16th August 2007
When a business considers outsourcing its outbound telemarketing activity, it should ensure it chooses a partner which can provide this service as part of its core competencies. Whilst there are many contact centres and telemarketing agencies that will be able to provide such a service, each will differ in its approach to the solution. There are a number of considerations, which are quite separate from the cost, that you should review when deciding who to work with. Here is a quick checklist:
1. Experience of the contact centre Does the contact centre have relevant experience of the type of calls you wish to outsource? Does the contact centre have any clients who you consider to be a direct competitor? Would this be an asset or liability to your own activity? Does the contact centre have directly comparable experience of the kind of work you are outsourcing? Can the contact centre provide examples of successful campaigns working within your industry sector?
2. Culture of the call centre – Does the contact centre feel like it can promote your brand products and/or services to your customers in line with your brand strategy? Does it understand your company ethos? Is the contact centre environment one in which you would be happy for your own staff to work?
3. Location - Where is the contact centre located? Best practice suggests that you, or perhaps a third party acting on your behalf if the contact centre is overseas, should make regular visits (or virtual visits using supporting technology) to the contact centre for training, monitoring and development of the agents handling your calls. You need to work with the contact centre’s account management team to ensure best practice is strictly applied and to review the campaign results. If the contact centre is difficult to reach at regular intervals this could compromise the effectiveness of your campaign. Regular visits allow you to build a rapport with your calling team and often facilitate a better communication flow and relationship. However, this does not mean that you should choose a contact centre based solely on its close proximity to your offices!
4. Consider the size and importance of your campaign to the contact centre – Will you be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a huge ocean? You need to be comfortable with the relationship.
5. Compliance - How does the contact centre propose to manage your campaign? For example, will they use automated dialling equipment to make calls? If so, can they demonstrate compliance with the relevant regulations / legislation? Is the proposed solution appropriate for your business?
6. Cost – The lowest cost may not be synonymous with the best quality. If the quote you receive from one contact centre is considerably lower than the quotes you receive from others, you need to consider why this is the case. The calculation below may help you to assess whether costs are reasonable:
Average cost per order = (sales per hour x average value of sale) – (average hourly rate / contact per hour)
If a prospective contact centre provides a quote that doesn’t appear to cover its costs, it is unlikely that it will be able to deliver good results and a service on your behalf, which is reliable and compliant with all the regulations. Some DMA client members have raised complaints that ‘rogue’ contact centre suppliers are providing very low cost quotations but when awarded a contract, simply do not complete the agreed work to an acceptable level.
It is our view that having an open and honest relationship with a contact centre or agency that has a good infrastructure and the right cultural fit with your own organisation is worth far more than a relationship based primarily on low costs. And it is much more likely to ensure there is no risk of damage to your brand.
At the start of any relationship, or even where a relationship is already in place, it is recommended you agree the following operational details:
1. Information to be provided to customers
2. Management of contacts and their data – including how this will be processed
3. Management of any automated dialling equipment used in your campaign and the reporting of performance achieved against tolerance levels. In the B2B environment campaigns with a calling list of less than 10,000 records should not require the use of automated dialling equipment.
4. General operating guidelines, including calling hours
5. Monitoring and recording of calls