If your company uses an outside sales team to meet with prospective customers face-to-face, you might find a telemarketing services company particularly useful for setting up appointments prior to a visit. By outsourcing the first stage in the sales cycle, you'll enable your top salespeople to concentrate their time and energy where it's needed most - in the critical presentation stage with the Decision Maker.
You can also hire a telemarketing services firm to aid you in the market research process. Whether it be for a new product introduction or to investigate knowledge of your company, its competitors and the industry.
Telemarketing services can also be used in account management, whereby agents can call current customers to check up on the service they are receiving, or to up-sell or cross-sell additional services.
A list broker is one of the many players in the telemarketing services arena. These people provide call lists to clients, and because of this, they are becoming increasingly responsible if one of their clients does not act according to industry laws and regulations. Therefore, there is a growing trend in the industry for list brokers to protect themselves by scrubbing the data themselves consistently and regularly. Not only does it protect them, but it gives them a competitive advantage because they are offering added value through enhanced service. In turn, they can increase their revenue by charging higher prices for their telemarketing services.
Added marketing functions such as contact list generation and literature fulfilment can be included in telemarketing services. In this way, you can leverage your relationship with the telemarketing services company you engage, getting them to work through various stages in the sales cycle and consequently gaining a greater understanding of your business. List cleansing or scrubbing is vital for organisations today that need to keep compliant with laws and regulations that are continually changing. The Do Not Call Registry has now expanded and is joined by Do Not Fax, Do Not Email and Do Not Mail. Truly, the industry is tightening its Do Not Contact regulations and procedures worldwide. Luckily, there are many companies that specialise in list-scrubbing and there is even software that can screen calls in real time to be sure violations do not occur.
Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are newcomers on the telemarketing services scene, giving popular outsource countries like India and the Philippines a run for their money. This increased competition is beneficial for both the industry and its players because it encourages countries like India and the Philippines to improve their quality, results, compliance, etc. India in particular has come under much speculation as to the number of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) violations that occur on a daily basis. Companies who outsource there need to be extremely careful in order to avoid lawsuits and bad publicity.
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