Toll Free Numbers

Consumers are used to being offered 1-800 numbers to dial. Because these phone numbers are toll free for the caller they are appealing to customers. 1-800 numbers are an effective for any remote sales businesses to get people to call them.

Toll free numbers are set up to charge the called party, not the calling party, for the placed call. This added cost of the phone call is offset by the benefits of toll free telephone numbers, especially if the business has some way to directly monetize incoming calls.

Using one or more toll free numbers increases company visibility, and encourages customers to call. This benefit is one of the most obvious returns to establish such a number. Toll free numbers can also increase company efficiency, and there are numerous telephony software solutions that have been designed to help remote sales teams to do this.

One such software solution is a lead management CRM. By linking inbound toll free calls to the CRM, relevant, real time information on the caller will automatically be captured and updated in the CRM’s database. These leads can be saved as future prospects for phone or email campaigns.

Another piece of telephony software that helps sales reps capitalize on toll free numbers is inbound-outbound call blending telephony. With this, sales reps may make outbound calls while they wait to receive an inbound call. The use of a CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) system blending can additionally enhance call blending. These CTI solutions often involve pop-ups or pop-screens, windows that open automatically when the inbound call is answered. This immediately displays all relevant information and allows the sales rep to easy update the contacts data in the CRM.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is another business solution that increases the effectiveness of toll free calls. ACD software is known as call routing software, and it automatically forwards incoming calls to the best available agent. Individual agents can be specified as the primary agent for individual toll free numbers or geographic locations. If preferred agents are not available, incoming calls can then be routed to a designated fail-over destination. This could be the company’s general telephone line, an internal messaging system, or a private cell phone.

The implementation of a toll free number can be the added incentive a potential customer needs to call a business they have not contacted before. These telephony pieces of telephony software gives sales representatives the tools they need to make these calls even more profitable.

What can separate a Remote Sales Professional from a Telemarketer?

rWhat can separate a Remote Sales Professional from a Telemarketer?

Even those of us who work in telephony software can find ourselves annoyed with telemarketers. Perhaps we are even more annoyed with the tactless tactics these sales people use because we see how telesales should be done. We know that there are types of auto dialers that fix many of the “problems” with remote selling by telephone.

Telemarketing originated in the 1950’s, and by the 70’s telemarketing companies were experiencing a tremendous amount of success. By the 1990’s telemarketing was often seen as a public nuisance, and by the end of the decade legislative action was taken with the implementation of the “Do Not Call” registry.

There are several reasons why telemarketers fell out of favor with the American public. These calls were often placed at the least opportune times, right about the time dinner was being served and the family was gathered together. Telesales professionals were often aggressive and refused to respect their contacts wishes not to purchase what they were selling.

On top of this is added the insult of the “telemarketer pause.” This occurs when the telesales company uses a predictive auto dialer. A predictive dialer calls more numbers than available sales agents. It does this based on the amount of dropped calls or busy signals it has been encountering, as well as how much time the sales agents are spending on an average call. Since there is no guarantee that there won’t be more calls answered than there are sales agents to take those calls a percentage of calls trigger a telemarketer pause. This is when there is no agent on the line when the contact answers – the phone is dead.

It is a possibility that such a call will be routed to a sales agent shortly, but in these cases the person called is expected to remain on the line and wait. Most often these contacts simply hang up the phone. With practices like these it is no wonder that we all find ourselves annoyed with these telemarketers.

Responsible remote sales professionals opt for a different kind of auto dialer – a Power Dialer. A power dialer only calls one number at a time for each available sales representative; there is no opportunity for a telemarketer pause to occur. This kind of auto dialer not only satisfies the call center’s need to make more calls but also gives the potential customers being called courtesy that a predictive auto dialer cannot.

It is up to the sales people to deal with the problems of over aggressiveness internally.