Outbound Call Center Solutions
Call centers create valuable connections between customers (existing and prospective) and businesses. Even with today’s array of communication channels—from email and SMS to live chat and social media—the telephone is still a cornerstone of customer experience and business communication.
Outbound call center solutions help companies like yours to make the most of that crucial communications channel. The right ones can help you streamline call workflows, empower your sales team to close more deals, and generally take your outbound calling strategy to the next level.
What is an outbound call center?
An outbound call center is one where agents make outbound calls to customers and prospects.
Outbound calls are simply calls someone makes to reach another person or group of people on the company’s behalf. Typically, these are sales calls focused on building relationships, generating leads, and closing deals.
Chances are your team already places outgoing calls. They can be:
- Sales calls
- Collections calls
- Follow ups on leads
- Calls to promote new offers
- Calls to perform market research
- Fundraising calls
In the past, an outbound setup included a room full of agents equipped with hardware and devices like phones, computers, headsets, and desks.
Today, many companies have gone virtual, employing third-party outbound call center solutions like RingCentral’s RingCX that allow them to make calls from anywhere on any device.
Who uses outbound call center software?
You don’t have to be a global enterprise or handle large volumes of calls daily to benefit from outbound solutions.
Outbound calling is at the core of many companies’ operations. It’s a way for staying connected and doing business. Sectors that commonly use outbound call center software include healthcare, retail, government, education, high tech, financial services, real estate, and construction.
Examples of outbound call center services
An outbound call center solution streamlines the way you handle outgoing calls, which can serve multiple purposes, including:
- Appointment setting: Business-to-business or B2B appointment setting gives prospects a first glimpse at your goods or services. The goal is to get them interested in speaking with an outbound sales agent and eventually make a purchase. Securing qualified appointments is generally thought of as one of the most difficult areas of business development.
- Outbound lead generation: The way you entice potential customers and get them to give you their contact information is via B2B lead generation. You can think of it as the methods that make people interested in your brand and make them want to learn more about your products or services, and outbound calls play a significant role.
- Customer retention: Outbound sales isn’t only about targeting new customers. Efforts spent on keeping existing customers happy are just as valuable. Your strategy might focus on maintaining customer relationships by regularly conducting personalized calls to see if they need anything. Or you may target customers most at risk of churning.
- Market research: Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing information about your target market, competitors, and the industry in general. The data you gather may comprise the missing piece to your strategic sales efforts. Commonly used market research techniques including surveys, interviews, ,focus groups, and observations
- Telemarketing or inside sales: This is a type of direct marketing or outbound marketing wherein an agent solicits prospects to purchase their company’s products or services. You can do this over a phone call or through a subsequent face-to-face interaction. This is the most common use of outbound calling.
- After-sales collection: A sale isn’t complete until full payment is received. The last thing you want is to put any kind of pressure on customers. You can nudge them about their financial obligations over the phone, though, or through their preferred channel.
- Feedback: Post-purchase feedback is invaluable. Outbound calling allows you to survey customers over the phone. This could be immediately after a purchase or when they’ve had time to use your product or service. This will give you unparalleled insights into areas for improvement, whether that’s around marketing messaging, customer support, or the quality of the product itself.
Benefits of outbound call center solutions
The right outbound call center solution can make a real difference to your business in a wide range of ways. Here are just a few of the areas where you might see noticeable improvement:
Customer engagement
Advanced outbound calling features enable you to learn more about customer needs through market research and surveys. They also put data in front of agents, improving personalization efforts that empower customer satisfaction.
The best outbound call center companies will offer these features and services as part of a wider unified communications platform. You can combine all inbound and outbound channels in one location and integrate your call center software with other tools.
Centralizing your communications in this way ensures a consistent customer experience across channels.
Productivity and efficiency
There was a time when physical telephones could only make calls or place customers on hold. But virtual call centers come with built-in features like predictive dialing and CRM integrations that make outbound calling faster and ultimately more effective.
Agents are no longer distracted by flashing lights from waiting customers, thinking about who they’re calling next, or digging out information on each customer before placing a call.
Instead, all of the information is at their fingertips . They can streamline workflows by routing calls as needed, use features like automatic dialing to save time, and gain access to customer insights that give context to every call.
Data collection, reporting & analysis
Call center software takes the guesswork out of outbound calling. The best solutions give you access to reporting and analytical capabilities. For example, RingCentral’s platform gives you real-time access to performance data like call volumes, AI-powered customer sentiment, and powerful business analytics.
Tracking key call metrics like conversion rates and customer satisfaction give you direct answers to how your team is performing and how effective your strategy is.
Now, agents can be more proactive and effective when making calls. What’s more, managers can monitor agent performance and campaign effectiveness to make future improvements.
Scalability & flexibility
Virtual call centers are hosted in the cloud, so there’s nothing stopping you from scaling up.
As your business grows, you can immediately adjust resources without significant investment. That means minimal physical infrastructure, minimal overheads, and minimal maintenance costs.
Expanding internationally? You can do that, too. Outbound call center solutions give you the freedom to support calls across different regions and time zones so you can expand your market reach as and when needed.
Essential tools and features of outbound calling services
Outbound call centers should equip your teams with the tools they need to be more productive and effective.
