Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Hi

From the hundreds of cold calls we get, I can make some suggestions based on experience and some generic ones.

Building the right list might not be the problem. The problem might be the perception of off-shoring and the way in which the prospecting call is made.

Calls from India which propose the outsourcing of work and therefore the outsourcing of jobs from one country to another is a very touchy subject and whilst the senior executive with budget responsibility may be receptive to the financial and technical arguments (Once you have had the opportunity to discuss or present them) the guy on the front desk isn’t likely to be so inclined.

The only solution to this is to ensure that you have the appropriate names on your contact list, people who, if, and that’s a big if, you get to speak to them will be dispassionate about the geo-politics and be prepared to consider the economic and business arguments at their face value. Your success rate will automatically be very low, because you are working on a series of very steep conversion ratios via a cold-call.

I think that you ought to look at the correspondence here and in other places about the merits and de-merits of cold calling in the context of current thoughts on marketing. Frank J Rumbauskas from www.nevercoldcall.com makes a case against cold calling. There are an equal number of proponents of cold calling, but the statistics from cold calls do not bear out much of an economic argument.

Of course, calling from India, you will have advantages in the costs per call which will allow you to play a numbers game on a much lower cost base, so in the longer term, with a good pitch and a named list, you may well be able to win opportunities by making many hundreds of fruitless call in order to gain one warm prospect. Its not good for the mental health and morale of the call centre agents to be subject to so much rejection and short of deploying a large team the hoped for positive results will be a long time arriving.

Some of the “Cold calling is a Waste of Time” techniques involve warming up the prospects, gaining local knowledge and using on the ground strategies. From abroad, these are only available to you by email and by post, so again, a good list would be a benefit, allowing you to write to the prospects to engender some enthusiasm.

As quality email address lists, of the non-Spam variety cost a fortune (£0.90 / qualified contact) you may find it to your advantage to develop the list yourselves by asking your call agents to seek out the email address of the relevant contact. That’s not an easy task, as many companies will not divulge an email address, but for those which will, you will have the start of a warming-up process.

Lastly, when you are phoning from India, it is likely that your number will be withheld on the caller ID systems used by most companies. If it’s any comfort, many local call centres also withhold their number because they wish to avoid complaints from angry recipients or people who can track the dreaded “Silent Calls” where the call centre software makes a call but the over-worked agents can’t pick it up. This arouses suspicion at switchboard level where many cold callers are screened out and your reception will often be rather chilly.

If you phone us on an executive’s direct line, you will get the message “This is the number withheld switchboard for Unimax Solutions, if you wish to contact someone, please leave your name, company, address, phone number, the name of the person you wish to speak to and subject of your call and someone may possibly get back to you” More people will be adopting this technology once we put it on the market!

Regards and good luck


Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

I have to agree with Chris B. Your outsourcing is where the savings come from, not the call center...except inbound calls. Pick a US-based company (or several companies) to do your calling for you.

If you're concerned about e-mail warm-ups consider what we do for one client. We have people cold call IN PERSON simply to ask for the name of the person who is in charge of whatever it is they offer. These people do not sell, just get contact information (and additional information they can get from reception) and have a small leave-behind piece.

Our telesales people then follow up with a call the following week. Success rates are high for getting to the right person. Getting ink on the deal is more dependent on the sales person and product.

Hope this helps.

Michael