How do you choose a call centre for your campaign and keep them on their toes?

Call centre lowdown – by Daniel Pujawiyatna.

Dataphoria Dan joined us 3 years ago, having run a call centre he worked in for 6 years. This enables Dan to provide unique insights across all aspects of calling campaigns.

 The first step – how do you choose a call centre?

Anyone who has had the pleasure (or displeasure) of searching for a call centre will know how tricky the process can be. On the one hand, you want the call centre that has the best chance of generating maximum revenue from your campaign(s), and on the other hand the costs must be justifiable. To add to the equation, there are matters such as scalability, technical capacity, level of account management and privacy compliance to consider.

So how do you pick the right call centre? Well, surprisingly, the process for picking a call centre is similar to many other purchasing decisions one is likely to encounter.

Firstly, you must be aware of any must-have criteria. For example, if your organisation does not allow customer data to go offshore, that of course rules out overseas call centres. Another common example is the call centre might not have the technical or reporting capacity to perform a mission-critical function. To put another perspective on it, we would call these deal-breakers, and is useful to consider first and foremost as it often shrinks your multitude of choices to something more manageable.

Secondly we come to the cost/benefit exercise. Consider the commercial value of a successful outcome in your campaign and weigh it up against the expected total cost per acquisition. Of course this would necessitate estimating a conversion rate which, without a DeLorean, is a dark art and difficult to do. Be positive but reasonable, and use comparable conversion rates from similar campaigns where available.

Thirdly, consider your account manager(s). While you may have vetted the call centre’s capabilities, your account manager remains your main contact for implementing changes, and often, your only advocate in the high pressure, high energy environment which is a call centre. Don’t be afraid to call for a different account manager if you feel the level of service is unacceptable, but also be quick to appreciate good service and good account management.

The idea, of course, is to engage a call centre that is able to execute your campaign at a profit, with a decent account manager who is eager to keep your business for the long run.

Keeping your call centre on their toes

Within any outsourced call centre environment, the first concept is to understand that there are always elements at play which threaten your campaign goals. For example, it is always tempting for a call centre manager to cut costs by providing less training/supervision, or moving less experienced (and often cheaper) agents to your campaign, especially if there are larger, more profitable campaigns available.

As a client, you aren’t present in the call centre to counteract against said elements. This is why consistently successful campaigners are highly adept at understanding call centre reports. It’s true – campaign numbers don’t lie, however it is crucial to understand exactly what those numbers mean. Dealing with multiple call centres, Dataphoria are conscious that the generally accepted metric ‘conversion rate’ actually varies in definition between call centres. A majority of call centres define ‘conversion rate’ based on what % sales/successful calls were made out of connected calls. However the definition of a ‘connected call’ also varies by call centre, and therefore is far from universal, and often may skew your perception of the actual campaign ROI.

We all know that direct marketing is volatile in nature, and telemarketing is no different. On any day of campaigning, external factors outside of your control will impact your campaign. Some days, the results just don’t come despite best efforts. Expect this volatility but do not allow it to be an excuse. Many call centres will blame external factors (like brand, data, bad media coverage, etc.) when a campaign is not doing well. Exceptional account managers will simply offer to work with you to deal with these factors and improve results. More often though, as the client, it falls to you to reject blame and instead collaboratively work on solutions.

In addition, good direct marketers will quickly realise that volatility may be a valid argument for days, but that quickly becomes less convincing over a longer period of campaigning. Setting your expectations based on a statistically valid campaign length, and making sure your account manager is aware of it, is key to set reasonable KPI.

Lastly, some of the most important stakeholders in any telemarketing campaign are the agents who are making/receiving the calls – they are effectively the face of your campaign and brand. Do not be afraid to ask for a tour of the call centre frequently, ask to meet the agents who will be working on your campaign or, where appropriate, ask how they were hired/chosen for the role. You can even offer to help train the agents regarding product knowledge, or simply say hello so they can see past the brand and know who and what values they represent.

The most successful campaigners are hyper-conscious of both statistical and human elements which keeps the cogs of their telemarketing campaign moving. Unlike many other areas of marketing, direct marketing management requires a highly specific skillset and mentality which can mean the difference between failure and profit.

At Dataphoria, our experience in working with (and indeed working in) call centres means we are well-positioned to advise our clients on the call centre selection process, as well as assist in interpreting campaign results into meaningful insights.