Here are some common features that will empower them to succeed:
- Outbound dialers: Depending on your outbound calling campaign, you can use preview, progressive, or predictive dialers (more on each below).
- Agent scripting: Agents get prompts and screen pops so they can deliver more personalized customer experiences.
- Call blending: Manage outbound (and inbound) calls more efficiently, so agents are never idle.
- Real-time and historical insights: Get historical data and analytics tools, with reporting capability on different metrics.
- Integrations: Your chosen solution should feature an integration ecosystem of popular CRMs like Salesforce or Zendesk. This makes calls more relevant and effective, enabling agents to create campaigns on the fly and prioritize hot leads.
- Privacy and risk mitigation: Ensure your chosen platform prioritizes security. For example, RingCentral offers a full-featured manual dialing system with built-in tools to mitigate risks. If you want to call people who haven’t opted into your campaign, manual calls are the way to go.
Types of outbound dialers
Preview dialer
As soon as an agent becomes available for a call, they receive detailed prospect or customer information to review before the software dials a number.
With access to such data, they can better engage and build a personal connection with who they’re going to speak to. Preview dialers are best for high-value interactions like debt collection.
Progressive dialer
The answer is through online fax software, programs, or services that you can run on a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
That way, you can send and receive e-faxes from any device with an internet connection.
One of the top fax software solutions right now is provided by RingCentral. Businesses can choose the Fax 3000 plan for a standalone online fax service, or upgrade to a RingEX unified communications plan to get messaging, video, phone, and SMS, too.
RingCentral provides an easy and convenient way to fax via computer. Simply add the recipient’s phone number, attach the document you want to fax, and send.
Predictive dialer
Unlike a progressive dialer, which dials a number the moment an agent becomes available, a predictive dialer dials a number before an agent becomes available. It connects calls as soon as the previous interaction is over.
The result? You’re able to place calls at high rates, making predictive dialing the method of choice for straightforward sales and telemarketing campaigns as well as fundraising and public awareness efforts.
RingCentral also offers manual dialing to mitigate TCPA risks. Keep in mind that customers are protected by the TCPA, or the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which protects consumers from unsolicited calls, particularly on cell phones.
Best practices for handling outbound calls
Outbound calling requires careful planning. You want to make sure your agents are fully prepared to execute your strategy.
Follow these best practices and you’ll be on your way to winning over prospective customers and keeping those you’ve already got:
Do your pre-call prep
Be sure your agents are fully aware of your campaign goals. Are you out to introduce a new product? Gathering contact information? Surveying the market? Who’s your market to begin with? You need to answer these questions when defining your outbound calling campaign.
Engage potential customers
It’s crucial that you pique the interest of a potential customer from the get-go. Otherwise, they’d hang up before you even mention anything about your product or service. Think about it: If they hang up, they really have nothing to lose.
An outbound call center solution with CRM integration should give your agents a wealth of information about prospects before they even make the welcome call. With some intel, they’ll be able to say the right words and make customers feel valued.
Time is of the essence—you know it
If you think time is valuable, then you can bet your customers and prospects feel the same way. You want to talk to new leads and not waste outgoing calls on anything that won’t help you increase sales.
It’s polite to ask your prospect how much time they have before launching into your sales and marketing pitch. And when you do, be straightforward.
Be clear and make your cold calls work!
Train and coach your outbound call center agents well so they’re able to speak clearly and naturally. When they’re nervous, potential customers will notice and be put off.
The ability to speak with confidence comes with practice and sufficient knowledge of your consumer products or services. Even if your agents have a script, knowledge and confidence will make them sound more human and less of a tool.
Be particularly clear when discussing topics like pricing, which may become a source of confusion. Keep in mind that when people are presented with technical terms or multiple options, they can get overwhelmed and may struggle to make a choice.
In that case, your agents should be able to simplify things so customers can digest them more easily.
Never bad-mouth your competition
Trashing your competitors is downright unprofessional. You don’t want to lose potential customers’ trust by promoting your business at the expense of another.
One more thing: Ever heard of spontaneous trait transference? It’s a psychological phenomenon in which people see in you the very traits you say of others. So, instead of talking about how bad another firm’s services are, focus on what makes your services great.
Trust your outbound call center technology
A successful outbound call center uses the right technology. Yes, it all starts with having an efficient team of agents. But equipping them with advanced features that come with the right outbound call center service will take your outreach efforts to the next level.
What’s the best outbound call center software for my business?
The best outbound call center solutions will fit your needs without going over your budget. It’s the solution that has all the bells and whistles (outbound dialers included) to help your business achieve its specific goals, be it customer acquisition, customer retention, lead generation, or market research.
Let RingCentral be your contact center partner. View our demo and see why RingCX is the best solution for outbound call centers.
Outbound call center solutions FAQs
- Inbound call centers receive customer calls. They tend to be more customer support-based, hence they’re what we often think of when we hear the term “call center”.
- Outbound call centers initiate customer calls. They typically revolve around sales or collections.
- Appointment setting
- Lead generation and lead qualification
- Telesales
- Direct response marketing
- Staffing
- Patient outreach and other healthcare-related tasks