Outbound Call Center – A Complete Guide

Planning to level up your customer outreach?

Earlier, businesses would outsource call centers for their sales campaigns. That’s not exactly the case today. 

Not only setting up an outbound call center very simple now but it’s also incredibly affordable – Of course, this is assuming that you possess the right sales call center software (more on this later).

However, before we get to that, we shall talk about what an outbound call center is, its features, benefits, and how you can set it up and follow the best practices etc. in this comprehensive guide.

Sales Call Center: What it is and What it Does

What is an outbound call center?

An outbound call center is a mass-telephony setup that enables businesses to manage telephonic conversations with their prospects and potential customers in a way that streamlines the business’s lead-centric calling operations. These call centers majorly place calls to their consumers.

What do outbound calls mean? Essentially, these call centers majorly place calls externally to their consumers.

Considering an example of inbound and outbound calls, we can see that inbound calls are usually initiated by the customer while outbound calls are initiated by the call center.

A sales call center focuses on generating leads and targets potential or existing customers. 

What Does a Call Center Software Do?

A call center software performs the following functions:

• Helps reduce the turnaround time for query resolution – The software automatically patches calls to available agents, reducing waiting times.

• Derives maximum productivity from call center sales agents – By ensuring that calls are routed efficiently, every minute of the agents’ time is well-utilized.

• Improves the operational efficiency of the call center – A VoIP system helps you streamline call center processes and establish standard operating procedures, performance-based reward ladders, and more to derive maximum productivity out of the setup.

• Helps the business gain insights from the conversations it has with its leads – By enabling the recording of consumer communications, a sales call center software helps your business revisit and review consumer feedback to improve.

• Enhance prospect experience and satisfaction through prompt and relevant responses – Outbound call center software helps your business craft role-playing training sessions with real call recordings to train your agents to deliver more and better satisfying prospect experiences.

It performs many other functions, such as integration with existing resource planning software (like CRM), thereby equipping a business with flexible bulk-marketing/selling options (like SMS and VoIP calling), among others.

How Does Outbound Sales Call Center Work?

An outbound sales call center software works with a list of prospects for leads that are provided to the call center agents to call and engage with customers.

The steps involved are usually as follows:

• The call center manager is provided with a list of prospects that the brand can target through cold calling or lead generation activities. This prospects list is then provided to the call center agents to work on.

• The names on the prospects list are then passed on to the call center agents and divided amongst them. The call center agents then engage in proactively placing calls to each prospect on the list.

• They do so by following a series of questions on a script, which helps them determine how interested a consumer is in the brand’s products and services

• The consumer who shows interest in the brand’s products is then added to another list of warmer leads to call again and pitch differently.

• The process involves an orchestrated way of proceeding. The call center agents always tell the consumer their name and the company they are calling for, followed by why they are calling. The consumer, in this way, is able to give the caller identity and work with the brand with a little more cooperation.

• Call center agents then proceed to explain their product to the lead and give them a couple of options to continue the association. Having options makes consumers feel like they are in control of the situation and helps to keep them engaged.

• Before hanging up the call, the call center agent subtly discusses the next steps with the lead to ensure continued association with them, which can potentially lead to a conversion.

Features of Outbound Sales Call Center Software

The features of a sales call center software augment its outbound call services with many functionalities. The following are its features:

Integration with ERPs

One of the most important features of an outbound call center service is its integration capability.

Many businesses rely on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to handle leads – a great call center software allows easy and seamless integrations with whichever CRM a business is using.

Easy integration with CRMs, for example, aids a business in collecting consumer data through calls and organizing it in its CRM for generating actionable insight for business strategies.

For example, when enough consumers give business feedback regarding their preference/modification to a certain product or service, the CRM then generates reports that show the predicted business trajectory such a change will create – this can help the business inform its growth strategy.

Calling Features

Many sales call center software come equipped with their own virtual call center suites that enable a business to be flexible. Additional calling features include:

• Number porting – This feature allows businesses to seamlessly switch from premise phones to cloud phones without any lags, enabling mobility.

• Special phone numbers – Businesses get access to toll-free numbers (or local numbers) that encourage international prospecting, eliminating geographical constraints.

