Is Telemarketing Dead?

Absolutely Not! Us humans are crafty creatures and as long as the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) is around, we will come up up with more and more clever ways of exploiting this technology to fit our businesses. Telemarketing call centers have come up with ingenious means of working around the laws intended to “regulate” telemarketing (The DNC, TCPA, etc). The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are trying to establish a federal do-not-call list where consumers register to block telemarketing calls. The telemarketing service industry has been constantly and tirelessly reinventing itself to catch up with the modern times and technology since the earliest telephones to the World Wide Web bandwagon. Online marketing might be phenomenal but telemarketing is still the backbone behind it.

Telemarketing can never die. As long as the telephone evolves with its system, models and features, so will telemarketing with the tenacity of a parasite to a host. Sure, you may read about a product or service in the newspaper, the TV. or even online, but when a question comes up, the answer is within a phone call away. Questions like “What’s in it for me? Is this likely to be interesting? Can it help me do my job better? Will this make me look good in front of my boss, the board or my peers? Can it drive revenue / reduce costs etc.” can be addressed immediately.

This explains why telemarketing is effective and why it undoubtedly works. A real relationship is established between the customer (both existing and potential) and the company. Though telemarketing is much maligned these days, it still remains a very effective marketing channel in todays modern business and society. Businesses profit greatly because they understand that telemarketing's power comes not from the ability to "push" unneeded products, but from a company's ability to offer products that once were sold by Agents to a now under-supplied marketplace.

Outsource Telemarketing Services for A Better Business

Development and profitability are two of the most important aspects in operating a business. For company owners and leaders, increasing income is always top of mind. However, revenue generation is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work and creativity to find and keep customers.

One of the easiest ways to develop your business is through telemarketing. Businesses have been using this method for many years to increase profits. Today, companies around the world either have their own telemarketing departments or outsource the service onshore or offshore.

Setting up an in-house telemarketing workforce is an expensive undertaking that is why organizations prefer to outsource telemarketing services.

Telemarketing companies play an important role in generating sales leads for businesses. It allows enterprises to have their sales representatives focus on following up on these leads and securing sales. The sales representatives' tasks have become easier and manageable as telemarketing agents have assumed the tedious job of prospecting. Many salespeople fear and avoid cold-calling and for this reason, telemarketing agencies have professional telemarketers in their arsenal to make cold calls.

Apart from being inexpensive, outsourcing telemarketing also saves companies a considerable amount of time and energy. They can concentrate on performing more complicated functions in their businesses and increase productivity levels significantly.

Engaging the services of a telemarketing firm is a practical choice especially in a time of economic downturn. Businesses can avoid spending a lot of money on establishing and training their own telemarketing teams.

Telemarketing service providers are able to handle all sorts of telemarketing projects at affordable costs, with qualified salespeople and superior work ethics.

Generating new business and transforming marketing strategies can be challenging, but with assistance from telemarketing industry experts, these tasks are simplified and the burden is reduced. Businesses can rest easy that their telephone-based marketing campaigns are well-taken care of, they have a steady flow of qualified leads and their income is guaranteed to improve.

Outsourcing for IT Leads

The process of generating sales leads for IT managed services providers and technology companies is very dissimilar to how lead generation is done in other sectors. The IT firms' needs are far more categorical and reaching the target audience is much more difficult. Furthermore, products and services are almost always complex, expensive, advanced and the analysis and selection process can take a long time, making the conversion rate painfully slow.

In selling technology, the target market is generally business-to-business and decision-makers (IT Managers, IT Directors or CIOs) are difficult to reach. In order to make a sale, one must have a wide understanding of the prospect's IT infrastructure, issues and goals and have a broad understanding of enterprise technologies and software.

Launching a full enterprise prospecting project such as technology sales lead generation can be difficult for companies especially for small and medium technology enterprises. Outsourcing this function might be the solution. Here are some of the benefits:

• Instead of using up their own resources, companies can add to them by engaging the services of an IT lead generation firm.

• Companies do not have to build their own expertise, all they have to do is hire instant lead generation experts.

• Outsource agencies provide their own training and manage their own employee turn-over.

