Online Lead Generation Methods: What Works

Lead generation experts across the world are trying to figure out ways in which they can generate more leads. Some are of the opinion that they can translate the growing dependence of customers on online methods into sales lead generation through search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, SEO ranks first among the online methods that are used for generating leads. SEO is closely followed by the email marketing process. Emails are used more regularly and effectively for B2B projects. Business heads and entrepreneurs don’t like to talk business through telemarketing calls. They prefer to receive emails outlining the services and offers. They base their decision on these emails.

The pay per click (PPC) method comes third mainly because of the revenue that it earns for the client websites. Advertisements through Google and other internet companies are popular means of making money by selling the website, in addition to the products/services. Social media marketing ranks fourth. If you go by the hype, you will be expecting this form of online marketing to rank higher up the pecking order. However, the discomfort that call centers face when conducting social media is a primary reason why this form has not been able to make itself very popular. The other methods, like posting marketing literature and link exchange come in lower down.

Cold Calling for Lead Generation

Cold calling is the traditional way of conducting lead generation. However, with the times, the other alternative methods, like online sales lead generation and direct market methods like radio and TV ads have come up strongly. This has prompted many of the experts at call centers to feel that they do not need the cold calling process in an active way. Such ideas can only be considered erroneous. Telemarketing calls continue to be an effective way of handling customers and projecting sales. If you get down to the numbers and the data on your hand, you will find out that telemarketing services through phone calls got more customers on board than any other method that you have tried out.

What makes cold calling such an effective lead generation process? It’s the reach of the telecom medium. Customers are more receptive and proactive when they are answering phone calls from call center agents. They are more willing to make an action when they provide a verbal commitment. They may look for their requirements online, but when it comes to purchasing, they want to speak to a live telemarketing agent. That’s where the gap exists between the online and offline sales lead generation methods. In a way, phone calls also allow the customers to be dealt with in a way that depends on their reactions and responses. That is just not possible online.

Answering Service: Order Taking

Order taking is one of the more up and coming call center services. It has been around for quite some time, but it’s only recently that it claimed its place under the sun. With the kind of takeaway and fast food networks that are coming up, the concept of ordering for your food on the phone is catching wind. The upwardly mobile want their pizzas and burgers on the dot. They like them with the characteristic idiosyncrasies, like the right kind of topping and flavor. If your business is into the fast food chain, you will quickly feel that the receptionist is not really the ideal person to take your orders. You need a specialized team of phone answering agents to handle your customers and process their orders. That’s when you need to hire a BPO unit.

Handing out the answering service work to the BPO unit will help you get in more customers. Once your professional order taking services hit the market, you will get positive feedback from all the customers you have. They will refer your fast food network before there are too many outlets out there who mess up orders! The call center agents who man your phone can process the orders in a prompt and professional way. They are skilled and trained to ensure that each order reaches the person concerned and there are no mix-ups. Moreover, the BPO service agents can hike up your sales through telemarketing methods like cross selling and up selling.

Unified Call Center Reporting

The advantages of having a single report for the call center services can be extremely handy. It’s not a very productive idea for the call center departments to work as separate units. Since their tasks often overlap and correlate, they need to know what their peers are doing. For example, the lead generation agents should know how much they are being supported by the answering service department and vice versa. After all, it’s only a team effort that can finally see off a successful project. Come to think of it, bringing all of these departments on a single sheet of paper will make it possible for them to know where they stand individually and also as a team. This will help them support each other and work together.

Bringing the call center services on a single platform eradicates the chances of miscommunication. There has to be some leaks when you are working as isolated units. When you pool your BPO resources together and go in for division of labor according to the needs, you are also optimizing your technology and manpower. Clients often hire more than one BPO service for their business. Having all your cards on the same table helps keep a tab on how the entire project is going on. It does make a lot of difference when things are transparent and everyone is aware of their work.

