Have you evaluated your telemarketing company?
There are several companies in the market struggling to make ends meet. With the
economies changing, it has become necessary for small as well as large businesses
to adapt to the market changes in order to make more sales and survive in business.
Telemarketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective methods of marketing
that businesses are investing in. It is helping them keep their sales pipeline full.
Many companies are choosing to outsource this service to a telemarketing agency in order to save time
and money. By hiring a reliable third party, they are taking advantage of their
expertise and experience and getting desired results.
Wondering how to evaluate a telemarketing agency for your business? Let us first understand how telemarketing
benefits businesses:
Telemarketing is an effective way to get word of your business out quickly. You can
do this and more at a low cost. Compared to other marketing methods such as print
and electronic advertising and website advertising, telemarketing is cheaper for
business owners.
In order to expand your business to new markets, telemarketing can be of great help
to you. It helps in creating a lot of new opportunities and finding new customers.
Through telemarketing, you can also keep the customers interested in new offers
and services. With each telemarketing call, you can also get instant feedback on
what your potential customers are saying.
Your customers will be able to ask questions directly to the telemarketers and get
an immediate response rather than having to wait for a reply to the email. Telemarketing and telesales companies
also help businesses in keeping a better track of their sales.
So if you have decided to hire a telemarketing agency, you will be one step closer
to setting appointments and building relationships with clients/customers.
But is it easy to choose a
telemarketing company? The answer is no. You need to make some effort, research
and compare at least two to three service providers in order to find one that you
can trust with your brand. Remember that your prospects or potential customers are
going to associate the telemarketers with your company. They will probably assume
that the telemarketers are a part of your company, so make sure you have hired an
expert team.
It is very important to evaluate a telemarketing company before signing a contract
with them. This is important because you will be handling a lot of power to the
firm. Unless you don’t trust them, it will become difficult to work with them. So
due diligence is necessary if you want to choose the best service provider for your
telemarketing campaign.
Here are some of the factors that you need to consider when evaluating a shortlisted
firm:
It is important that you are getting some references when hiring a telemarketing
firm because you wouldn’t want to take the risk of hiring a contractor you picked
from a phone book. You can talk to your colleagues and ask for references. If they
were satisfied with the results, then you can call those references.
When evaluating a telemarketing firm, it is necessary that you ask questions and
get clear answers. Remember that the telemarketing firm will be working for you
so don’t hesitate in asking them questions. Ask them about their experience, their
team, clients they have worked for, their work process and so on. Ask them how they
will be handling your project, who will be managing the projects and so on.
Third important method of evaluating a telemarketing company is to define clear goals.
It is necessary that you and your service provider are aware of what success will
look like. You would want to ensure a good return on your investment and this can’t
be evaluated if you don’t know what you will be getting out of it.
For your sales team, outbound telemarketing can be an extremely valuable tool. If
you are hiring a professional team for bringing in quality leads, then it will give
your sales team enough time to focus on their core competencies. So make sure that
you are choosing and evaluating the right service provider.
How to assess the success of your telemarketing campaign?
Be it B2C or B2B telemarketing, it is very important to know whether or not the telemarketing
activities are producing the desired results. Be it outsourced or in-house, it is
necessary for business owners to understand how to measure performance. This will
be needed for identifying and solving underlying problems that can affect the end
result of the telemarketing campaign.
Here are some of the metrics that you can take into consideration when measuring
the success of your telemarketing campaign:
You need to ensure if the database of your company is relevant and if telemarketers
are making calls to the right prospects or companies (in case of B2B). By comparing
the metrics achieved across different data segments on a regular basis, it will
be easy for you to understand how to narrow down data for the offerings.
In case of B2B telemarketing, you need to know how many decision makers have been
identified or confirmed. Even if the initial calls being made by the telemarketers
are not resulting in a big number of decision maker speak-to rates, every call should
include building up the data your business is holding. While it is easy to purchase
data with specific decision maker details, each call can be used to enhance the
details and refine the details to make them more relevant.
Make sure that the telemarketers are getting to speak to the right person and are
making the right number of calls. You should also analyse the percentage of decision
maker conversations that are generating leads. This will provide insight into how
effectively the telemarketers are handling the calls when speaking to the right
prospect. Calling activity is different in different campaigns. But in order to
get good results, it is necessary to make the right number of calls.