• Companies can launch an enterprise prospecting campaign within days upon deciding to start.

• Multilingual capabilities through providers open up opportunities to access new markets.

• Outsource firms guarantee that companies only pay for the results by adhering to SLAs (Service Level Agreements).

• Rather than sourcing leads, companies can have their own sales forces focus on closing sales.

In addition, lead generation firms usually have enormous corporate databases and offer comprehensive marketing and web enhancement services that IT businesses can benefit from to increase their sales pipeline.

Outsourcing have several advantages but it is a must for all businesses to exercise due diligence in choosing the right lead generation company. Firms must take time in assessing providers based on their organizations' specific demands. If companies specialize in providing services for the B2B technology sector, providers must also have successful calling experiences and expertise in the IT industry. It is also important for clients to prepare for lead generation campaigns financially as extensive telemarketing projects can stretch company resources. It is better to prepare and plan budgets wisely.

Outsourcing sales lead generation to telemarketing firms could be a smart option for IT businesses, but selecting the right provider to meet goals and making sure that companies are in the right position to expand are keys to achieving lead generation success.

BENEFITS OF IT TELEMARKETING

Finding the right salespeople has become one of the major challenges MSPs (Managed Services Providers) are facing today. With so many IT solutions providers to compete with these days, the need to find excellent individuals to do sales and marketing has become of utmost importance especially for IT companies that are aiming for business growth. Good salespeople are difficult to find so this raises the question “where do you find the right salespeople?”

Although many businesses still use the “Rainmaker Model” (which is simply hiring a telemarketing individual at a low pay grade to call prospects and produce leads for the Rainmaker whose job is to close sales through on-site meetings), more and more companies today are outsourcing this very function to professional telemarketing firms. Various industries have been recognizing professional telemarketing as the best direct marketing channel for new business development, including the technology sector.

An IT company's growth depends on its ability to sell huge quantities of products and services to new and existing clients. This is why a constant flow of leads and sales opportunities is necessary to stay competitive in the technology industry. The challenge however is that most IT solutions providers have very few sales professionals in their organizations. Employees, who are mostly engineers, do not have the expertise to sell and cannot always be expected to assume the responsibility of a salesperson. This is where the advantages of telemarketing to generate IT leads and getting a professional to do it come in.

IT telemarketing allows solutions providers to:

• Conduct strategic market targeting and segmentation.
• Have access to well-qualified leads and appointments.
• Work with highly-trained professionals who understand the complexities of the IT industry.

In today's growing circle of technology solutions providers, retaining customers is difficult enough, let alone finding new ones. IT-focused telemarketing is a guaranteed way of securing those all-important business opportunities.

What Customer Contact Center Can Do to Satisfy Customers

Studies said that in order to be an excellent customer contact center it must provide clients excellent service before, during and after a purchase. Behind every successful company is exceptional service. Excellent service is the key to achieve customer satisfaction. Customer is one of the best marketing tools in any company, when more customers are coming in it immediately means more revenue for your company.

What are the things contact centers must do to keep customers satisfied? Here are some strategies you can employ to keep customers coming back.

Live operators - investing on real human beings to answer calls plays a pivotal role in customer service. Human voice assures warmth, it is more personal and a comfortable means to address customers complaints.

Faster service - In order to deliver faster service any company must develop a strategy that will effectively manage customer interaction. To solve this problem you must ensure that customers calls are answered the soonest time possible. If calls are answered quickly solutions are provided quickly which increases customer satisfaction.

Innovation - the contact center must be able to develop means to attract more customers but if there's only one strategy it might not be as effective in the long run. You know what customers want right, they always want something new. Be creative in engaging more customers, you can add in e-mail, chat and other networking sites to increase revenue.

Consistent quality service - the key to any contact center strategy is quality service. But it doesn’t end there it has to be consistent to deliver customer satisfaction.

Customer is one of the most important key in your marketing strategy, invest in finding better ways to serve them. When looking for a customer contact center they must be able to provide multiple communications channels. Look for a company who continuously improves its performance . If you'll be able to deliver these points for your customers then you'll be ensured of greater heights for your business.