Traditionally, contact centers are viewed as a customer service solution. Agents receive inbound calls, address problems, answer questions, and use the call experience to create a positive impression of the brand. That’s it. There’s no focus on reaching out to leads and customers, and so, no need for an outbound contact center or outbound call training.
But this approach is outdated. Today, technology has evolved, customer expectations are different, and there are opportunities to increase sales through outbound communications.
Let’s unpack what those opportunities are so you can decide if outbound calls are a worthwhile sales channel for your business.
Is Your Contact Center an Untapped Revenue-Driver?
According to a recent report by Observe.AI, Post-Pandemic Contact Center Report: Understanding the New World of Work, 64 percent of call center leaders view their contact center as a revenue driver.
What’s behind this focus on boosting sales and driving revenue?
There are several factors, some of which have emerged as a result of the pandemic:
Customers Crave Human Interaction
As a response to the rise of digital buying, customers desire more human interactions. A 2020 survey of 2,000 consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. found that the opportunity to speak to a human agent is one of the top three requirements for ensuring a positive customer service interaction. Voice is also consumers’ preferred channel for immediate service in a crisis.
People are more responsive to the warmth and connection that comes with a personal phone call. This changes the role of contact centers – instead of just serving as a source of customer service resolution, they can also take a proactive approach to building customer relationships in a way that wasn’t possible years ago.
Contact Center Leaders Are Doing More to Support and Engage Employees
There’s also a push to improve the contact center experience for employees, as more business leaders recognize how critical an engaged, committed contact center workforce is. As Swapnil Jain, CEO of Observe.AI explains in the Post-Pandemic Contact Center Report, “What we found is a renewed commitment to humanizing the contact center, particularly the agent experience.”
As businesses offer better training, tools, and support to agents, contact center teams will be able to offer customers more – more knowledge, more insight, and a greater reason to be loyal to the brand.
Contact Center Technology Improvements Enable Better Experiences
Another reason that contact centers are becoming a new channel for sales growth is technology. Operating a high-performance contact center has never been so accessible.
- Cloud-based software enables businesses to operate with fully remote teams, eliminating the need to rent office space for a call center.
- Analytics and reporting features allow managers to view performance in real-time. With a comprehensive, real-time view, they can make changes or provide support to staff to ensure customers are always getting a seamless experience.
- With the ability to integrate with other communications software and offer a multi-channel experience, agents can reach out to leads and customers using their preferred channels, whether that’s chat, voice, email, or video.
Ultimately, with an advanced contact center solution, even a small to mid-sized business can leverage the sales-boosting potential of a contact center.
How an Outbound Contact Center Boosts Sales
When your agents are calling out rather than just taking calls, there are opportunities to build brand awareness, nurture relationships, and learn more about what the customer wants and needs.
1. Increases Brand Awareness
Your contact center agents are well-versed in customer service, and with the right training, they can use phone calls to let your target audience know what you can do for them, without being pushy.
This can serve as an introduction to your brand and how your products or services can solve your audience’s problems. Then, when they’re ready to make a purchase, they’re more likely to choose your brand because there’s already a connection.
2. Helps to Nurture Leads
Your outbound contact center can also be a key lead nurturing point. Agents can reach out to warm leads who have already expressed interest by signing up for your newsletter, requesting a quote, downloading a product, or taking another action.
You might already be using emails to follow up with leads. With an outbound contact center, you can also provide a more human outreach experience to further the relationship. Also, with a phone call, your agent has the opportunity to address any friction a lead might have over a purchase. They can resolve any questions or concerns right away, moving the lead more quickly down the sales funnel.
3. Provides Valuable Insights on Customers
The more your sales and customer service agents know about your customers, the easier it is to sell to them.
With a contact center solution that has built-in analytics and reporting capabilities, you can gain more than a positive experience with your outreach calls. Your business can gather important information about your leads and customers, such as what channels they are more engaged on, when they prefer contact, what type of information motivates a purchase, and what their main priorities and pain points are.
And with a cloud contact center that integrates with your communications and sales systems, your data and analytics are available instantaneously to the right teams. This also enables all of your customer-facing employees – sales and customer support – to provide a consistent experience, which can boost brand loyalty even more.
Make Your Contact Center More Proactive with Outbound Communications
When your business is proactive about outreach, you can work toward greater brand awareness, more audience engagement, and stronger relationships with customers. This can lead to more sales, faster growth, and greater confidence in your brand.
But you need a contact center solution with the right features and capabilities, such as multi-channel outreach, advanced call handling, and customizable reports.
Intermedia Contact Center is a cloud-based contact center solution that makes next-level customer engagement easy. Get a quote today and start unlocking the revenue-boosting power of your contact center.
The Intermedia Team
Intermedia helps businesses of all sizes connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for our channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.
March 7, 2022
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