By A.J. Windle, Director of Client Engagement
When I was a kid, I loved going to the circus. Clowns, fire breathers and balloon animal makers were the best. Nothing could put a smile on your face like someone cracking jokes or doing the impossible. Well, fast forward several years later and through telesales outsourcing I have had the benefit of leading a telesales project which targeted clowns and other types of party suppliers. I’ll tell you that these suppliers are as much of a riot under the tent as they are over the phone. That said, calling clowns isn’t easy.
The telesales outsourcing objective
The program’s objective has two components. The first involves placing an outbound call to suppliers (clowns, balloon makers, bouncy house providers, DJ’s) in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and persuade them to market their services to consumers online. Once the party supplier (i.e. clown) joins the online platform, consumers can request their services for a party. The party supplier broadens their marketability and gets more gigs. Once a consumer requests a supplier, the second component requires a follow-up call to the party supplier to check availability and coordinate their services for the consumer. Seems easy right? Wrong! There are so many components to think about.
Telesales outsourcing is more difficult when the calls are targeted to a finite group of suppliers
The first thing you need to realize when working telesales outsourcing for this type of campaign is that your target list of party suppliers is very finite. No matter how popular Bozo made the clowning industry there just aren’t as many clowns out there as you’d think and finding them is like trying to get the ball into the last bucket of the Bozo grand prize game. If you don’t know what I’m talking about google it, it brings me back! This limitation of suppliers makes conversion top priority to execute on component one, which is creating a roster of suppliers to fill consumer demand. Every lead is gold and must be treated as such.
Telesales outsourcing requires sourcing leads to call
Unfortunately, the clowning space isn’t overflowing, and lead companies don’t have SIC codes for clowns, firebreathers or many of the other suppliers that you would want for a party. So how do you source leads for a telesales outsourcing campaign? This is where we had to get creative. We at QCS put our creative minds together to utilize a solution called “Mechanical Turk”. This is a solution that is part of the Amazon family of companies. Through this solution we were able to hire master web researchers to gather leads for us through various web sources at a piece rate.
The set up was difficult but once implemented the process was efficient and cost effective and the leads converted higher than leads that were sourced through your standard list provider.
Outsourced telesales contact strategy
Once you’ve collected your leads and have onboarded various suppliers the second component becomes pivotal. That component is filling the demand of suppliers requested for parties on specific dates and specific times. To accomplish this goal, we utilized a multi-touch contact strategy. These suppliers are busy and often are on the go. If you want to reach them you need email, text, phone and a CRM process that allows your team to properly manage touchpoints, scheduling and follow-up. Without these methods of communication, you’ll be dead in the water.
It is not uncommon to make 15 attempts to a supplier from initial contact to the point of scheduling a party for them. This is where you need to throw the classic thought of 8 to 10 attempts out the window because getting these suppliers through the process can be a bit of a circus show. A strategic approach to your telesales outsourcing is critical. The good news is this — calls are a blast and these people know how to have fun.
QCS specializes in making non-conventional campaigns work. Whether you are looking to contact non-conventional lead types, increase appointment volume, or are looking for a diverse contact strategy to help you hit your goals, we can help. Give us a call at 1-866-963-2889 and press 1 for sales. Or email me at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com. We’d love to help!
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A.J. Windle is the Director of Client Engagement at Quality Contact Solutions. A.J. is responsible for ensuring innovation and key initiatives are accomplished for each QCS client on an ongoing basis. A.J.’s deep background in call center management, including training, operations management, and his recent role as Director of Operations for QCS, is skillfully leveraged to produce better results for each client’s outsourced call center budget dollar. A.J. is a hands-on leader and he loves to win! A.J can be reached at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-5106.
