Outbound call center solution: meaning, benefits, and must-have features
Call centers are in most cases considered to process inbound calls as their main business purpose. An outbound call center solution is considered an “add-on” solution for inbound contact centers because people think that outbound calls can’t be the main business activity of a call center. Nonetheless, an outbound call center solution, even if it is used in pair with an inbound contact center, is a really beneficial tool for any business, no matter which industry it is working in.
So, what is the outbound call center definition? What are the main industries which may need outbound call center solutions? What are the must-have features of an outbound call center? What benefits can it offer for your business?
Outbound call center meaning
The outbound call center is the business division that handles outbound calls (outgoing calls), which means such a department doesn’t service any customer support calls initiated by clients. Its main goal is to perform massive outbound calls for sales, lead generation, or feedback collection (or any other) purposes, but the most important part is telemarketing.
Outbound telemarketing is still an effective tool for generating sales and qualified leads, even though some people state it is “dead”, “useless”, and so on. Most studies prove that companies, that do not invest in outbound telemarketing, earn less money than those that do invest in it. Moreover, the overall growth of the outbound sales market is still stable and even growing from year to year, which means outbound sales aren’t just an “old-but-gold” sales strategy, but an efficient tool that has proven its relevance after dozens of years of its successful work.
Outbound call centers don’t have to be a separate department, it can be a part of a blended call center – a contact center that handles both inbound and outbound calls and other requests at the same time.
Industries where outbound call centers are widely used
The outbound call center is a really beneficial tool, but before we’ll move to the exact benefits and advantages they can offer to you and your brand, let’s find out which industries use outbound call centers the most.
Insurance companies
The insurance industry is one of the most competitive business niches in the world, and that’s why the task of generating new customers and reaching out to potential customers is very important for insurance brands. The main influential factor on a buyer’s decision when purchasing insurance is price, but still, different insurance are very different in detail, no matter what type of insurance contract we discuss – car insurance, house insurance, or health (life) insurance. These vital details which are difficult to find for buyers during their own research may become powerful arguments for sales pitches and help insurance agents get more customers.
Real estate
The situation with the real estate business is quite similar to the insurance indsutry, because of the high competition and lack of trust from potential clients. Real estate agents are the most interested in getting new cold leads because they are often limited in the geographic frames of their business, which means that every lead becomes even more valuable.
Debt collection
Debt collection agencies are those who can’t work without outbound call center services, at least because their main business need is to perform hundred of outbound calls per day. This is almost impossible without outbound calling software, so debt collectors are the business niche that depends on outbound calling.
Benefits of outbound call center
More sales
Outbound call center software provides you with specifically designed software tools for outbound call automation, which means that the overall number of calls you can perform per day will be much higher than if you do outbound calls manually. This means that the overall number of successful calls will also be higher, but what is the most important fact is that such a tool as a Predictive dialer provides an average conversion rate of over 2,5% when manually it is lower than 1%.
Better agent satisfaction
Agents will feel frustrated if you push them to call hundreds of phone numbers per day manually, so one of the vital business goals is to avoid providing agents with routine and manual work which may harm their motivation. The outbound call center has powerful automation options for agent work, and this allows agents to be involved in real-time conversations with clients only, without spreading their attention to less important tasks that can be automated.
Higher connection rates
With the use of an outbound call center solution, the average success rate (connection rate) is over 75%, while manually it is rarely higher than 30%. Connection rate shows the percentage of dialing attempts that were answered by leads and finished as real conversations between sales agents and clients. Even though there are various outbound calling tools that have different average success rates, they all are greatly higher than they are for manual dialing agents.
What features should your outbound call center include?
The three main features of an outbound call center are its dialing modes, including Predictive, Power (Progressive), and Preview dialers.
Predictive dialing mode is an automatic dialing tool that is also the fastest dialing tool available, with an average dialing speed of over 100 dials per hour (compared to 30-35 manually), its main feature is the ability to dial a new phone number even when agents are in live call thanks to an advanced algorithm that allows the Predictive dialing mode to understand when the ongoing call will end.
Power dialer calls phone numbers from the list one by one, which means it is a bit slower than Predictive dialing mode, with over 75 dials per hour, but it needs only one agent to work properly, while its “bro” needs at least five agents.
Preview dialer is designed to handle conversations with special customers, because it shows customer cards before and during each call with detailed data about a customer – previous purchases, preferences, status, etc.
