Telemarketing has the highest response rate of any direct marketing tool, such as print advertising or email. This is because it has the capability to target market specific prospects who fit the buyer profile, and it allows for interaction to answer objections.
Typically, telephone calls made for sales or marketing are referred to as outbound telemarketing. Calls received for customer support, order processing or answering services are inbound. In-house or outsourced services are available for businesses, with offshore services now increasing worldwide.
Outbound Telemarketing
Outbound telemarketing is used by a telemarketer on the telephone to talk to prospects, for: tele sales, appointment setting, lead generation, research surveys and polls, information verification, business to business telemarketing and business to consumer telemarketing. Telemarketers call prospective business or residential customers to market or sell products or services. Call lists (that are usually demographically specific so the prospect fits the buyer profile) are provided to the telemarketers. After a contact is made the Call Center emails the information or does a “hot transfer” or “live transfer”.
Inbound Call Centers
Trained telemarketers receive calls from a prospective customer who qualifies himself by calling them. The incoming caller is usually motivated to call by an advertisement, catalog, or other outside information that provides this telephone number for some type of response.
Call Centers (or Call Centres – alternative spelling) provide Inbound services such as: customer service, answering service, order processing, email support, medical answering service, help desk, tech support, and 24/7 after hours service. It is called Inbound Telemarketing when used for: infomercials, cross selling and upselling.
Off-Shore Services
Using an off-shore service is often considered the most cost-effective approach for large inbound projects. It is operated from outside of the North American continent, and is usually generated from a: Philippine call center, India call center, or Pakistan call center.
In-house or Outsourced: Call Centers/Telemarketing Campaigns
With an in-house call center or telemarketing campaign, your business has total control over the whole process and will have to: set up a location within your business for telemarketers to call from, write the script, hire the telemarketers, do the training, oversee what they do, and monitor their results. They may also need to be able to process credit cards through your website, or have a call center merchant account.
The outsourced call center or outsourced telemarketing service handles all of these tasks from their own separate location. Some businesses prefer this option rather than setting up their own call center or telemarketing campaign in-house. Justifying the cost is usually based on the size of your projects and a comparison to outsourced pricing. It also may be more convenient to have this operation handled away from the business site.
Costs: Inbound CallCenter Services Outbound Telemarketing Services
In general, the larger your project, the lower your rate per call.
Usually domestic inbound call centers charge from 50 cents to $2.00 per call. Call packages are sometimes offered that include a certain number of calls, or minutes of phone time, for a flat fee. Outbound telemarketing services in the U.S. charge $20 to $40 per hour, with a $1,000 to $1,500 minimum per project. Off-shore call centers: charge range from $10 to $20 per hour, with a $5,000 minimum per project.