• Voicemail – Many reputed outbound call center software solutions offer the feature to drop pre-recorded voicemails into consumers’ inboxes for prospecting or nurturing.

• Dialers – Sales dialer suite is an essential feature of outbound call center software. You can upload your contacts list to this module and let it dial the numbers in a logical sequence automatically – saving precious minutes of agents’ time

Lead-Focused Features

Call center software is all about enabling businesses to secure and convert more leads. As such, certain good software solutions offer lead nurturing features that help with marketing and sales in the following ways:

• One-click call features – This feature allows your leads to contact your business using a button placed on your website. Leads can simply tap that button and call you directly.

• SMS marketing – Such features in outbound call center software make it easy to create bulk SMS campaigns and send them quickly and automatically (some software may also leverage the power of bots).

Reporting

A good sales call center software isn’t just about outward tasking, but also about inward reflections.

The analytics feature creates analytical reports of call center activities, highlighting what works and what doesn’t. For example, introducing a bot to handle calls.

You can test the efficacy and weigh consumer response against the costs of running it to see if this strategy is any good. These reports can be generated by the software.

Types of Call Center Software

Outbound sales call center software today is available in two modes: on-premises and cloud-based. Depending on the needs of your business, you can weigh the pros and cons of each one before you decide to acquire it. Let us first understand both the types of deployment of this software in good detail.

On-Premises Call Center Software

An on-premise call center consists of the full installation of equipment and peripherals needed to run a call center from the workplace. This includes phone lines laid out throughout the building, reliable servers, Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone sets, and peripherals.

The best part about installing on-premise call center equipment (for sale) is that you can personally ensure the reliability and uptime of every component involved.

On-premise systems also provide a better opportunity to secure your data and information, because outsiders would be unable to tamper with the equipment unless they get physical access to the system.

Cloud-Based Call Center Software

A cloud-based call center equipment setup is the exact opposite of on-premise systems. There is no physical hardware required to be set up anywhere on business property.

The software vendors own the phone lines, servers, and digital platforms – these facilities are available to use on a subscription basis over the internet.

This method of leveraging the benefit of call center software is extremely convenient as the investment towards a dedicated IT team and system maintenance are taken out of the picture.

Besides, cloud-based software (SaaS) is increasingly popular today because of its remote-work friendly nature and easy accessibility.

Why Use Outbound Call Centers?

Sales call centers empower your business to scale and expand without limitation. Here are a few key advantages of setting up a sales call center for your business.

Boost Loyalty

Proactively reaching out to your leads is a proven way to communicate that your business cares about them. Any kind of proactive call, when timed right, can work to gain consumer favor. For example, after selling consumer electronics, your business can place a call after one week to check up on the product – whether or not it is functioning as it should. If not, your sales agent can instantly escalate the matter.

Scale Your Business

Business growth directly stems from a growth in the number of prospects. With an increased consumer base, you need a robust outbound call center solution to cater to these new consumers, if you are to maintain the service levels you have so far.

Outbound call center solutions also help you improve the efficiency of calling your leads and keeping current customers in the loop of new products and services.

High Lead Generation

Outbound call centers work on the principle of proactive calling. When your sales agents are trained, they know how to make a consumer aware of the needs through communication.

In this way, they are better able to deliver your business’s value proposition to a lead who is ready to move to the next stage in the sales funnel. Outbound call centers help bring in more meaningful leads.

Access to Data

Conversations that you are holding with the consumers over outbound calls are recorded and analyzed in-depth for insights that help you strategize for growth.

You can replay these recordings to train your workforce better and to fix problems in the scripts that cause consumers to hang up.

Furthermore, if you are outsourcing outbound call centers, you can gather even more data like derived insights and reports.

Let’s now look at some advantages that augmenting your outbound call center with dedicated software would bring.

Why Deploy Call Center Software?

Today, consumer expectations from a business are at an all-time high.

Installing a call center software empowers brands to bridge this gap between consumer expectation and brand service, enabling better ROIs and bringing repeat customers.

Call center software can deliver the right analytics to help businesses take action to improve call conversions. Let us take a look at a few more reasons to acquire outbound call center software.

