, and explainable campaign objectives. You can sort out it by questioning yourself:

  • What is the campaign’s objective: a direct sale, surveying, making appointments or subscription renewal?
  • Which dialer would you use?
  • How much return on investment (ROI) would you expect?

Then, with proper planning and preparedness, set key performance indicators (KPIs). Actually, key performance indicators (KPIs) are discrete parts of the main goal. So, KPIs will be the foundation of your campaign.

On the other hand, measuring all KPIs time and again will consume more time and resources. That’s why I have elaborated a few yet important KPIs below:

  • Define average handle time (total calls duration/total number of calls)
  • Occupancy rate (on-call time vs idle time)
  • Conversion rate (no. of leads generation/total number of calls)
  • First call close (number of closes on first call/total number of calls)

2.Determine Whether You Will Use Script or Not?

If you opt to write a script for your outbound campaign, don’t tie your agent’s hands. Nevertheless, if agents find it difficult to speak their own words, a good script provides lean. However, make sure that agents are making calls without sounding unnatural and contrived.

Another best practice is to let the agents represent their voice and concerns for the sake of potential customer convincing. Again, you shouldn’t forget monitoring their performance.

On the other hand, you can imply the A/B test, monitor, and then map out the most effective tone, wording, and method to convince your prospects. Meanwhile, you can anticipate common objections and forestall them.

So, a collaborative venture of developing a suitable script will be more convenient for agents and welcoming for customers.

3.Engage the Prospect During the Call

When the prospect utters “Hi”, it is the defining moment. And the agent’s trial starts here as manners and mind-sharpness matters along with a clever script.

Though you can employ various methods to ace a cold, hot or surveying call yet the checklist of some generalized tactics is as follow:

·       Grab Their Attention As Soon As Possible

Kick off the call by calling the prospect’s name, show that you are interested in their situation and want to make it better thereof. On the contrary, never try centering the talk around selling or your opinions.

·       Make Them Feel Precious and Respectable

As soon as the prospects attend, make them feel that you respect their opinion and concerns. Also, it immediately reveals the purpose of calling. Moreover, you can talk about their business if it resonates with the end goal of your campaign.

·       Time Is Money

Be mindful that time is the most valuable thing in this world. So, realize them that you value their time before making a pitch. Make sure that agents are lean to the script or predefined methodology.

·       Don’t Make Fake Promises

At times, the prospect shows willingness more easily than your anticipation. However, whipping up the prospect’s urge, without knowing the actual situation, may lead to overconfidence.

In that case, the agent can make instant promises that may prove wrong later ending up with the permanent loss of a potential customer.

4.Offer Some Perks and Privileges

An effective campaign also includes the high morale of your agents. Though careful-hiring plays a decisive role, yet their skills and motivation must be kept reorganized.

So, you can offer long-term as well as short-term perks and bounces. Regular small prizes for daily competitions keep them motivated and fond of showing higher performance. On the other hand, monthly or quarterly commissions engage their long-term attention and interests.

However, provide these privileges on the basis of carefully measured metrics and not fear. So, adjust KPIs and assign them accordingly. Then, analyze the performance in an unbiased manner and reward thereof.

5.Feedback Loop: A Boon

You can measure the performance of an outbound call center by two means: either judging by the call quality or coaching call agents.

Yes, call monitoring helps the managers to measure the success rate of the campaign. On the other hand, the coaching and training after analyzing individual drawbacks will enhance the performance of an agent individually.

For example, you may notice an agent with higher engagement rates yet with s fewer lead generations. This is because the agent might be making promises with prospects that are not fulfilling later.

However, coaching and training should be one-on-one, dealing with a specific agent at a time. These personalized training will help them to sort out KPIs and thus leading to a higher success rate.

Never forget to keep an eye on the satisfaction level of your agents. This is as important as measuring their performance.

6.Track Your Customer Experience

T Tracking your customers’ feedback is important because you can analyze the churn rate or retention rate easily. Though the churn rate and retention rate are two sides of the same coin, yet most investors are interested in the churn rate.

So, keep track of the churn rate of your customers yearly if they are paying annually and track it monthly in case your customers are paying monthly.

Remember that a report from Harvard Business School shows that an increase in retention rate by 25% boosts the profit by 95%.

In Summary

In a nutshell, an effective strategy that includes clearly defined end goals, tracking prospects, providing proper training to agents, and keen monitoring will make a difference.

Also, managers should place themselves part of the team keeping their agents more motivated as well as professional. Keep tracking different tactics to make your call center more successful. Happy calling.

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