Lead Generation for Finances

Generating leads for the telemarketing projects that deal with finances is not a walk in the park. There are many considerations that the BPO must think over. People are protective, defensive and paranoid about their financial details. The call center agents who call them to sort out their debt problems have to be careful about the questions they ask, the approach they take and the way they go about the sales lead generation process. In a way, they have to also follow certain protocols when they are doing financial projects. They cannot violate the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules. Very recently, the FTC has declared that the call centers offering financial services cannot charge the customers unless they actually provide the services.

Call centers have to be particularly careful about the questions that they ask the customers. Most of the prospective callers are aware that they are not supposed to part with their financial details to the telemarketing agents. However, that little aspect makes them overtly cautious about the other details that are needed to process their services. The same goes for persuasive telemarketing services. Consumers feel paranoid when the agents are insisting that something in particular is good for them. Lastly, the call center agents must allow the customers to think over it. Hardly anyone decides on a financial service without thinking it over.

Voice Clarity on Answering Service

A persistent problem at the answering service table is the quality of the voice calls. Telemarketing calls made to the callers often come across as clear but when the customers call up, things are totally different. The BPO units who have phone answering projects find themselves at their wit’s end because they cannot fix the problem. On the other hand, they cannot ignore it because they are losing customers who are fed up with the static noise in the calls. The fact that they are talking to an agent thousands of miles away to solve a local problem becomes more prominent when there is call drops. They feel irritated and often angry at the lack of voice clarity in the calls.

The going is tougher for the call centers that do tech support projects, or even the financial ones. In those telemarketing campaigns, it becomes important for the callers to listen to every instruction clearly. Failure to do so would result is complications later on. That is why customers calling the answering service system make mistakes in following instructions clearly. This is messy for the BPO units as well. If the callers are not getting what the agents tell them, it leads to situations where the BPO service has to bend their backs to clean things up. It also raises questions on the technological equipment that the firm uses.

Govt. Back-up for Call Centers

Any industrial sector is boosted by the support of the government. The government helps out the business firms in a number of ways: from tax evasions, getting them land for setting up a factory to helping them with the infrastructure. The same can be said about the BPO sector. Call centers are always willing to allow governments to help them out with infrastructure. The authorities can help them out with telecommunication support, faster internet and other back-up. Call center services need sophisticated equipment for their work. Making these available to the investors at subsidized prices will definitely count as goodwill gestures that will attract other investors to the country.

Other than infrastructure for the call centers in terms of hardware, governments can help them get better manpower. The ruling powers in countries like the Philippines have set up institutes to teach enthusiastic students about the aspects of telemarketing. These students will be trained in a way that makes them industry-ready for telemarketing services. A steady flow of these students into the manpower will improve the quality of work that is being done now. The BPO units are looking forward to the efforts on the part of the government. In related assistance, transport and other facilities for the security of the call center agents is another government domain.

SMS Blocks for Telemarketing

It’s time now for the BPO units to control the amount of bulk messages that they send out to prospective and existing customers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to cut short the honeymoon period of telemarketing firms that went on the rampage with text messages. The telemarketing services units were being severely fined for their continued insistence on calling customers who are registered with the national Do Not Call (DNC) list. Ignoring the DNC was no more possible and their lead generation calls would only attract heavy weather. SMS was the way out and the sales lead generation agents used the medium to full potential.

Blasting mass SMS is better than emails. Tapping cell phones for telemarketing was always essential to get in touch with the prospective customers. The advantage that these telemarketing services campaigns have over the email marketing procedure is that users cannot delete the texts without reading it. So with some careful composition of the text that will be sent out, the call centers can touch base and make an impact. If the users are interested in what they have to sell, they will surely respond. The lead generation in this regard is more effective. But the FTC has banned the use of texts to registered numbers as well!