It Keeps the Operations Organized

As your business grows and scales in new markets, new potential consumers eventually increase. To efficiently plan and execute calling operations of this increased volume of leads (which may be in the thousands each day), it is necessary to have sales call center software.

The software would take up the task of creating cohorts according to specified labels (age group, ethnicity, concern, etc.) and assist your business with targeted marketing for each one.

It Helps Supervise Performance

Every business has a way of identifying the best practices that work to improve the overall process and employee performance. Call center software helps to identify such high-performing workflows and scale them across the team to improve the total outcome of the team.

If ten of your call agents are doing better than the rest, then the systems would compile a synthesized workflow informed by the practices of these ten agents and prompt others to do the same.

It Improves Coordination and Boosts Sales

Call center software consists of a unified data repository that is dynamic and stays updated with consumer information in real-time. If a lead visited your landing page after discovering you on social media, the software will record that. If this lead doesn’t get in touch with your business soon, the software will prompt an agent to initiate a conversation utilizing the CRM.

This data is accessible to all the concerned members of a team; data accessibility helps in achieving flawless coordination among the workforce. This eventually results in better sales.

How to Choose a Call Center Software

Making the selection between an on-premise and cloud-based solution is more than just a budget concern here.

Truth is, they are both a good choice in their own rights. However, understanding your requirement and preference based on the following aspects can help you choose the right mode of call center software for business.

On-Premise Inside Sales Call Center

The major benefits of on-premise call center equipment are as follows:

• The setup is highly secure owing to the fact that your business owns all of the equipment. If you are seeking a high-security setup, on-premise may be a good option.

• On-premise call center setups enable you to invest in equipment and peripherals as and when needed. As your business grows, you can steadily invest in more handsets or servers.

• An on-premise call center solution gives you more control over the functionalities, like integrations, introducing bots, etc. You can tweak them as required.

• The most convincing aspect of on-premise solutions is that all the data is stored in-house, eliminating the risk of any data breaches or hacks.

Cloud-Based Sales Call Center

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a highly popular method of gaining access to necessary business services today, owing to the wave of digital transformation.

According to a study, by the end of 2023, the cloud-based call center market will have reached a whopping $24.11 billion in market share, with a CAGR of 25%. Seeing that it has the following benefits, the numbers are completely justified.

• Your business experiences greater returns on investment because cloud-based setups don’t require much investment.

• Almost all the cloud-based call center software allows creating a custom package with only the functionalities that a business requires, eliminating the need to pay for what won’t be used.

• The subscription models are flexible, allowing you to change or modify the services at any time.

• Cloud-based solutions are lightning-fast to deploy and highly integrable with existing enterprise software.

• The learning curve is relatively flat because of intuitive dashboards.

Outbound Call Center Best Practices

According to a report by Salesforce, 85% of the consumers admit to feeling dissatisfied after concluding a call with a sales agent.

Thankfully, there are ways to fix that: by adopting the best practices for outbound call centers listed below, you can achieve better feedback numbers. Here are some outbound calling tips. 

Understand, Don’t Just Listen

While being a good listener is a good thing to do while handling consumer calls, it is important to put an effort at understand the reason behind consumer dissatisfaction.

When you call center agents truly understand a problem, they would provide solutions that are relevant, instead of treating the problem symptomatically.

Furthermore, it is important for call center agents to not let it show even if they are reading a script. At the first hint of mindless script-prattling, the lead is likely to hang up.

Respect Prospect’s Time

It is understandable that to imbue a little empathizing value in the conversation, the agent may initiate small talk. While it is okay when getting your lead to warm up to you, it isn’t advisable to stretch it.

One, the time of your call agent is precious. Second, the lead has better things to do than be on call with a stranger. Train your agents to use just the right amount of small talk and time it right.

Don’t offer Solutions Before Understanding The Problems

Outbound calling is a tricky one to perfect. You call consumers to tell them about your product and how it is addressing a big problem that most consumers face.

However, before you do that, it is necessary to probe the consumer gently to know the nature of their problem and pain points to get them interested in your product. Starting off with offering a solution will just sound like a mindless sales call.

