Could look into cloud vendors who only price on the number of agents per month you have. This gives scalability and flexibility during busy and quite times of the year.

If you would like me to suggest a website or two could do this.

i guess both. i'm hunting for options. we are looking into magic jacks and Bria. any suggestions? :)

Jeremy, are you looking for low cost minutes or a complete system to support a contact centre?

Hi,

We're a starting-up call center with 25 seats. I'm just wondering what is the alternative system we can use to replace our subscription with Skype. We use Skype for our outbound calls but unfortunately, it only has a limit of 50 numbers to dial a day and 10,000 minutes to use in a month per account hence its promo name Unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada.

Please help me out here. Thank you.

In terms of outbound sales agents it seems like a lot of the issues of motivation are not there, as commission tends to help that. In many cases home workers work on a self employed basis.

We have a number of articles on home workers. Here are a number of them

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/do-you-incentivise-your-home-agents-23457.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/homeworking-new-specialist-best-practice-guide-14890.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/home-working-agents-turning-your-plans-into-practice-11366.htm

I hope that this helps

I think for something like this if you are looking for infrastructure the best way to start would be with a hosted solution that would look after your phones with a bit of call recording to use as a benchmark to show how the pilot is going and to have as a performance measure

Initially looking at no more than 3 in the testing stage.

How many agents/people are you looking to get started with

We are in discussions reference at home pilot for outbound sales agents - anyone have any learnings based on experience they'd be happy to share ?

Nicky

I'm note sure that it would be very sensible to play a "if you are calling from a mobile, please ensure it is safe and legal to do so" message. If the caller is calling from a car, they have already made the decision that this is what they want to do.

May be asking if you can hear background road noise though.

>> Should our agents be expected to ask if it is safe and legal for them to be speaking to someone when we have instigated an outbound call to a mobile?

Yes I think that this would be quite sensible and you could arrange a time to call them back later.

Should my IVR announcements state "if you are calling from a mobile, please ensure it is safe and legal to do so" or something along those lines, before we actually get to the options? These are B2B calls. Also, should our agents be expected to ask if it is safe and legal for them to be speaking to someone when we have instigated an outbound call to a mobile?

I think that perserverance and discipline to the three rules of sales success is importnat
Rule 1
See the People (replace see with talk in a call centre
Rule 2
See the People (replace see with talk in a call centre
Rule 3
See the People (replace see with talk in a call centre
While activity is key ther ehave to be quality conversations that add value to the customers business (why else would they take the call)
I do not think scripts work if they are calling on a set bucket of customers.
Everything else above is also very relevant

Once you have someone with the right motivations, I think the ability to communicate a message with clarity is the main point. You can have the most sales hungry person in the world but if they can’t explain in 30 seconds who they are and why they are calling then its game over.

I test people on this in interviews by asking them to explain what their previous employers business was and why I as a consumer/customer would use them. If within a reasonable period of time I understand then they have a fair chance of succeeding on the phone.

Motivation is very hard to test, people talk a good game but it’s really hard to tell if someone is going be able to make the effort when responsible for their own actions.

An outbound call center agent needs to have , lots of patience, perseverance and Passion towards sales ! The 3P's which make it All clubbed with 3 A's , ATTITUDE , ATTITUDE AND ATTITUDE

I have found that some of the best outbound people are also very good at inbound.

Resilience is also quite a key attribute - particularly if it involves cold calling. But also good listening skills, product knowledge and empathy are also very important skills too.

they need to be warm and welcoming, with an open mind.

After spending many years working in contact centres on customer service or inbound sales i wondered what it's like to be an outbound sales person and what makes a good outbound sales person.

I guess they need to be confident and resilient, but what else do people think??

Thanks Gary, I'll pass that on to my IT guy and see what he makes of it all.

Hmmm, I did something similar a while back. The proprietary softphones were poor so we ended up using free softphones coupled to the PBX via a free softswitch... this allowed us to script into each CRM.

The beauty of this approach was:

1. Absolutely free and no licensing worries
2. Tight blended integration with clients CRMs even those not considered possible under the commercial solution (ick)
3. Client screen-pops on inbound and blended
4. Fully self-documenting call flow with dispositioning on hangup
5. better management instrumentation than the commercial PBX allowed

How to best accomplish what you're after would depend on the CRMs, the PBX and your license restrictions (if your PBX is commercial) but usually can be solved without additional costs.

