Predictive Analysis for Telemarketing
Some experts predicted that do not call legislation in the US spelled the end of the entire telemarketing industry in the States. However, legislation has not killed telemarketing, but has forced it to make some changes long overdue in the way that they operate which may in fact result in some positives in the long term.
Telemarketing call centres are known for their focus on quantity over quality. Keeping costs low was the name of the game at your normal call centre. centres would be pleased with themselves for generating conversions at the rate of one to three percent; after carpet-bombing the target market with unsolicited calls. The aggravation caused to the other 97-99% of their target market was seen as merely the cost of doing business. The do not call lists are actually doing the telemarketing industry a favor by forcing them to look again at their marketing tactics.
The advent of customer relationship management systems have let telemarketing call centres a chance to see the history that the client company has with the person they are calling every time they are contacted. The customers began to feel a stronger relationship between themselves and the company with each contact, feeling that the marketing efforts were target towards them due to their history with the company.
Do not call lists have pushed telemarketing to work with these relationships, taking the relationship between company and customer even further. The customer relationship management system already holds the tools needed for these efforts, it just needs proper analysis. The patterns found in call centre data can, through predictive analysis, be put into a usable form to give outbound telemarketing departments much more information about how customers can be expected to behave. This in turn can help marketing departments work much more effectively in identifying target markets for new products. This, of course can maximize the bottom line of a call centre.
Used in tandem with customer relationship management systems, predictive analysis software can let telemarketers know which products a customer is most likely to buy and inform the customer about them. Cross sells and upsells can then be offered simultaneously at little or no additional cost.
This predictive analysis can also identify customers who are unlikely to be receptive to these marketing contacts, which saves the company time and money – and keeping customers who may have been put off by telemarketing efforts.
Telemarketing services who are using this new software are enjoying higher conversions, better morale among call centre employees and less customers angry due to unsolicited calls. Employees, of course, prefer not being yelled at by customers for simply doing their jobs and find it easier to sell to someone who has already been identified as a good prospect for a particular product. By eliminating most of the blanket calling used by older telemarketing companies, do-not-call laws have instead freed up call centre to focus on the best prospects for their offers.