Call Center Lesson: What Customers Think

To find out how you can improve your call center services, you have to find out what the customers think of you. They are best judge of your customer service. BPO agents can find out about the work that they are doing and the impact that they have by tapping the customers who talk to them. Ask them about the experience of talking at your inbound call center desk. Find out what they think of your answering service. While some may be prejudiced or just cynical by nature, the majority of them will be willing to offer you an impartial view of things. You can use the feedback to rethink your strategy and include the suggestions that you receive from your customers.


It’s not just about call center services that you can find out from your customers. You can boost your telemarketing efforts by finding out about the customer’s buying patterns. It could be that with the feedback that you receive from the customers, you can actually position your products better than you are doing at present. Customers’ feedback can be beneficial for your clients as well. They can learn how they can improve their products to cater to a larger market. It may be that just by dipping the price a little they can achieve a bigger profit. Market surveys on customer feedback can be crucial for all concerned with telemarketing services.

Telemarketing Agents Offer More

Telemarketing agents are learning the hard way about offering more to the customers. In the last few months, the ways of doing business in a BPO has changed considerably. Post recession the stakes have gone high and clients want the telemarketing services to offer more to the customers than they used to. Prior to this phase, the call center agents would decide how much they are going to offer the customers in terms of choice. They were allowed to pick only from a selected range of products/services. This was because the telemarketers would feel that offering the whole range would mean spending time on selling things that won’t sell. They had demarcated the consumers on certain parameters and stuck to them rigidly.

However, the recession opened up the market. The lack of business opportunities made the call center agents more aware of what the consumers want. The BPO agents were prepared to walk that extra bit so that they can get more consumers on board. The competition got tougher and the consumers’ tastes widened and became specialized. The consumers were more aware of their rights and if a certain telemarketing firm did not gave in to their demands they swiftly hung up the phone and signed up with another brand. Telemarketing services also felt that with more options, there were more opportunities to cross sell and up sell. All these factors combined to make consumers better off in terms of choice.

Unemployed USA Not Affecting BPO

The rising unemployment rate in the USA is not going to affect the BPO sector. That is the verdict from call center service providers. A few days back there were reports that the two-digit unemployment percentage will be a factor in deciding the telemarketing projects that are outsourced to the offshore destinations like India and the Philippines. Many BPO service experts felt that the business firms in the USA could cringe from outsourcing their projects away would hurt their patriotic sentiments because the US citizens are not getting work to do. However, the business process outsourcing industry is still a long way off from turning tides. The cost factor still rules heavy on those business firms that want to outsource their answering service.

The rise of the non-voice call center services has offered a new lease of life to the call center units. It’s on the support provided by this section of the BPO service that BPO units are confident that rising unemployment won’t affect much. The telemarketing projects are still rolling for the offshore call centers because they are better placed to handle the non-voice work than the domestic ones. The expenditures of getting the help desk services and other non-voice services from these offshore units are way cheaper than in the American shores. It’s true that the American business process outsourcing workers are now ready to work at lesser pay, but they are still notches higher than what it will take to get the job done in a developing country.

Lead Generation Media Choices

Gone are the days when you depended on the telephones for lead generation. These days you have so many media choices to conduct lead generation operations. The biggie is the Internet, of course. Websites and emails have changed the face of sales lead generation. Every B2B project is now conducted over the Internet instead of telemarketing calls. In fact, in some ways or the other, phone calls have side-stepped to allow these new methods of call center services to zoom into focus. Clients are approaching BPO firms to give them something better than just phone calls for generating leads. They demand the use of other media because competition and consumers demand so.

Other than the Internet, lead generation through mobile phones is another up and coming medium. The advantages of this medium are of great significance to call center units. And the BPO units have embraced this form of telemarketing in a big way. The use of SMS for sales lead generation has caught on like wildfire. Call center services are blasting text messages on cell phones to sell and promote their products/services. Their aim is simple. They want to get their message read by the consumers who do not want calls from the outbound call center desk. Since texts on cell phones have a considerably higher rate of being read than emails, BPO service units have picked this trend rather fast.