Truthfully, the softphone shouldn't be an issue at all. There's nothing you can do on a softhone+PC that you can't do on any hard phone+PC. It really isn't difficult to make the agents PC aware of the telecoms or to tie in screen-pops, Dispositioning and active CRM.

You say you don't want a dialler but a free progressive dialler (as opposed to predictive) would be easy to justify regardless of how many agents you have. Actually, if your numbers are coming through excel or web then one of two solutions (macro/greasemonkey) can mean you have free click-to-call for your agents even WITHOUT a central dialler.

Like I said, what options you have depends very much on the specific circumstances, but I'll stand kicking if there isn't a free solution to tie everything in over multiple client campaigns and multiple CRMs.

I'd give you my contact details but I'd get accused of advertising again so, unfortunately, all I can do is advise you to talk to your IT guy/girl about how free solutions (macros, greasemonkey, softswitches and free sip clients) can be leveraged to provide what you need in terms of CRM/Call integration.

or... call your PBX vendor and get bent over.

-Gary (TheITGuy)

I'd have to say no comment on that last one! ;)

Thanks for the information on the softphone.

By the way, is Stuart Baggs now the most hated man on the Isle of Mann or just a love able idiot!

Jason

You should be able to get a softphone through the telephone system, it really depends how old it is as to how much it will cost to upgrade. For Avaya you would have a desk phone or a softphone, called a OneX communicator.

Check the branding on the PBX then go onto Google and look up softphones for that manufacturer. The softphones can be integrated to the CRM solution for logging purposes, however this could be expensive. It may be easier to tag the prefixes and report on productivity through a call logging solution, like Oak.

Merry Xmas
Jason

Hi,

We are a very small contact centre offering inbound customer service calls and outbound sales calls solutions.

Curently we use PBX lines, manual dialling and desk 'phones, using set prefixes for dialling out to differentiate between different clients for MI etc.

I am interested in looking at a softphone solution to help with call results logging as the crm system for some of our clients don't support this (I know, don't even get me started on this!) Currently we have to log calls and results on a seperate reporting system which is very basic and relies on agents remembering to log information after each contact.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? We're not looking for a dialler solution as we do not have the capacity to support this at the moment.

Any advice on this topic would be greatfully received (low tech talk is poss too please as I'm still learning!)

Many thanks in advance.

Thank you so much for your response Jason - massively appreciated :)

LBM in Chester claim to be the largest outbound contact centre in the UK with 2000 outbound seats, they are an outsourcer.

(LBM remains the largest outbound contact centre outsourcer in the UK)

http://www.lbm.co.uk/OutBound.aspx

You may well find that someone like Student Loans or Barclays has the largest outbound operation that are not an outsourcing operation. I beleive Student Loans have 1000+ and Barclays would probably have a similar number. Barclays have 10,000+ agents so its fair to assume they would have a fairly large outbound division.

I hope this is helpful and I am sure there will be other feedback on this question.

Hi all, i was hoping you might be able to help with some research i am currently doing.

I need to know the answer to the following questions:

1. What is the largest o/b call centre in the UK, including outsourcers, and what is their approximate head-count?
2. What is the largest o/b call centre in the UK, excluding outsourcers, and what is their approximate head-count?

I have looked around online but to no avail, so any help you guys can give me would be massively appreciated.

Regards,

Jon

Don't know if any of the following will help?

Call centre attrition on the rise
Posted by MyCustomer in Customer intelligence, Customer experience, Marketing, Technology on Wed, 28/11/2007 - 12:27
Call centre staff attrition in the UK has risen for the fifth consecutive year because of low salaries and companies experience difficulties recruiting new workers.

The mean UK call centre attrition rate is now 32 percent, according to the fifth annual UK Contact Centre Operational Review report by industry analyst ContactBabel. Almost three-quarters (71 percent) of the 200 call centre operations that took part in the survey said they are also experiencing problems recruiting new staff. Some 185,920 new agents have to be recruited each year to ensure staff levels are kept constant.

