Many companies have found that outsourcing their telemarketing needs to call centers can save them a bundle of money, time and odin99, but few really know how to select the best telesales company for their needs. Many companies offer a wide array of services like lead generation, appointment setting, inbound and outbound telemarketing, business to consumer and c2b.
With the advances in today’s technology companies have access to a huge line of tools and excellent products like real time reporting and remote call monitoring capabilities.
Surprisingly many businesses chose their call center service providers based on their fancy technology and not their ability to produce results. This is like betting on a race where the car is super fast but the “driver” has little or no skills at all. In today’s market there are hundreds of companies offering high end technology and cheap call center pricing. Such popular appeals are the $9 dollar per hour caller programs, but buyers beware, you get what you pay for.
Like the need for a skilled car driver business need a highly skilled person to be effective. It is highly unlikely that anyone will pay $9 an hour for a telemarketer and actually end up with a person that has any sales skills whatsoever. These low cost companies hire non-skilled employees with talents that are limited to reading the script on their computers. There business is built 100% on the “it’s a numbers game rule”, or the fact that if a caller makes enough calls he or she will eventually close a deal.
When a company begins interviewing prospects they would be well served to find a company that has experience in business to business sales. Agents that are skilled at selling by phone are 50 times more likely to set an appointment, create a lead or convince a prospect to make a favorable decision. Make no mistake, at the end of the day it is all a selling game.
It is best to stay far away from companies that do not allow a testing period prior to engaging in a long term costly contract. A company that believes in it’s employees will have no hesitation allowing a client to try their services but they can expect to pay somewhere between $35 to $45 per caller hour. This may seem like a chunk of change but if someone were to calculate the math they would soon discover that doing this in-house would cost around $11 per hour for the telemarketer (plus benefits) and then they still need to build in the managers, phones, computers and extra office space.
An in house campaign can run a small office upwards of $50 hour and if that’s not reason enough to outsource the work it would also be wise to keep in mind that they may not able to develop a script or find good talent to do what many consider a painfully brutal job with little satisfaction. Further, most business have no idea how to run a call center and moreover have no interest in the headaches of the time and money that goes into running one.
