Types Of Outbound Calls You Should Know About

While inbound marketing is all the rage right now, successful companies agree that the outbound approach is still effective for generating leads and building brand awareness. This is why you should seriously consider boosting your marketing efforts by making outbound calls. 

However, while they’ve been a mainstay in the world of business for such a long time, many people are unfamiliar with how they work.

The confusion ends today. Continue reading to learn about the main types of outbound calls and how implementing an outbound call strategy can benefit your organization.

What is outbound calling?

An outbound call is a call made by an agent or a sales representative to potential and existing customers. Typically, outbound calls are made to promote a company’s products or services, and if possible, inspire customers to take action.

Outbound calls are highly effective and represent one of the most efficient ways of communicating with a prospect. In addition, agents who conduct these calls can benefit from a focused outreach and receive faster response and/or feedback. 

Most common types of outbound calls

Although the method of establishing contact is the same, there are different types of outbound calls and they’re all made for different purposes. Some of the most common are:

1. Telemarketing

This is what most think of when they hear the words ‘outbound call’. As the name suggests, telemarketing is marketing conducted via the telephone and includes contacting, qualifying, as well as canvassing (soliciting) prospects.

For instance, a sales rep will call a prospective customer and inform them about your company. Their goal is to convince the prospect to buy the offering by explaining to them all the benefits of becoming a paying customer.

2. Customer service calls

Some types of outbound calls are not about making sales, rather, they’re about boosting your overall customer service. 

By calling your customers, providing them with a service before and after the purchase, and answering their questions, you can accomplish many positive things. For example, customer service calls boost customer retention and work wonders for customer loyalty. 

3. Marketing research

A successful sales and marketing strategy depends on data and a deep knowledge of market trends. With outbound calls, you can connect to the public by directly asking your target audience about their preferences. 

4. Post-sales follow-ups

Companies can improve customer retention rates by providing them with  better after-sale service. It’s a good idea to call customers after they make a purchase, thank them, and also inform them about the after-sales services you offer.

You can also use this opportunity to ask for feedback about the product or service you sold. That way, you can better understand customer needs and implement their suggestions in the future. 

5. Lead generation

Outbound calls can also serve a role in your overall lead generation strategy. Once you make prospects interested enough in your offering that they request more info from you (most commonly by filling out a form on your website), you can then use this information and follow up with a phone call to move them further down the sales funnel.

5. Cold calling

One of the most controversial types of outbound calls, cold calling revolves around dialing people who haven’t yet expressed any interest in your offering or had no prior interaction with your business. 

Despite the invasive nature of cold calls, they are still fairly effective, especially with older populations. 

Methods of handling outbound calls

Outbound calls are generally the responsibility of marketing teams and sales reps. The scope of the outbound strategy and the method you use will ultimately depend on the size of your company and the frequency of calls. 

You can conduct outbound calls by opening an in-house call center or outsourcing. 

With an in-house approach, your staff will directly handle all the calls in your physical office (or remotely). Small businesses often have a smaller sales team that handles calls, while call centers in larger companies may have dozens of reps specialized in making outbound calls. 

Alternatively, you can outsource your outbound calls to a third-party contact center that will manage the calls on your behalf. 

The choice you make will depend on your financial resources. Starting a small indoor call center and supporting an outbound call strategy will cost you a surprising amount of money, not to mention the monthly overhead costs.

If your resources are limited and you want to make a maximum impact with your outbound calls, you should consider outsourcing your operations to a third-party call center. This not only helps you save money because you’ll have no overhead costs, but people working at third-party call centers are already professionals and require no extra training. Thus, you can maximize your marketing budget and drastically reduce the overall expenses of running an outbound call strategy. 

Why should you start outbound calling?

There are plenty of benefits of putting more resources into outbound calling, such as:

1. Build a closer relationship with your leads

Human interactions are more or less lost in modern sales. By calling recipients who are ready to engage, you can build valuable human connections that may make you stand out from the competition. 

A human touch is also super helpful when selling highly technical services or products. You can use everyday language to explain the benefits of your offering without relying on complex emails or convoluted product pages. 

2. Qualify leads 

By making outbound calls, you can clean up your contact lists by categorizing quality leads. That way, you can establish a contact’s desires and intentions in under a minute and potentially build a better relationship with them in the future. Alternatively, you can simply cross them off your contact list if they’re not receptive and avoid wasting time and resources on them any further.

3. Boost sales

Once you qualify your list of leads, you can reach out to these individuals as soon as you have a new offer. Afterward, you can filter out those who are not interested and only follow up with those who are open to making a purchase. 

Voila, you just boosted your sales by using your existing contact lists through outbound calling!

Start making calls now!

There are various types of outbound calls, and each of them can benefit your company in a variety of different ways. 

The only question is how are you going to get around to it?

We suggest outsourcing to us - Aspen Media.

In-house call centers have always been out of reach for small businesses with limited resources. Fortunately, by taking advantage of our experience, technology, and trained reps, you can start an outbound call strategy without minimal upfront costs.

Call 800-853-2240 or fill out our contact form to get started!