DM p30-33 telemarketing Dec08.qxp 02/12/2008 12:48 Page 32
Telemarketing
age-old debate over in-house or outsourced. Quality, not quantity
Traditionally organisations turned to outsourced third The fact remains, however, that the number of con-
party suppliers for cost reasons: a way of minimising tactable individuals and companies is shrinking, as
costs by reducing overheads on human resources, more and more people opt out, meaning that those
premises and technology. But as they quickly realised, that remain must be treated with respect, and mean-
the benefits go much further. ing that all telemarketing calls that are made need to
“Outsourcing can enable an organisation to extend be of the highest standard possible.
the range and quality of its customer services, by Nowhere is this more important than in B2B mar-
offering a wider range of services, extended operating keting as Habba points out: “We operate exclusively
hours and a higher headcount of advisers to handle in the B2B space and unlike in the consumer market
Effectively, all the
calls,” says James Le Roth, contact centre director at where prospect volumes are still very high, the busi-
corporate TPS
Eclipse Marketing. ness market in the UK can be very small indeed.
does is remove “It can also give access to fresh areas of expertise. A “If you’re targeting banks in a certain area, for
businesses you
company that has grown organically may not have example, you might only have a prospect pool of 400
would have been
an established internal customer services function. to start off with, so you can’t afford to drop any of
This can mean customer service calls are handled by them through poor quality contact. Every call has to
wasting your time
back office staff, who may not have the time, training be utterly professional, and we often find that it’s
with anyway.
or knowledge to give a good customer experience, only on the second, or third or fifth call that we get
Niall Habba, managing
and moreover, may be more expensive to employ the result we’re after – we rarely get a result on the
director, The Telemarketing
Company.
than contact centre agents.” first call, so every call needs to be spot on.”
Le Roth also points out that in companies where a Habba also accepts that corporate TPS has indeed
dedicated in-house contact centre function has been reduced the pool but validly points out that the
set up, they may feel they are best placed to represent chances are, the companies that opt out are almost
their own brand. But, even here, there are many occa- certainly the ones least likely to be converted anyway.
sions when outsourcing can provide a convenient “If these businesses have ruled themselves out of
and effective additional solution. being contacted about new opportunities, and they
“Tactical campaigns are a case in point,” he says. don’t even like taking calls, you’re not going to be
“Using a third party agency, companies can carry out able to sell something to them anyway, so why waste
ad hoc sales and marketing activity, without impact- the time on the call? Effectively, all the corporate TPS
ing on their core business functions or affecting their does is remove businesses you would have been wast-
ongoing sales and marketing activities. This could ing your time with anyway. By removing them you
include supporting mailshots with telemarketing can focus on the good prospects and improve ROI.”
activity or the data cleansing of marketing databases. And in today’s economic climate, eliminating wast-
“Crisis management is another specialist area ed time and effort is just what the doctor ordered.
where it is often appropriate to use outsourced servic- The days of finding comfort in huge volumes, regard-
es. Manufacturers or food retailers in particular need less of how likely they were to convert, are long gone.
to respond very quickly in a crisis.” The upshot, he says, is that data counts are gradually
It’s clear the benefits of out-sourcing are many and declining, but this is having no impact on results.
varied, especially in uncertain economic times and Not everyone agrees with the principle, however, as
can also give businesses access to additional customer Blue Donkey’s Landini describes CTPS and companies
data, not available through conventional in-house closing the door to new opportunities as “dangerous”
means such as web forms. and “damaging to the economy”.
A further benefit, as demonstrated by The Meanwhile on the consumer side, Adare’s Andrew
Telemarketing Company, is that out-sourcing needn’t Woodger believes that falling numbers of contactable
involve long and expensive contracts. consumers is indeed having a noticeable impact on
Managing director Niall Habba explains: “We work results, especially in the charity sector.
on an extremely flexible basis with our clients. We “Unfortunately, many of those who register with
don’t tie them into two year contracts that more or TPS are C1/C2 and typically this is a very responsive
less oblige them to use us even when they don’t feel audience for charitable giving, so I would have to say
it’s appropriate. The only reason our clients use us as the falling numbers are having an impact,” he says.
an outsourced provider is because we are delivering “Telemarketing can be a highly responsive channel
for them, and they can walk away if we’re not.” if done well in the charitable space. Every quarter we
Habba also points out that scaleability is a key ben- put together a pool of around 750,000 names for a
efit here, with clients able to buy as much or as little telemarketing campaign we carry out for the RNIB
resource as and when they need it, rather than hav- and success depends heavily on the availability of
ing to commit to the added overheads of an in-house numbers that can be called.
team. “We rerank demographically after each quarterly
32 Database Marketing December 2008 www.dmarket.co.uk
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