Refresher Training for Telemarketers
August 28, 2010
Regular refresher training for telemarketing workers is a good idea, and summertime may be the ideal time for it, due to the high number of people away on holiday and therefore unavailable. Sometimes, in the thick of day-to-day calling, it is easy to forget some of the underlying fundamentals of telemarketing training.
For instance, it is important for telemarketing professionals to remember to come across as someone the prospect wants to call back. Voicemail is not necessarily a dead end. Telemarketers miss out on opportunities by not leaving voicemail messages. Leave your name and number, the important reason you are calling, and a more important reason they should call you back. You should repeat your name and number before ringing off.
Another fundamental is being both interested and interesting when making cold calls. By encouraging prospects to talk about themselves, taking notes, and then using their words in your sales pitch, you will establish a degree of intimacy that makes it easier to make a sale.
Business may have slowed during the summer, but refresher training doesn’t have to take a holiday.
Call centres could soon be using Tweets
August 21, 2010
Call centres could soon be using Tweets as well as SMS, voice calls, and emails as a means of improved customer service operations. IPscape, an Australian cloud-based vendor of telemarketing contact centre products now has a beta release product that uses Twitter as part of its multi-channel solution for contact centre technology. With this capability, contact centre managers may assign people to respond to tweets that are in the queue.
IPscape’s contact centre technology requires just a browser and business-level broadband connection and gives clients inbound and outbound contact that can scale up to meet call and tweet volumes. The speed of response is the biggest selling point.
Like SMS messages or emails, tweets are queued, and are then sent to the designated approved “tweet agents.” Tweet agents may also answer voice calls, further increasing productivity. Proactive tweeting can inform followers of important service messages or emergencies.
Tweet statistics and measurement are part of IPscape’s approach so that management can compare all the inbound communications channels. This will allow better understanding of how to improve customer service.