The Definitive Guide to Telemarketing for Your Business
There came the point when at Enjay IT Solutions, we realized that we needed to move beyond just face-to-face meetings to increase our customer base. We had been far too dependent on our sales team identifying prospects, trying to set up appointments with them, meeting them and trying to convert a lead into a sale. The process took too much time and hampered our growth.
To solve this problem, we built a telemarketing team to generate leads for our sales team and convert incoming inquiries into sales. The result was that our customer base didn’t just improve; the quality of leads we generated increased as well.
In this post, we shall discuss:
- What is telemarketing
- Statistics about telemarketing and call centres which you should know
- The basics of telemarketing for your business
- How to build a useful script for your telemarketing team
What is Telemarketing?
Telemarketing is a service that involves connecting with prospects and customers over the telephone and moving them ahead to take action which benefits them and the company. It includes activities that create interest, generates opportunities, provides information, collects customer feedback, makes appointments and qualifies leads on the telephone.
The most popular form of telemarketing involves calling making calls to individuals and businesses and pitching a product or service to them (also known as telesales). Lately, however, the scope of use for telemarketing in India has expanded.
For instance, if an educational institution can use telemarketing to spread the message about a seminar on how students can improve their focus and study habits. Political parties have started using telemarketing to raise funds, collect feedback, and convince people to vote for them.
The scope of activities for which telemarketing gets used in India has increased in the last decade
Telemarketing is generally of two types:
A.Outbound telemarketing, where the callers reach out to prospects and customers for a specific reason.
B.Inbound telemarketing, where advertising leads customers to reach out to a specific number and speak to callers in search of information or to make a purchase, e.g. Teleshopping Network.
Lately, automated telemarketing, where pre-recorded messages can be delivered to thousands of people each day using an automatic dialer, has gained prominence.
5 Call Center Statistics You Should Know
1.66% of consumers use three different communication channels on an average to contact customer service. (source)
2.95.7% of contact center (and telemarketing) professionals view customer satisfaction as the most important call center metric. (source)
3.83% of callers would avoid a company after a poor experience with an IVR system. (source)
4.The software market for call centers was $16.28 billion in 2018. (source)
5.The Indian company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the leading call center service provider in the world. (source)
The Basics of Telemarketing for Your Business
If any of the goals mentioned above are relevant to your business, telemarketing can help you achieve them at a larger scale.
Many small businesses and medium-sized businesses have started using telemarketing today because modern technology is not restricted to 100 or 200-seater companies. It can also be used effectively by companies deploying two or three callers.
Here are some basics of telemarketing if you want to set a system like that up for your business: