Tips to Improve Your Outbound Call Answer Rate
16 billion mobile devices were operating worldwide in 2022. With approximately 8 billion people in the world today, our devices now surpass us 2:1.
There is rarely a time when we are disconnected from technology and voice is the most ubiquitous channel to reach consumers worldwide. But with increased access to connect with customers on the phone, there is more room for spam calls. Customer skepticism of who is calling translates into many calls going unanswered or sent straight to voicemail.
What about valid business calls? How do customers discern what is legitimate and who they can trust? Outbound call services are vital to your sales efforts, which in turn increase answer rates and bolster access to new revenue.
To improve your outbound call answer rates, start by implementing the five tips below.
1. Call with a local number
Companies that don’t display a familiar Caller ID miss out on more than 75% of answered calls. By identifying and selecting the right phone numbers from which to make calls, outbound call answer rates can grow.
Local Presence Dialing is a business outbound voice service that displays a local area code and phone number of the city or region in which your customers and contacts reside, regardless of where your contact center agents or salespeople are calling from. You may also see this referred to as Local Caller ID (LCID).
There are numbers with better call termination success rates than others. Agents and sales teams will have the most success making outbound calls using Local Presence Dialing phone numbers – also known as Local Direct Outward Dialing (DOD) numbers.
These numbers elicit a local brand presence and better engagement opportunities because, with local numbers, the calls feel familiar and trustworthy. Add in two-way voice capability and return calls are more prevalent, further upholding the brand’s local presence in their mind.
As your business establishes itself in a market over time, number porting is an option if you want to keep your existing outbound numbers even when you move to a different voice provider. Porting Local Presence Dialing numbers allows you to keep your preferred two-way voice numbers your customers know, so there’s no need to update business cards or marketing materials.
2. Call at the right time and do your research
What time is it right now in China? In New York? In Australia? With agents reaching customers from state-to-state, country-to-country, and continent-to-continent, knowing when to call is critical to getting your calls answered.
A call after business hours, or on a national holiday, is a surefire way for calls to be ignored. Agents must be respectful of the working hours of the customers they are calling and should be considerate of the business etiquette and culture they observe.
Advances in analytics can help you precisely determine the best time to call into certain regions and customer segments. Leading enterprises take advantage of their data and test new strategies over time.
3. Find ways to increase transparency and indicate that it's you who is calling
When a customer sees an Unknown Number or no Caller ID, it typically suggests that the caller has deliberately blocked or hidden the number, which can significantly reduce the likelihood of the customer answering the call.
There are other ways to identify your business to callers beyond leveraging Local Caller ID. For example, CNAM (Caller Name) is a standard used in the United States and Canada to display a business name on a call recipient's phone. Additionally, some phone manufacturers, such as Google, allow companies to register so their names display on compatible mobile devices.
You can also enhance customer engagement by being transparent about the timing of your calls. By incorporating a multi-channel strategy and informing your customers through email, chat, or text message about the specific time you plan to call, and the particular device you’ll be reaching out to, you not only increase transparency but also boost the likelihood of your calls being answered.
4. Build a two-way, uninterrupted connection and check your numbers
By offering a two-way connection that allows the customer to feel appreciated and heard, results will be far more positive.
To ensure there are no connection issues, phone numbers should be checked periodically through routine testing to make sure they are still active.
Numbers could go out due to a variety of reasons: carrier outage, high call volume, hardware issues, or even a bad SIP Trunk configuration.
If a customer cannot call in, it creates frustration. An automated testing tool can help you identify and resolve out-of-service phone numbers to keep your voice lines open for customers.
5. Encourage authentic conversations and support agent training
A script is only as good as the actors reading the lines and the same goes for frontline agents. True results are derived from authentic conversations.
Agents should be given research material to enhance their product knowledge or topic expertise, but their conversational skills also need to be honed to support their ability to go into customer discussions more effectively.
The right training and support, and holding events like role-playing, team meetings, and completing group activities, can build trust and confidence in your agent’s conversational skills.
Bonus Tip
Choose providers that are committed to, and understand, voice regulations within your specific markets and possess a reliably sourced global number inventory, so you receive the coverage you need.
With worldwide governments establishing policies to reduce spam and robocalling, it’s important to stay up-to-date with country-specific compliance and regulations to ensure you can keep doing business there.
Leverage Local Presence Dialing to Support Your Outbound Call Strategy
The tips above, coupled with using a reliable and compliant cloud voice provider with an extensive number inventory, are the best ways to support your outbound call strategy and obtain positive results.
Your frontline teams are hard at work making outbound calls. Set them up for success so their local calls go out at the appropriate times, are answered and connections remain stable for proactive and authentic conversations.
Ready to learn more about increasing customer engagement? You can dive in-depth into this topic through our on-demand webinar, Look Local, Sell Local: How To Increase Your Global Call Answer Rate.
Look & Sell Local
Looking for a simple way to make better connections and increase global answer rates without having a physical market presence? Local voice + caller ID is the way to go.