Call Center High Attrition Rates : Threat for the Growth of Call Center Industry

While call center industry is looking forward to the unstoppable growth, attrition rates are marring its prospects. As per the data published in the leading newspaper after a statistical research of attrition rates in call center outsourcing industry it was concluded that Australian, European and Indian call centers reported 29 percent, 24 percent and 18 percent attrition respectively. On global average it came up to 24 percent. According to a research data, the attrition rate for voice-process is around 55-60 percent and 15-20 per cent for the non-voice schedules. It also predicts that there would be 1.1 million call center job requirements by the years to come whereas the shortage of around 2, 62,000 professionals dooms the call center industry this year.

The following link looks pretty interesting if attrition is something you need to tackle...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20760375/Hidden-Costs-of-Attrition-in-the-Call-Center

Regards

Ruth

Can't get it broken down to show trends for just inbound/outbound calls to sell a product - all data available seems to be massively skewed by customer service/admin type roles.

There is inbound, yes, but at pretty small volumes. Have to confess, I don't really get the above. Have tried, but just get gobbeldygook out. I get the first calc, but not clear on why calc 2 is multiplied by 100 and not sure how the ratio is worked out for calc 3.

Appreciate the reply, but not really sure if it will help.

I have been able to calculate FTE for 5 call attempts in a 5 day period, taking into account RPC rate and thus reducing volumes, but am stuck on seeing what the impact would be if I wanted to recommend a change in the SLA

Thanks

Scott

Are you managing IB at the same time?

If so it's :-
Let's define some variables

AHT (IB) = I

AHT (OB) = X

Productivity Required (%) =P

Work Hours (Per Day)= W

Staff Available (FTE) = S

IB Calls = C (Avg per day)

IB:OB Ratio ( R :to 1)

(((((S*W)*3600)/100)*P)-(((I*C)/P)*100)+(x(C*R))))/100

For Clarity see image link below

[img] http://www.penguin-programming.co.uk/images/ibobcalc.gif [/img]

Rearrange as required.

HTH

DaveA

I'm trying to calculate how many FTE are required for our outbound calling. We have different pieces of work with different SLA's (e.g 5 call attempts within 5 days and 5 call attempts in 28 days) I need to be able to calculate the FTE required to meet these SLA's and also show the impact of changing the SLA's. This is all for manual outbound dialling and I have the SMV's, rough RPC rate, etc

Thanks

John, Mitz, Pinazdarius & Tony - Thank you all very much for your responses, especially Tony for the very in depth answer to a subject matter I have found myself struggling with.

If anyone else is able to lend support or advice, I would very much appreciate it.

KR,
Darren

Hello Darren,

There are several excellent specialist contact centre training companies who could help you develop a workshop that enhances your teams current performance and results. Although i sense you know this, yet something is preventing you from moving forward. I would like to add my thoughts on your question, highlighting one or two points that may be worth exploring further before you think about investing in a training workshop.

I am going to make one or two assumptions here before going any further.

Your new outbound sales team consists of people who have been recruited because they like and enjoy outbound sales calling as well as having the core skills and attributes that you have identified, as essential to being successful in the role.

They have been provided with basic telephone sales training, as well as the necessary product training. They understand the purpose of the role, what is expected of them in terms of performance (calls, conversions, sales etc)and how they will be measured and assessed.

They are engaged and motivated and have a desire to do well and an appropriate reward and recognition scheme is in place.

They are supported by a sales coach who is dedicated to developing and maintaining the teams motivation, sales performance and results.

In your post you highlight two key areas of team strength as well as two main challenges in terms of growing your sales revenues and profits further.

1. Good at making calls (as in they are happy to call all day?)
2. Closing sales (those customers they can get to commit to an insurance quotation they are able to convert the quotation into a sale?)

1. Gaining genuine commitment for quotes from the customer
2. Gaining access to your desired target (getting past gatekeepers or non dm contacts or partners)

The two challenges you have highlighted can be overcome if we focus on the right things.

Mindset is so important here.

Do your people genuinely believe in what they are being asked to sell?

Do they see themselves as what i term 'value creators' by this i mean do they see themselves as being able to add value to their customers life/business? Rather than selling just a product or service?

