Mastering Outbound Calling: Best Practices and Avoiding Spam Labels
22 October 2024Outbound calling might be a term you’ve never heard before, but you have interacted with examples many times; we’re positive.
One afternoon, your phone rings, and you decide to answer. At the other end of the line is a sales representative insisting you should buy the products from the company they work for. If you identify the goal of the call right away and have no interest in buying, you’ll hang up immediately.
If you are interested in the product or service, the sales rep’s pushiness might make you look for other means of purchasing or even opt for a different company—one, of course, that didn’t call you.
You might even go as far as labelling the number as spam, so you know never to answer their calls again.
When done right, outbound calls have many benefits. When done wrong, it can seriously jeopardize your company’s reputation. To ensure that doesn’t happen, here’s what we’ll cover in the next paragraphs:
What is an outbound call?
An outbound call is made by a call center agent to sell a company’s product or service to a new customer via phone call. Sales or customer service representatives are usually the people behind these communications.
Say you receive a call from your bank. It’s not your manager, and you’re not in trouble, but the person on the other side of the line speaks of your credit score and how you’re eligible for a new line of credit. They explain the benefits, interest rates – everything you need to know at once, barely taking a breath between phrases.
That’s a classic outbound call.
What is the difference between inbound and outbound calling?
The difference between inbound and outbound calling is simple: while a call center representative makes outbound calls, inbound calls are calls made by customers to the company’s customer service.
Using the example above: the bank calling you, out of the blue, to offer a new line of credit, is an outbound call. You calling the bank to ask for credit is an inbound call.
The goal of outbound calling is to:
- Create interest in a product or service
- Introduce a new feature
- Make new sales or close new deals
- Follow up with customers after sales
- Conduct market research
The goal of inbound calling, on the other hand, is to:
- Ask for information about a product or service
- Request any technical support
- Place a new order
- Make changes or adaptations to orders or subscriptions
- Raise awareness on issues or problems with products and/or services
Because of those differences, your business needs different approaches and strategies when managing inbound and outbound calls.
One thing to consider, for example, is that customer service expects to speak with someone when dealing with inbound calls. Outbound callers are not. Their calls might not be picked up, the receiver might be in a hurry, or they might disconnect the call at any given point.
And that’s only one of the many things you need to keep in mind when dealing with these types of customer touchpoints. For now, however, let’s focus only on outbound calls.
How to make a successful outbound call?
To make a successful outbound call, you can follow these steps:
1.Train your team extensively
Give your sales team the training and resources they need to make a good first impression when reaching out to potential customers. They need to know the company, products, and benefits by heart and be prepared to deal with questions and objections.
Features like Call Recording come in handy, as they are the perfect tools to record calls and use them in training exercises.
2.Invest in the right software
Having a good outbound call center software can make all the difference. The correct program will allow you to create an organized routine for your agents and track and prioritize calls according to your business goals.
For most softwares, you’ll need a VoIP provider to ensure flexibility and allow your team to make calls directly from their browsers, aligned with the workflow and priority lists.
3.Make the call
As with most human interactions, common courtesy goes a long way with outbound calls. So, when it comes to contacting your prospects, here’s what your team should aim for:
- Be mindful of the time of day: for example, avoid calling at noon or at 6 p.m., when people might be having lunch or dinner.
- Be kind, respectful, and knowledgeable: having a script helps, but remember you’re not a robot. Naturality goes a long way in these conversations.
- Be confident, but avoid overdoing it: a ‘no’ is a ‘no’. Have confidence in your script and try to sell the product and services as best you can, but avoid insisting too much, as it might drive prospects away from the business in the future.
4.Analyze your results
Here’s where features like Call Recording and Call Transcription shine. These features, plus your sales KPIs, help you analyze your sales team’s performance and use call data to understand engagement and conversion rates.
How do I register legitimate outbound calling use cases?
We all know about call spoofing and spam calls. So, how do you ensure that providers won’t block your outbound calling campaign?
To avoid getting blocked or labelled as ‘Telemarketer’ or ‘Likely Spam,’ you can follow these simple steps and register legitimate outbound use cases:
- Access the portal: Visit the Free Caller Registry portal to start the process.
- Submit your company’s details: Provide the required information about your outbound calls by clicking ‘Register Here’ on the website above.
- Wait for approval: After submitting all your information, it’s time to wait. Analytics Engines will vet your registration and contact you directly to follow up.
- Wait for updates: Once approved, your phone number updates will take a few days to take effect.
This process does not guarantee that your calls won’t be defined as spam or blocked in the future, but it helps to reduce the risk of it happening.
By following these steps and creating a top-notch strategy for outbound calling, you have every reason to succeed and gain new customers, or upsell your products to your existing clients. And, remember: you will need to review every part of the process frequently to ensure the best results, update and improve your agent’s working routine.
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