If you and your team have your hands full when it comes to marketing your company, you may have considered hiring business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions. Call centers are powerful resources for reaching out to potential customers and generating positive interactions with your audience. They often have specialized software programs that you’ll get access to as their partner and customer. With the added power of marketing automation tools, your outsourced partner can produce greater results for your company.
Working with a call center for marketing that has automated workflows in place can give a major boost to your outreach, brand reputation, and advertising efforts. This can help you connect with your audience at a fraction of the cost of expanding your in-house team.
What Is Call Center Marketing?
Call center marketing involves hiring a third-party company to handle customer communications related to promoting and advertising your business. This can include developing lists of potential leads, making outgoing calls to your prospective customers, and answering calls from people inquiring about your business. Although telemarketing is usually the main way these vendors promote their clients, some modern providers have additional offerings across different channels, such as lead generation call center services.
The Role of Automation in Call Center Marketing
As technology evolves, call centers develop more efficient systems for contacting potential customers. Artificial intelligence, smart algorithms, and software programs can streamline manual tasks, speeding up the marketing process. Instead of having to tediously develop contact lists and call customers one by one, call center reps can now use automated tools to find available prospects for your business right away.
Along with making it easier to make initial contact with leads, automation gives contact centers the ability to collect and analyze data from each interaction instantly. They can then compile their findings to improve their advertising methods, helping you get better results over time.
Types of Automated Marketing Services
Contact centers connect with consumers on your behalf, helping you promote your business through direct, genuine conversations. Although person-to-person connection is the bread and butter of call center marketing, digital automation tools lay the foundation for these interactions. Call centers use custom software tools to automate different aspects of their marketing. The following are some of the ways that call centers are using automation to improve your consumer outreach.
Lead Generation
Contact center providers can oversee the entire marketing process, from finding prospects to contacting them. Automated systems make it possible to quickly assemble contact lists and use BPO for lead generation, so agents always have a stream of potential customers. You can even set up systems to automatically update these lists as you collect more information from interested customers, helping you quickly capture hot leads while your company is fresh on their minds.
Forecasting
When you work with a business process outsourcing provider for your marketing needs, they can help you forecast your promotional activities. They’ll create a database of information about your customer interactions and then use automated tools to analyze the data. You’ll be able to automatically generate valuable insights, such as the best time to contact customers or how frequently to send emails.
Predictive Dialing
The development of automated predictive dialing completely transformed the way contact centers work. Automated dialers preemptively call customers to ensure they’re available. Once someone picks up a call, the system automatically registers that the number is active and seamlessly transfers the prospect to a live agent. If the prospect doesn’t pick up, the number can be cycled back into your contact list for a follow-up call. Or, the system can automatically remove inactive numbers to save time in the future.
Email Outreach
Even though contact centers are known for their telemarketing and phone outreach, modern BPO companies also offer email and chat support. They can facilitate entire email marketing campaigns for your business. This includes scheduling emails at the optimal time to boost email opening rates and following up after certain criteria are met. Contact centers can even manage different email lists based on customer behaviors to maximize engagement and increase conversions.
Text Outreach
Automated SMS messaging is a quick, efficient way to engage your audience and boost awareness of your products. You can use SMS for lead generation, customer engagement, and general advertising. Contact centers can send out automated text blasts to your customers, offering special deals or informing them of limited-time promotions. They can also set up automatic replies so customers can get additional information by replying with a certain phrase.
Inbound Call Routing
Call center marketing services aren’t only about reaching customers. It also involves engaging in direct response marketing by promptly answering calls from interested customers. Associates can answer inbound calls from potential customers who want to learn more about your products and services. Automated caller routing will help direct these calls to the right representatives based on what the caller wants to know. When customers first call, they’ll be greeted by an interactive voice response (IVR) system that will gather basic information and keep them engaged while they wait to connect with an agent.
Benefits of Marketing Automation in Call Centers
Using marketing automation strategies with a BPO partner can potentially improve your overall efficiency, performance, and customer satisfaction. The following are just a few of the advantages of hiring a marketing outsourcing provider that uses automation.
Greater Accuracy
Automated systems are designed to eliminate tedious manual tasks that are prone to errors. Instead of requiring agents to enter lead information and customer details, you can rely on automated systems to handle tedious data entry tasks accurately. Reliable algorithms and tools reduce human error, making your overall systems more accurate and precise.
Shorter Wait Times
Automation can empower you to reach more prospects within a shorter time frame. Auto-dialers and intelligent lead-generation tools make it easy for representatives to connect with qualified leads right away, instead of wasting valuable time leaving messages for unavailable customers. Automatic caller routing tools also provide a better experience for inbound callers, helping them connect with a sales representative immediately.
Consistent Engagement
Automated systems can tell you the best time to schedule an email, make a call, or follow up with a customer based on where they are in the sales pipeline. Contact centers can promote your brand’s marketing materials across telemarketing phone calls, texts, and emails. You can provide your prospects with a consistent, engaging experience that keeps them interested in your brand.
Increased Conversions
One of the greatest benefits of automatic calling systems is the ability to collect and analyze data instantly. Automated systems can garner real-time insights that help agents close deals and increase sales. You can review data-backed recommendations to optimize your calling schedule, improve your scripts, and refine your overall outreach strategy.
Lower Costs
Advertising and building brand awareness can be expensive, but automated contact center services are affordable. Automation decreases labor costs by cutting down on manual tasks, so agents can focus on directly marketing your business to customers.
Exploring Call Center Marketing Strategies
Call centers can implement various marketing strategies based on your overall customer outreach strategy. This can include sending special offers to existing customers to encourage repeat business, setting up referral programs, reaching out to consumers across multiple channels, and even basic cold calling. Regardless of the strategies you use, your BPO provider can review campaign analytics and quality assurance data to hone in on the most effective techniques and form lasting bonds with your audience.
Revamp Your Marketing With Call Center Outsourcing
Confie BPO is an experienced outsourcing partner that offers custom contact center marketing services powered by automation. Supported by high-tech algorithms and software tools, our knowledgeable representatives can provide lightning-fast, attentive marketing support across multiple channels.
To boost your business with call center support, reach out at 800-684-2276 or contact us online today.