By A.J. Windle, Senior Operations Manager
Wins and losses. In a world driven by sales, they’re how we are measured. I, like every other person I know, love to win and hate to lose. Whether the scoreboard is based on revenue per hour, sales per hour, completes per hour, or any of the other metrics that we track in the telemarketing services industry, there is always one standout metric that your client will consider a win. Knowing that metric means the difference between winning or losing. But how do you find that metric? How do you evaluate it, benchmark it, and improve it? Business demands continual growth, so how can you continue to deliver sales results once you’ve already hit previously outlined goals?
The answer to finding this “magic sauce” is to always be proactive. The first step is to hit your goals. Once you’ve accomplished those goals, set new goals and hit those. Even when you think you’re on top and doing well, “good” isn’t always “great”.
A few years back I started a new B2B Outbound Marketing campaign. The product was great, our vendor was great, and the kick-off for calling was fantastic. We hit the ground running. We were hitting our goals, but quickly realized we had some concerns regarding the quality of the calls. Within a few months, performance started to drop. I wasn’t getting a lot of push from the client, but I knew if things continued to decline, I would. In an effort to be proactive, QCS broached the subject of launching an additional outbound marketing team in a 2nd location for this client. The goal was to measure performance and quality in a true apples to apples test. This was a bit of a risk, because the 2nd team might not have performed well and the test might have been a waste of time and money, but we were confident that the risk was worthwhile.
We started placing outbound marketing calls with the second outbound marketing team in competition with the first team and within a month we saw a 10% increase on overall productivity, and our quality scores were through the roof. As a reward, our client doubled our workload over the course of about two months.. We found the “magic sauce”. It was time to put this campaign on cruise control and let it work its magic.
We set the cruise at 60 and ran for several months. We continued hitting our sales per hour goals and maintained excellent quality scores. While we were meeting expectations we still had a nagging feeling that we could be doing even better. We decided to launch another call center site (this is site #3) to test the program. The test was small but measurable. Much to our delight call center site #3 exceeded the previous call centers’ performance by another 10 to 15% consistently and still hit the same quality metrics that are critical to long-term success.
As the campaign progressed we continued to evaluate the lists we were running with each outbound marketing team. We delegated hours to the teams that were hitting the goals for each of the segments we were targeting. While this may seem like a “no brainer”, it takes constant evaluation and proper tracking methods to deploy. By deep diving into team performance and allocating hours to the outbound marketing teams based on their performance, we continued to see improvements across the board. Within 5 months we were able to double the workload from the client once again.
From a winning perspective this is a story that I love to tell. It demonstrates the importance of pushing past thresholds, reaching new heights, being “great” instead of “good enough” …and did I mention, “I like winning”?
Quality Contact Solutions is a leader in outsourced outbound marketing services, specializing in B2B. We are experts in pairing our clients’ needs with the perfect outbound marketing team to maximize performance. We love digging in and getting our hands dirty so you don’t have to. If you are “good” but feel like you could be “great”, give us a call at 1-866-963-2889. Or email me at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com. We would love to help!!
A.J. Windle is Sr. Operations Manager for Quality Contact Solutions, a leading outsourced telemarketing organization. With responsibility for overseeing the daily operations of client programs, A.J. is relentless in his pursuit for ensuring every client program is reaching the desired goals – every day. With over 14 years of experience in Telemarketing, A.J. has built his career on creating win-win relationships between his team, his clients and his telemarketing vendors that drives unparalleled success. A.J can be reached at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-5106.