This inner belief and confidence will come across in how they interact and engage from the first moment of customer contact to the last and also fosters greater degrees of resilience and resourcefulness too. In terms of approach the key is to build rapport with every contact you make (receptionist/switchboard/PA/partner during the journey to the DM. Seeing these contacts as allies who can help you either by putting you through to the DM or providing you with useful information is a great way to network your way around until you locate the decision maker. This can be more complex in larger organisations but the principles hold true regardless of company type or size. Having a compelling hook and opening is also important, but without the mindset and ability to build rapport the barriers will remain. Our mindset drives our behaviour.

There are no tricks for getting past gatekeepers, not in my ethical view anyway. In terms of rapport I always give my name when asked as this helps build trust and confidence and is almost like my seal of approval. I see calling someone as like knocking on their door. If you knock on someone's door , you ask if its convenient and dont just walk straight in to their house and start selling, the same should apply when we want to sell by phone. I need to ensure it is convenient with the DM, so i always identify when the best time would be. The PA can be really useful here. One PA gave me the nod to call between 7.00am and 8.00am, as this was the best time to catch him and he would likely listen. If it is the dm 's partner it is essential you get them on board and see them as the customer also. In many consumer situations there can be multiple decision makers and influencers. Sometimes you have to convince the gatekeeper of your value but again with right mindset and training this is generally not an issue.

Sales people who see themselves as value creators are also very good at understanding their customers needs, knowing what is really important to them and what their potential motivation is. They are then able through the use of good questions to introduce appropriate products and their relevant benefits, knowing they are going to add value to the customers life or business. This arouses a genuine interest in the customer, as they see how their needs are specifically being addressed by the sales person and importantly are now aware of a product that will benefit them in some way. This also builds confidence in the sales person as the customer is more open and positive towards what they are saying. Both parties are collaborating towards a common goal - ADDED VALUE (however it is packaged).

It would appear that perhaps your sales people would benefit from developing their rapport and questioning skills so they can understand their customers and their needs more fully, thereby arousing their interest and desire to explore this conversation further.

If they asked the DM this question i guarantee they will find out what they need to know to be able to develop a genuine quote/sales opportunity.

When you consider your xxxx insurance what's really important to you?

The customer will now tell you the reasons why they are interested and why they may or may not buy your product. It helps reveal their feelings and motivation towards buying your product. "I'm looking to save as much money as i can , so it has got to be less than my current provider," or "The last company told me one thing, then when i had to make a claim they used the small print to refuse my claim, so this time i want to be clear about the policy i am taking out," or "well price, a well known company, how easy they are to deal with." There are endless responses although they will all either highlight someone's pain (what they dont want) or pleasure (what they do want).

The sales person can then respond by saying something like " thats good/interesting to hear mr smith, here at company xxxx we always make sure our customers understand fully the policy they are taking out with us, as we want them to be assured that if they do have a genuine claim we will honor it". Or they might respond with "Our quotes are very competitive while also ensuring they are tailored to your individual circumstances. Understanding your customers motivation to buy your product and being able to introduce the benefits of your product in a way that connects with this is the key to an effective sales conversation. I'm confident that if your staff adopted this approach they would obtain many more quotations instantaneously. The lack of commitment you describe, i sense comes from a your sales people not fully understanding what is really important to their customers and being able to connect this to your product in meaningful way. Why would your customers not commit to a quote if they were aware of the potential value this could add to their life or business? Focus on customer understanding and matching your responses to what is important to them. Sales people who do this find they enjoy their work more as they develop more effective sales conversations, based on shared goals, they meet less resistance and tend to be more engaged and motivated as a result.

I hope this helps Darren.

Good luck
Tony

Hi,

I cannot really suggest training sessions. However, just a recommendation to review. Gate keepers field calls for the decision makers and turning them into internal advocates can help. Probably a focus on revising "scripts"/"Verbiages" used for the calling might make a lot of difference. For instance:

Executive -"May I speak with Mr. Copper" will definitely lead to the
Gate keeper saying, "Can I take a message" vis-a-vis

Executive - “I’m following up on a prior conversation with Mr. Copper.” or “I sent him some information and am checking in to see what he would like to do next.”

