Good Call Centre Staff is Critical, Not Optional

Outsourcing cold-calling should require more investigation as to who to work with. Cold calling a list of leads is often outsourced to specialist agencies to cover more ground by a company trying to convert leads quickly. It is also seen as a more affordable solution than hiring a team in-house.

And everyone does it. From large Insurance brokers, Funeral Cover, Credit Extenders and even Online Educators.

Cold calling is not an easy feat – and no sales person can tell me that they love doing it. And it’s funny how Call Centres cold-callers are usually reserved for the “grudge purchases”. Which makes the call even worse – knowing you have to call someone that is not expecting your call, AND convince them to buy something from you they probably don’t want. No wonder Call centre jobs are considered one of the most stressful in the world.

Everyone likes to see numbers to up, but very few companies look at the cost of using a mediocre Call Centre agency vs a more expensive & dare I say, “credible” one.

Working with the wrong Call Centre agency can damage your brand reputation.

So what do you need to look for:

  1. Good *English speaking agents (*or insert demographic primary language here)
    1. If will create a better chance for success if the person can relate to the person on the other end of the phone.
    2. If the person does not speak the primary demographic’s language, there could be miscommunication on both sides and they could struggle to understand each other.
    3. I had a call with a call centre agent yesterday and I can honestly not tell you what they were trying to sell me, nor the brand it belonged to.
  2. Willingness to Understand the product & good Training
    1. How can you expect someone to sell something if they have no personal experience with it, nor understanding of it?
    2. A good Call Centre will help train the particular team on the product or service they are trying to sell. And I’m not referring to horrid scripts.
    3. If the agent understands the product, they shouldn’t need a restrictive script. Scripts are great as guidelines, but if they know the product, they should be able to improvise.
  3. Happy call centre staff
    1. Happy staff are motivated staff, they will try and sell more.
    2. They’ll also be kinder and more patient to the person on the other end of the line

Don’t forget that this cold-call may be the first interaction the lead is receiving from your brand.

You want it to be a positive association.

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