Prepare Beforehand

A sales call needs preparation. Before calling a prospect, your sales agents need to keep certain information handy, like past interactions, active tickets, feedback, and other data to address the consumer’s queries better.

Voicemails Still Work

Most of the outbound call center calls go straight to voicemail; however, don’t give up on that avenue yet.

Even if a majority of these voicemails never get a callback, there is still the other part of that fraction that would potentially turn into your customers. Whatever the statistics say, do leave a voicemail to your consumers.

Keep Track of Metrics

Keeping track of key metrics helps ensure that you meet targets that help keep up the team’s performance.

It’s important to understand the key performance indicators and what they indicate and keep them up to date so that you can effectively use the results to improve and plan. 

Prepare an Effective Prospect List

A good quality prospect list includes consumers who are within your target demographics. These are individuals who are likely to be interested in your sales offer because it aligns with what they are looking for. 

Challenges and Solutions for Outbound Call Centers

1. Call Reluctance

With outbound call centers, agents usually have to make calls without a prior appointment.

For this reason, prospects may be reluctant to engage with the agent. One way to deal with this is for the agent to introduce themselves clearly at the start to establish a connection. 

2. Caller ID Spoofing

Caller ID spoofing is an issue faced where fraudulent callers spoof the caller ID of the number owned by a call center.

This results in the number being flagged as spam. One of the solutions for this is to check that a number you purchase is not already flagged as spam. 

3. Call Blocking

Since outbound call centres usually have to cold call prospects, there can be resistance to the calls resulting in call blocking. Additionally, the number can be flagged as spam, resulting in the call being blocked.  

A solution is to improve engagement with the prospects to reduce call resistance.

4. Improving Contact Rates

Often, outbound phone calls do not get through to the customer. Contact rates are the percentage of attempts that successfully contact the customer.

Contact rates can be improved by using the right phone numbers as well as optimising dialing through predictive dialers. 

5. Improving Call Quality

Poor call quality affects the conversation with the customer and customer engagement. Poor quality of the call may be due to the tone of voice, the listening, speed of speaking, language, and the consultation provided.

It can be improved by using a good script for the call and improving conversations. 

Technology for Outbound Call Centers

1. Dialer Systems

Dialer systems automate the dialing and have various features based on the kind of dialer used.

Dialers can be used to automatically dial when an agent is available (progressive dialer), predict when an agent will be available to handle the next call (predictive dialer), and dial numbers before the agent is available.

2. CRM Systems

CRM systems help you manage interactions with customers and the customer life cycle. It is a tool that helps with managing contacts, sales, agent productivity, and more.

They can be used to manage the various aspects of customer relations like marketing, sales, e-commerce, and customer service interactions. 

3. Call Recording

Call recording helps maintain a record of each call. This helps with quality management and compliance.

Call recording software also helps track agent performance during calls since it records what was said. Advanced software can record both audio and agent screens. 

4. Reporting and Analytics

Since outbound call centres have data-driven operations, it’s important to have reporting and analytics tools.

These tools can:

• Provide real-time data
• Identify problem areas
• Allow you to manage and slice the data in several ways.

These functions help you improve your organization’s efficiency and track key metrics as well as keep up with compliance. 

5. Integration with Other Systems

Integration with other systems such as the CRM enables seamless collection and management of consumer data and helps organise it to generate reports and analyse metrics.

It can also integrate with other software systems to ensure convenience and improved efficiency. 

Conclusion

A reliable, robust outbound call center software empowers businesses to achieve their sales and marketing goals. Proactive calling is a time-tested way of discovering new leads and exploring the market most effectively.

Outbound call centers have been modernized today with integration and analytical capabilities, delivering the best of both worlds – traditional marketing and modern strategizing backed by data-based insight.

By efficiently tackling telephonic touchpoints with its leads, outbound call center software helps a business improve its conversions.

Using tools like call recorders and auto-dialers thereby streamlines processes and improves productivity. It also helps you plan operations and maintain important data to determine how to improve agent performance. 

A good outbound call center software is the key to unlocking the latent potential of your call agents by giving them convenient and simpler options to place and manage their calls.

The intuitive, easy-to-use interface reduces the clutter associated with information-keeping and improves call agent productivity.