"Referrals" perhaps work too. This is just one example. But I always observed, that "how you say it" is all that matters and makes a positive difference

Hi Darren
I'm Mitz Charos of The Call Centre Training Company.
I have lots of experience in delivering training of this type and indeed within the Insurance sector. I used to run all the PPP Healthcare In and Outbound Telemarketing teams which covered B2B and direct to the consumer.

[Part of thread removed by moderator - No advertising allowed]

Thanks John. I've been on one of Gavin's courses and so has the manager of this team. Gavin's very good but focused on B2B, I'm after B2C. I'd quite like a course that spends the whole day training this skill rather than a half day seminar.

Hi Darren

I can recommend Gavin Ingham you can see some of his stuff on cold calling on YouTube

http://www.gaviningham.com

I thought he was really good when I went on one of his courses in London

Regards

John

I've recently added an outbound sales team to the business I work in and I feel as though this team has now reached its upper limit on performance.

The team is great at making the calls and closing down the sales but is struggling on getting the customer to commit to an Insurance quotation or even allow us past the gatekeeper to speak to the person responsible for financial matters within the household.

The question I would like to put to fellow call centre colleagues is 'what training is out there?'

I have Googled the subject and I have revisited previous training companies I have used but there doesn't appear to be anything advertised that is really specific to my needs which is all about getting through the door.

The calls we make are not cold as there is an introduction to these people via a current or old membership affinity so the calls are tepid to warm.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Many thanks,
Darren

The general rule for outbound diallers seems to be that you need a minimum team size of 8 - 10 agents and a minimum list size of around 10K records per month to allow the dialler to work effectively. So even using a hosted pay as you go solution may not work for a team size of 4.

In terms of using a hosted solution, I have previously used this solution for an in-house outbound telemarketing team of between 8 -12 agents. We were able to load and dial multiple lists and obtain excellent Management Information. There were occasions when the dialler went down so we couldn't call, which was frustrating but this can happen when you have your own dialler. The benefit was that we had dialler management and technical expertise available through the hosted solution so we didn't need to employ our own technical people and saved on headcount.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

So the use of CTI would only be used for on screen prompts or account information? is there anything more subtle that you can route outbound calls on other than mentioned above? We'd quite like to use one but we don't quite like the idea of lumping say bad debters or a particular post code into one group, I'd quite like to hear of some good tips on this.

Thanks

Thanks

Hi,
I currently manage a team of 4 outbound sales agents and I am looking into the possibility of an outbound dialler. I have been advised the best option would be a pay as you go solution due to the size of the current team? Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this or advice?

Cheers

Paul

To avoid the risk of advertising - you can find a list of potential suppliers in the Outbound Dialling Reference Guide on this site.

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/wiki/List_of_outbound_diallers

Ah, yes! I realise there might need to be some software downloaded for say a scripting tool but if all else was a web-based solution then perfect!

Hi there

Hoping you can help with some advice and this seems to be the place to ask..

My company is planning on setting up shop in the UK within a year and will require a hosted solution to run their inbound and outbound calls/campaigns

Not sure if you can simply supply some supplier names without it constituting advertising but I'm looking at something that requires no cap ex and will offer a flexible solution that enables a scripted approach to each call and the ability to do so on preview as well as predictive.

I would then need a scripted inbound solution that can enable clients to call us if they require some follow up

All that plus the obligatory recordings, reporting etc etc. We are looking to begin with 20 seats and increase this to 100 over 12 months

Thanks in advance

Hi AN,

I noticed that no one has replied yet, so I will throw in my two pennies worth and get things rolling :-)

Before initiating a customer retention operation, it's important to have a good understanding of your customers. In particular, which demographic is the most profitable to you and which ones are the least profitable to you. Most companies will chart this along two axis and create a quadrant against spend versus effort to service. Although there are many other permutations that potentially are involved, this forms the backbone of many companies and how they identify customer value.

Once this is established, and a metric applied to your customer base, you can then consider the approach for a retention strategy, including learning about which customers are defecting and why. Customers will always churn... its the nature of the beast. the key is understanding the reasons why they are churning. Admittedly, learning why they leave can begin in parallel with your customer value model, so that you can start gathering intelligence.

