A detailed guide on outbound call center, an operation that that startups to enterprises perform to achieve multi-fold sales
‘Deal Won’ is the message every team wishes to see at the end of every day. Would you believe there is a strategy that most businesses follow to achieve this?
Its Outbound Calling
And how do they do it?
They simply set up an outbound call center.
You are curious to know more about this and I understand!
In the next few minutes, I will walk you through,
- What exactly is outbound call center
- Some practical examples
- Why outbound call centers
- Features in outbound calling softwares
- Quick tips on building the best outbound call center
Ready? Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
What Is an Outbound Call Center?
An Outbound call center is a remotely managed operation that makes outbound calls to customers and prospects for sales, surveys, fundraising or updating the customer.
You can typically set up an outbound call center in an office or have your customer service agents run the entire show remotely.
Outbound vs. Inbound Call Center: What’s The Difference?
We’ve all come across the term ‘call center’ now and then. But the ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ in them might raise ambiguities, as in, how they are practically different from each other.
So this section is all about the differences.
Here’s a quick list you can skim through to understand these operations better.
Coming back to the subject matter, let us better understand Outbound call centers with a few examples of how they really operate.
Examples of Outbound Call Centers
Most of the businesses run outbound calls, but for distinct purposes. Let’s look into some of the practical use cases of how outbound call centers operate for different businesses.
Telemarketing
One of the primary applications of outbound call centers is the promotional calls. In telemarketing, the first thing agents do is – they collect customer info, and understand their intent and preferences. Next they identify the potential customers and get into calls to convert them into sales qualified leads.
Telesales
These are the calls customers get right after they inquire about a product/ service on a company’s website. When the customer registers on a website to explore a product or service, it typically means they need it or are planning to get one soon.
Using this information, companies employ their representatives to get on quick sales calls to explain more about the product or service, and eventually lead them into buying it.
Collection calls
These are calls made by the loan departments in banks and financial institutions that need to remind its debtors on an upcoming/ missed monthly installment.
Survey and feedback calls
Growing companies love to take surveys and feedback from its customers. Whether it is about a new purchase, the customer experience around the purchase, a new product/ campaign launches, companies get out there to find if the customer is happy or not, or if the product is a hit or not.
Benefits of Outbound Call Centers
While there is a preconception that outbound calls are mostly for sales, it is important to understand that there are a lot of companies that have put themselves out in the field to reach customers and really connect with them.
Yes, there are reasons why outbound call centers are great when it comes to delivering the best customer experience. Let’s look into each one of them.
1. You can proactively generate leads
You contact a customer once. They get to know your brand. You contact them again, they will understand your product/ service better. Maybe before the next call, they’ll already get into the idea of buying your brand. This is what proactive outbound marketing can do to your business.
2. You start to give the best customer service
Rather than the customer calling your company again and again to resolve an issue, stepping in to help them until things are fine, is itself a great retention strategy. The product/ service sometimes messes up, but the efforts you put into giving the help the customer needs, without pushing them to the point of frustration, well, that’s exactly what outbound centers let you do.
Key Features of Outbound Call Centers
An Outbound call center software has a lot of features that get sales done efficiently. Let’s look into some of the top offerings:
Advanced Call Automation and Tracking
With the right call automation tools, outbound operations become more efficient. These tools automate call logging, track performance, and provide detailed insights through advanced analytics. By integrating seamlessly with your existing workflows, they allow agents to focus on high-priority tasks while staying organized, leading to more effective customer interactions and higher conversion rates.
Auto dialers
Imagine your customer service agents calling every customer one by one to update on a service outage. By the time, 1/4th of the work is done, the outage would be resolved, leaving other customers kept in the dark.
This is where outbound call centers offer an auto-dialer where you can record a message and send it to all your customers simultaneously, in just a click.
Unified dashboard
Your agents are going to handle a lot of calls on a daily basis. And they are not going to remember who exactly they spoke to and what they spoke to the customer last time.
This might cause a mess, if the agent does not have a record of the previous conversation, especially if they are headed to talk to a frustrated customer.
A unified dashboard sorts this out by giving access to customer info in one place and letting agents personalize the conversations accordingly.
Channel switching
People just don’t have time for long IVRs and boring emails these days. Sometimes, short-texts or quick-calls would do.
Agents can study the patterns of their customers, schedule chats or emails as per the customer’s convenience. Plus, if they need to change the mode of contact, the customer can do it effortlessly with the call center app. Provided, the agents will have access to all the conversation details, across all channels.
Best Practices for Outbound Calling
We are right at the stage where we know why to use outbound call centers and how to use it. But to make the best out of it, we need to follow certain guidelines or maybe, some good practices.
So, here’s how you do it:
- Plan your campaigns clearly
Outbound calling is a serious responsibility. You must know your objectives, roles, KPIs and timeframes better to achieve the maximum out of your efforts.
- Make good use of those dialer tools
Save ample time while increasing the number of outbound calls your agents make in a day with automated dialers.
Build Your Outbound Call Center With MirrorFly
If you are all set to build a full call center app for your outbound operations, you must consider MirrorFly.
Why am I recommending MirrorFly?
Gone are the days businesses employ a big team of developers to build every element of their app from scratch. You’ve got pre-built solutions now. In this line, MirrorFly is a highly reliable call center solution that has been in the industry for around 17+ years.
Understanding the ins and outs of call center operations, MirrorFly offers a self-hosted solution to build a white-label call center, which typically can be launched in 48 hrs.
Don’t just be surprised! MirrorFly has got more. It provides real-time APIs and SDKs that comprise over 1000+ video, voice and messaging features that you’ll want to add to your call center platform.
Plus, the entire source code is given to you, allowing you to customize the platform as much as you want, with your own brand elements (without mentioning MirrorFly anywhere).
Overwhelming? Take your time, there’s a lot more you need to know about this amazing solution. Just contact the team, whenever you want and be in awe of what else you can do with MirrorFly!
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