Tools & Techniques to Increase Call Answer Rates and Sales for Contact Centers

Perfect Your Outbound Dialing Strategy

Written by Patrick Kennedy, Ytel | Feb 27, 2020 4:45:00 PM

Everyone is looking for the same thing in general with an outbound dialing strategy. Your company wants to improve connection rates and lower the amount of time and money that you spend making each sale. Your ROI certainly hinges on the training and talent of your call center staff. However, your outbound dialing strategy also has a great deal to do with your success.

All of the tips below are predicated on having a predictive dialer, which is one of the best pieces of hardware that you can use to upgrade your dialing. Predictive dialers help to create continuous connections, reduce phone downtime per agent per day and raise outbound KPIs.

Improve Your Customer Acquisition Lists

Everything starts from a great initial list. Make sure that you have a healthy list that corresponds with your target audience. Keeping your agents on the phone all day with unqualified clients is the worst use of their time and yours. Connect your CRM with your contact center solution to continuously improve the quality of your call lists. Also, segment your lists between buyer profiles to ensure that you are calling the right one for the campaign at hand.

Using Automation

Used in tandem with one another, predictive dialing and automation will speed up your call frequency exponentially without reducing call quality. This system type will not even give your call center agents a chance to waste time between calls – once one call is complete, the next one is queued up immediately. This also reduces human error in dialing manually. You also have the ability to engage predictive dialers that delve into the proficiency of your individual agents. Overall, you should expect improved KPIs and a higher ROI from your dialing activities each day.

Staying in Compliance

You can greatly improve your KPIs and protect yourself from legal implications by staying in compliance with DNC laws, remaining compliant with the TCPA, and paying attention to regional rules as well. Check to see if your predictive calling application has automatic call suppression to see if calling certain numbers will be compliant with these various agencies and municipalities. Your agent will not even see bad numbers on his or her screen, ensuring that you never run into that trouble or waste time on that caller.

Showing a Local Number

Prospects are much more likely to stay connected on a call when the caller ID shows up as local. Area codes that are from particular geography will always be more trustworthy to people who live in that region. Check to see if your outbound dialing application has the option for local and out-of-state numbers to use alongside toll-free numbers.

The Awkward Silence

Make sure there is no awkward pause between the time that the number is fully dialed and the point at which your agent initiates a conversation with the customer. Many people are trained to hang up if they hear this silence at the beginning of a call.

Ensuring that your inbound and outbound marketing strategies are working in tandem to complete a full phone communications strategy. If you can optimize your outbound calling solution, you will definitely create more opportunities to create real connections with customers, improving your conversion rates and keeping morale high in your sales office.

Learn more about optimizing your call center environment through this post.