The retention model should achieve the following:
1/ Understand the root causes of the customer leaving (and these should be categorised during strategy development)
2/ Assess the value of the customer to your business
3/ Prepare to offer the customer an incentive to remain, based on the value of the customer

This overall approach aims to allow your business to retain your most profitable customers while allowing your low value customers to leave (as they would theoretically be offered a smaller incentive to remain).

In terms of skill sets, I would compare the customer retention skill set to one of a complaints management. They need to be empathetic, with good communication skills to help disarm unhappy customers and to aim to work cooperatively to resolve the issue (the issue being they want to leave).

That's about it for now. Let me know what you think of this and if I can be of any further help.

Kind regards
Gene

Hi

I'm wondering if anybody has experience in setting up outbound retention teams? Although I understand the needs of each company are different, I'm still keen to know more about:-

1) What skills and experiences were looked for in new staff to the retention unit?
2) Whether specialist recruitment agencies were engaged to find these people, if so, who were they?
3) Did you go to the market place for retention training or was it developed in house?
4) Any pearls of wisdom / do's and dont's in the retention space

All feedback and views are welcome

Thanks

AN

Gene is quite right, depending on the volume of outbound calling you intend to do, you may need a predictive dialler. When considering purchasing a predictive dialler you need to know the volume of calls you intend to make. As a general rule, in order to gain any efficiency and productivity improvements over what you might achieve through other dialling methods, you need to have a minimum list size of around 10,000 records which will be utilised over a 4 week period
In addition to a predictive dialler you should also consider:
1) A CTI system to support on-screen scripting, sales support information such as FAQs and Objection Handling tips and if appropriate to support screen and script branding. It’s also worth thinking about whether you want this system to be able to pull customer data from your existing databases to support cross-sell and upgrade activity.
2) A Call Recording System, if you don't already have one, which can be stopped and restarted when collecting payment details so you are PCI compliant. The latter is only required if you are taking payment details over the phone
3) A Quality Monitoring System which can support Sales Verification or validation activity by your Quality Assurance team. There are some fantastic systems which will also line up the call recordings that need to be monitored so you don’t need to search for them and that also allow you to view the customer record and data collected at the same time as each individual call is being monitored. Some will also contain customisable QA form templates and MI templates so you don’t have to invent your own.
You will also, as Gene says, need to think about the MI you require and what the systems are capable of producing. However, the really critical piece of work is around integrating the systems to generate maximum efficiency and streamlined processes. For example, to a) avoid cut and paste from reports produced by each system in order to obtain meaningful at a glance MI or b) to minimise the use of manual processes when transferring sales records from one system to another. Manual processes always pose a risk leaving room for human error or gaps providing the opportunity for sales records to drop out along the process or for something to be missed. For example, if a QA process is manual and managed via Excel Spreadsheet there is the risk of things being forgotten and sales not being processed and fulfilled.
Hope this helps

Hi there,

There are loads of companies in the market that would love to have your business. All of them will do the basics. And what I define the basics to be are:

1/ Options for loading lists into the dialler via a wide range of formats (i.e. xls, csv, dbs, etc...)
2/ Filtering options and list segregation based on pre-defined criteria (i.e. postcodes, last names, account status)
2/ Updatable "Do Not Call" list
3/ Dialling options (Preview, Power, Predictive, Progressive)
4/ A scripting tool to guide callers through a call. This should be customisable at the business level to prevent having to go to IT everytime you want to make a change
5/ Comprehensive re-dial and DMC (decision maker contact) rules
6/ Call listening technology - to determine a ring tone versus fax tone versus busy tone, etc...
7/ Multiple campaigns
8/ Comprehensive management information, both real time and historical, in order to measure silent calls, etc...

There are loads of other features and functionality that you could throw into the mix, but remember, as you increase your requirements, the costs will also tend to rise. But also, deploying a predictive dialling platform into a business that doesn't have one in the first place will typically see performance boosts of 250% or higher. So the return on investments are quite compelling.

Could you share with me how many agents you are looking at?

Thanks, Hope this helps,

Gene
GPR Consulting

We use Synthesys through Noetica but I also have been recommended previously TouchStar.