Some people may hate the intrusiveness of telemarketing but for businesses, it is a vital tool to generate leads. Businesses may use inbound call center software with auto dialers facility or entrust the task to contact centers to conduct such telemarketing campaigns. Telemarketing is a $ 500 billion a year business. Planning is key to success and using the right call center software is just as important as the auto dialer software that works in tandem. By the way, if your call center software does not have auto dialer or if it lacks certain features you can get these integrated with the help of call center software providers.
No more manual dialing
Legacy call center software requires agents to manually initiate a call using their deskphone or the softphone software. This takes up time. Further, if your agent gets a busy number or the call goes into an answering machine, there is further waste of time and effort. Auto dialer automates these tasks and does away with manual dialing.
Smarten up outbound calls
The normal way to conduct telemarketing campaigns is to pick a list and let the call center software initiate calls. You could bifurcate and distribute lists between agents. You can smarten up outbound calls with the use of intelligent auto dialer software.
Define parameters: A list may contain thousands of phone numbers of targets in different regions and locations. You can configure auto dialer to call targets only at a certain time when they are free to receive calls. The result? Your call goes to a person, not to an answering machine. You can just as well set parameters of age, income group or specific product selection to narrow down campaign and achieve more leads conversion. Weed out DND. It is important. Direct Marketing Association reports that they receive 4000 complaints and Federal Trade Commission receives about 18000 complaints about telemarketers.
Connect an agent only when call is picked up: The intelligent auto dialer detects when the call is picked up by a human and not by an answering machine. Only then does it transfer the call to the agent. You could configure the software to send out a message in the event an answering machine responds.
Detecting when agent is free to take a call: With a smart auto dialer in place you can configure it and train it to detect when an agent is nearing the end of an ongoing call at which point it initiates an outbound call. This ensures smooth flow and reduces stress on agent as well. Agents can focus more on interaction. The smart dialer automatically distributes calls and load on agents.
The direct outcome of the above to your telemarketing campaign is fluid and speedy process in which agents can do more, engage better with targets and convert leads.
Record calls and data
The goal of telemarketing is to get conversions but it does not happen during the first call. You get promising leads that must be followed up. The smart call center software with intelligent auto dialer automatically records calls and may even segregate leads for follow up into another list. At the same time you get immediate reports and you can generate reports based on parameters to help you help agents improve productivity and reduce time they spend on each call.
Automate it
Call center software usually has some degree of intelligence woven into it and that works in tandem with the auto dialer to help you automate telemarketing. Telemarketing need not always start with cold calls. You could just as well set up a campaign in which the IVR plays a central role. Your campaigns can be blasted using voice messages or SMS through the IVR. Then, when the recipient responds with an appropriate key press, your agents can swing into action. They are, in effect, pursuing a hot lead rather than a cold call. This strategy can help you make do with fewer agents and such agents can handle their task much better with higher success rates.
Multiple campaigns in distinct channels
The auto dialer component in call center software makes it easy to conduct multiple campaigns in parallel and in distinct channels. For instance, a mobile phone company could conduct telemarketing sales campaigns for various models and in various market segments using voice calls in addition to SMS and voicemail broadcasts. Leads can be kept distinct and you can get more done in a shorter time frame and with fewer efforts.
Businesses must find new customers all the time and telemarketing plays a pivotal role. You cannot proceed at a snail’s pace or afford to get things wrong. The auto dialer software gives a speed boost, assures connection to human respondents and makes life easy for telemarketing agents. If your call center or marketing wing does not have autodialer, make it a priority to get one.