Telemarketing Software Featured Article

The word “telemarketeing” conjures up old images of cold-calling and selling. While there is certainly still some value to this, outbound calling is so much more than picking up the phone looking for prospects. Today, the customer relationship needs to be a two-way experience: not just customers calling in when they have a problem.

Thanks to better customer support software, social media and data analytics, companies are better equipped to anticipate customer needs. Using outbound calling to reach out and meet some of these needs BEFORE the customer calls is a great way to keep the quality of the customer experience high, according to a recent blog by Anthony Iannarino for The Sales Blog. Once a customer calls with a problem, it’s too late to build that two-way customer experience.

“If you are waiting for your prospective or existing clients to tell you what is broken so you can fix it, you are operating in reactive mode,” wrote Iannarino. “Anyone can walk into your prospective client’s office and asked them what sort of issues, challenges, and opportunities they’re working on. But if the prospective client already knows these things, you are following the client. There are a lot of people who would prefer to follow the client, allowing them to determine exactly what they need for themselves.”

The goal of customer support today should be switching customer support from a reactive process to a proactive process. Telemarketing, or outbound contact center support, is one of the most critical tools in the toolkit to establish this proactive customer service approach. Social media can also help provide proactive insight into the needs of customers or prospective clients. By “following” clients, sales reps can better determine exactly what customers and prospects need, and be there to offer it. A customer’s need, or a change in his or her buying status, can happen in an instant. A savvy sales professional can know about the need even before the customer does.

“Instead of waiting for your prospective client to decide that they have a compelling reason to change, you get in front of them and provide them with that compelling case for change before they have even recognized that need,” wrote Iannarino. “You provide them with their next big idea, their next initiative, and their next breakthrough. That’s leadership. It’s how you own mindshare.”

It’s also how you get ahead of competitors, who may (like most other companies) be waiting for customers to recognize a change in their status or needs. By the time the customer calls, the opportunity to present a compelling case for your products or services has passed. So too has the opportunity to be the company that can speak directly to the customer’s needs.

“Proactively helping your prospective clients avoid challenges before they recognize them is a far more powerful space to occupy than the traditional role of waiting until your prospective client has enough of a compelling reason to change to begin searching for help,” wrote Iannarino.

So while the idea of telemarketing may be an old one, the processes and technologies are ideally suited to changing your organization’s sales approach from reactive to proactive.