For as long as we remember, successful companies have been using outbound calling campaigns and today, this is something that is still going strong. Marketers in this day and age are using the power of the telephone line in order to improve the effectiveness of their other marketing efforts. When it comes to running a calling campaign, if you’re new to the scenario, then there are some things you need to know, otherwise, you could end up wasting your hard earned money.
There are a variety of factors that will determine whether or not the outbound calling campaign is a success or a failure – most of the factors are nesting in the right planning of such campaigns.
Make Sure You Use the Right Contact List
For starters, you obviously need to make sure you’re using the right contact list in order to avoid bad conversions. Every successful outbound calling campaign will start out with a qualified contact list, and the data is going to vary from one business to another.
Plan Your Objective
Before you decide it’s time to run a campaign, it is important that you take some time to plan your objective. During this time, decide exactly what it is that you wish to achieve from your campaign, then define the type of call campaign you would like to run.
There are various objectives that you can achieve through outbound call campaigns and these include:
- Collecting feedback – There will be times where you will want fast feedback on your services and products.
- Requesting a callback – For times when your customers would like to have a call back from your customer service team for additional information about their purchase.
- Announcements – For announcements like launching new products/services and updates that have occurred on existing services.
- Reminders – For reminding customers of their payment date and upcoming events.
Learn about Call Automation Software
A large portion of the successful companies have already automated their sales and marketing process. Why not take it a step further and automate your outbound call campaigns also?
Here’s how call automation can help:
- Record calls, which may come in handy for future use
- Save time as you will not have to do it by and
- Collect data based on call type
Help You Keep Track of Calls
What matters most in every call campaign would be the data. This is something that will help you understand the problems when it comes to communicating with your customers.
Here’s some important data points that many companies are tracking in order to help them determine whether or not their campaign is successful of a failure:
- Length of the call – How long did the telephone conversation last?
- Call success of failure – How many of the calls were a success, and how many were a failure?
- Call responses – Did the customer speak on the phone? If so, what was the response?
Don’t Jump Past the Testing
When it comes to outbound call campaigns, you should look at it like email, social media, and other digital campaigns – there is no one approach that works for everyone. By this, we mean that what works for one company may not work for you. It is important that you do some tests and figure out what will work best for you.
Here’s some tests that every outbound call campaign should go through:
- Area based testing
- Time-based testing
- Age-based testing
- Gender based testing
Two very important elements that can really make your campaign work involve testing and customer data segmentation.
The Time and the Day Matters
When it comes to your outbound call campaigns, it is important that you put some thought into the time and day of your calls. We believe the best time of day to place calls would be between 8 a.m and 9 a.m, which is right before most people leave for work and no later than 4 p.m and 5 p.m. when people haven’t had dinner yet. The worst time of day would be noon, which is when most people are having lunch. As for the day, Thursday would be the best day to call, and Friday would be the worst day. Also, if you live in an area that is prone to severe weather, you should take advantage of this as well, because that is the time when people are normally at home and are bored.
Stay on a Personal Note
Yes, professionalism should be a top priority during the call, but on the same note, the agents should not sound impersonal or robotic. When the agent is informed and speaking on a personal note, the chances of the call being successful will increase. You can write your own script in order to make sure you do not stumble on your own words.
Here’s some ideas for your script and explanations of each:
“Hello Jill, Jane here from (insert business name).”
If you don’t immediately identify yourself, the contact may hang up.
“Did I catch you at a good time?”
By asking this question, you are showing that you have respect for the individual’s time. It also shows that you understand that the person on the other end of the line may have other things to do.
“The reason I have called you is (state your reason).”
For obvious reasons, this tells the contact why you are reaching out to them.
“With your permission, I would like to speak with you for a couple of minutes in order to determine if this is something you could benefit from.”
This statement is asking for permission to have a conversation.
While a script is important, at the same time, it is important that you do not sound like a robot. Don’t sit there and read the script to them. Instead, before you place calls, practice the script so that the words come natural. Be like a stage actor – they rehearse until the words literally become their own.
Conclusion
In the end, remember practice makes perfect. When you first start out, if your first call doesn’t go like you intended for it to go, don’t give up. The worst possible thing that could happen is your contact saying “no,” which doesn’t leave you any worse off than you were before you called them.