Volunteering for Emergency Answering Service

The answering service system in several emergency call centers offers the do-gooder a chance to play the Good Samaritan. If you are a BPO employee who wants to get into a bit of social service, you can volunteer to be a phone answering agent at one of the emergency call center desks. This will be a nice way for you to do something for the society and helping out those who need your assistance. To be a good at the emergency inbound call center table, you have to be alert and extremely focused. Whatever you give out from this desk will be important for the callers on the other end of the phone. More often than not, you might be doing some life saving tasks as well.

There are plenty of challenges at the emergency call center desk. You have to cautious about what you say and how you say it. You have to firm when giving out bad news or informing relatives about the deceased. All of that comes with the emergency answering service job. It pays for these BPO agents to know a little first aid and other life-saving techniques. There is no saying when they might be called upon to help out someone. It takes time for help to reach. A proactive inbound call center agent can handle the emergency while help goes out to the caller.

Social Media for Quality Lead Generation

Lead generation on social media networks can be done in a number of ways. The technique that call center units are using these days is one of monitoring. The BPO agents monitor the conversations on the social media platforms and trail the discussions in their domain of interest. When they find a conversation steering towards a possibility of a sale, they quickly step in and seal the deal. Consumers often share their worries with their friends and followers on the social networks. If the sales lead generation teams can keep a track of the discussions on the community walls and forums that pertain to their field of interest, they can provide the distressed consumer with the right support.

Such initiatives also make the others on the social networks aware of the excellent customer care service of your client. BPO agents can also keep a track on the conversations that deal with their rivals. Often you will find consumers venting their anger against brands. If that happens to be your rival brand, your call center agents can step in as goodwill ambassadors and win over the disgruntled customer on your side. Because they will be pretty sore with the services of your rival, your call center services need to fill in the void and before long, you may find the customer belonging to your database! Such procedures are common on Twitter these days.

Telemarketing Penalization Scores High

The fines that telemarketing companies are paying are running into the millions now! Telecom authorities in the countries like USA and Canada are coming down heavily on call center units that make automated lead generation calls to citizens. A Chicago based BPO unit had to cough up some $2.3 million in order to settle the federal case registered against them. They were making sales lead generation calls for fake automated calls to sell auto warranties. The federal court decided to stamp a legal notice against the call center services in response to the high number of complaints that they were receiving. The money will be used to pay back all those citizens that have been ripped off in the telemarketing scam.

The business process outsourcing industry really looks up to these penalizations for a simple reason. The faster these fraudulent call center units are washed out, the better it is for the BPO sector. In fact, delegates who met the telecom authorities for leniency on the do not call lists, often mentioned exemplary punishment for the violators of the telemarketing laws. They rightly feel that for the survival of the genuine telemarketing services, these conmen have to leave the sector. And the best way to do that is to bring them to the book.

Any Philadelphia auto insurance agent worth his salt will be able to answer 90% of a customer’s questions without having to refer to a book, a website, a superior, etc. If you don’t feel confident about an agent, you should feel more than welcome to transfer out to another agent.

Making Customers Feel Special through BPO

Just like you’d want your guests to feel special and your guests want to feel privileged, it’s the same with your customers. In the competitive market you are working in, unless you make your customers feel some strong tug with your business, they will not hesitate to stride over to your rivals. This erosion of the consumer database can be prevented by quality answering service that a BPO can provide. Call center agents are trained to receive and process the customer’s calls in a way that leaves them feeling good about their association with your company. Despite the bad flak that the inbound call center receives for poor customer service, it remains the reason why customer bases remain intact.

To run a successful answering service team, the call center must understand the basic psychology of the customers. When they dial a number to speak to someone in the company, they have this wish that they will be able to talk to someone who’s nothing short of the CEO! They are not willing to settle for anything less. Keeping this in mind, the phone answering agents must be allowed to talk with a certain amount of authority. They must be able to take decisions that make the customers feel that whatever be their worry, you are willing to solve that in a jiffy.