What is an outbound contact center?
The right outbound contact center solution could be key to the success of your sales and marketing teams. Learn all you need to know about outbound contact centers and the benefits a platform like RingCentral RingCX can provide.
For many businesses, contact centers operate as the hub of their customer communications and sales and marketing efforts. The former are usually handled by inbound call centers or contact centers where agents take calls from people who need help, working to improve customer experiences as well as nurture pre-existing relationships with those who call.
Outbound contact centers, on the other hand, are those which are more commonly involved with sales and marketing efforts—although, it’s not always quite that straightforward. Let’s get everything cleared up with an ultimate guide to outbound contact centers.
What is an outbound contact center?
At its simplest, an outbound contact center is one focused on reaching out to people outside a business on behalf of that business. That’s as opposed to receiving calls or other means of contact from people outside the business.
How does an outbound contact center work?
A contact center is a business department composed of agents who interact with individuals outside of the company—usually customers or prospective customers.
Traditionally, those interactions were all over the phone—hence these departments used to be known as call centers. Today, other communications channels—like live chat—are also popular. That’s why contact center and, by extension, outbound contact center are now more widely used.
The difference between inbound and outbound contact center services
When it comes to inbound vs outbound contact centers, the principle difference lies in the purpose and activities of each:
- Outbound contact centers: While working in an outbound contact center, agents reach out to prospects, customers, and others—often for lead qualification and sales efforts.
- Inbound contact centers: An inbound contact center, on the other hand, accepts communications coming into the business, managing the customer story to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.
Types of outbound contact centers:
Agents who work in an outbound contact center may connect with leads through a variety of methods and for a number of reasons.
Those will be determined, at least in part, by the type of outbound contact center it is:
Sales-oriented outbound contact centers
These are the most recognizable examples of outbound contact centers.
They’re designed to generate revenue by direct outbound sales calls or other examples of outreach. Agents or sales reps contact prospects with the intention of closing a deal.
Lead generation outbound contact centers
These contact centers are similar in that their ultimate goal is to aid sales. Lead generation activities, however, happen earlier in the sales pipeline.
Agents in this type of contact center aim to draw new prospects to the company so you can sell to them later.
Market research and survey outbound contact centers
Outbound calling and outreach isn’t always about sales. A market research contact center is one where agents reach out to ask for peoples’ opinions or feedback—often via surveys.
Proactive outbound contact centers for support
You don’t always have to wait for customers to contact you with issues. An outbound contact center for customer service sees agents reach out to customers instead.
Perhaps a product update means one of the functions will work slightly differently. Your outbound contact center agents might get in touch with existing customers and users to let them know before it causes a problem.
Why do outbound contact centers matter?
Outbound contact centers provide significant value to businesses across multiple dimensions. Understanding their impact can help determine whether implementing one aligns with your business objectives.
Here are the principal benefits of outbound contact centers that demonstrate their importance:
They can help drive revenue
Outbound contact centers used for the traditional sales purposes are effective in reaching more prospects, closing deals, and driving revenue.
They can help you build better customer relationships
Proactive customer support via an outbound contact center is good for your customer relationships. Reaching out to them to offer help or guidance—sometimes that they didn’t even realize they needed—shows how much you care.
It helps to build trust and therefore loyalty with your customers. Those are the foundations for longer-lasting relationships and increase your chances of turning customers into brand advocates.
They can boost productivity
Getting in touch with customers proactively can also be a boon for productivity. After all, forewarning customers of changes or potential issues means fewer panicked calls if things do go wrong.
What’s more, if you choose the right outbound contact center solutions they can integrate seamlessly with other tools to create more efficient workflows across your center.
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The best outbound contact center software: Features you can’t do without
Today, outbound contact center solutions are typically software-based. The best outbound contact center services are critical to meeting your organizational goals, whether they be in the areas of sales, customer service, or something else entirely.
RingCentral RingCX is an omnichannel solution which includes all of the following outbound contact center software features, and a whole lot more besides:
Dialer tools
Arguably the most fundamental features of an outbound contact center solution are customizable dialer tools. Outbound software uses a variety of dialer tools to efficiently connect businesses and customers.
With a solution like RingCentral RingCX, these tools include predictive dialers, preview dialers, and progressive dialers:
Predictive dialers
These tools use a combination of data and algorithms to “predict” when an agent will finish their current call. In the meantime, they autodial new numbers to limit the amount of agent downtime.
Some calls end in voicemails, busy signals, or disconnected numbers, so the dialer also estimates the number of calls that will go through to keep agents busy and queues full. A predictive dialer improves efficiency and frees up agent time so they can focus on connecting with customers, not making more calls.
Preview dialers
The unknown can be one of the worst parts of cold calling. With a preview dialer, you can give your agents helpful information about the customer—before the call connects.
This preparation is invaluable to outbound contact centers. Agents can see and understand all of the info you have on that particular lead before speaking with them. It gives agents time to adjust their strategies and mindset to increase the likelihood of getting the response they need. This support helps your employees feel and perform better, keeping everyone happy.
Progressive dialers
Progressive dialers address the most frustrating flaw of automated dialing; connecting agents to dead calls and voicemails. Rather than dialing more to make up for unsuccessful calls, this dialer focuses on the quality of the calls it makes.
By making fewer calls, it ensures that agents and customers always connect to a person immediately. Your agents will be able to spend more time having valuable conversations and less energy on calls that don’t provide results.
Customizable caller IDs
The number or other information that appears on a call recipient’s phone can make a big difference to how likely they are to answer the call. That’s why you want any outbound contact center app to allow you to customize your caller IDs.
With RingCentral RingCX you can set up caller IDs for campaigns or users, and manually select your chosen ID for calls, too.
Call recording
Call recording is another must-have of any outbound contact center software. Sometimes, recordings may be mandatory for compliance purposes, and they can always prove useful for training.
A healthy database of recorded calls—both good and bad—is great for guiding agents to improve their own calls. Supervisors and managers can listen to the recordings, pick out strengths and weaknesses, and tailor training accordingly.