Online Customer Relationship Managers

Online Customer Relationship Managers provide all of the functions a remote sales team needs to successfully operate. These online CRMs have telephony software solutions, such as power dialing and voice messaging, built right into them. These technologies are designed specifically for businesses who sell to other businesses through their website or over the phone.

Customer Relationship Managers provide a platform for organizing and managing all of the different processes related to inside sales. An online CRM is one specific type of customer relationship manager and is also called a hosted CRM. The software needed to run the CRM is stored on a host company’s server and is accessed over the internet. Using an online-hosted CRM frees an organization from needing to developing its own system and database. Additionally, the information stored in the CRM can be accessed from any computer with internet access. This can be especially convenient when sales agents work remotely and not all in one physical location.

Some of the key featuring that an online CRM includes are power dialing, voice messaging, fax, and email marketing.

A power dialer is also called a phone dialer or an auto dialer. Dialer software will automatically calls through a predefined list of phone numbers and patches them through to available sales reps. This automation software frequently triples the amount of calls each agent is able to make in a typical work day.

Voice messaging technology allows a sales agent to save a previously recorded voice message within the online CRM. By saving and using only their most compelling voice messages a good first impression can be guaranteed with each message left. Voice messages can also be designed allowing listeners to press a button on their own phone in order to prevent further calls from reaching them or to automatically patch them through to an available agent.

Fax and email messaging serves a similar purpose as voice mail. Carefully crafted templates for both kinds of messages can be saved in the online CRM. These templates can be sent to a contact that a sales rep is speaking to as soon as the contact requests additional information. Alternatively, these messages may be sent in place of a voice message. Since these messages are saved with the Customer Relationship Manager they can be sent by the system quickly with little extra work from the sales representative.

Recession Solution? Auto Dialer!

Rising unemployment rates and sinking consumer confidence affects business to business companies, just like any other. In these slouching economic times, all businesses have to look at new ways to reach their targeted audiences.

An inefficient business can still turn a profit in a good economy, but a recession can painfully highlight all the failing areas in a company. One such area is manually dialing sales leads instead of automating the process using an auto dialer.

An inside sales call center who’s sales professionals manually dial all numbers can at times perform reasonably well when a greater percentage of contacts convert into clients. In a typical well-run B2B call center a sales professional, whose primary responsibility is lead generation, can be expected to make 40 or 50 calls each work day. That’s if he was dialing manually. Once that same sales professional switches to using an auto dialer he can expect to be making 170 to 350 calls each workday.

An auto dialer works like this: First the auto dialer has a contact list of leads loaded into the database. The auto dialer will then automatically place a call to each number on that list. Once dialed, the call is routed through to an available sales agent who takes the call as the number is ringing. If the call is busy or not answered, the auto dialer system can be used to send fax, voicemail, or email. By doing all this, auto dialers not only reduce the wasted time spent manually dialing, but also eliminate much of the wasted time spent dealing with busy signals and voice messaging systems.

A hosted auto dialer solution adds even more value to this system. By contracting with a hosted auto dialer provider the maintenance, development, and set up of the dialer is completed by the host company. Also, no software needs to be downloaded on company computers. Instead the auto dialer software is accessed through the internet. This allows sales professionals to work from any location with a telephone and a PC connected to the internet. A hosted dialer solution works with whatever hardware a call center may currently be using.

Inside sales operations can continue to grow in a difficult financial recession, but only when smart telephony technology is used. An auto dialer is such a solution that eliminates much of the wasted time in call centers.

Phone Dialer for the Complex Sale

Business to business (B2B) sales occur when commerce happens between businesses, such as a manufacturer trades with a wholesaler or a wholesaler selling to a retailer. When a remote sales operation participates in B2B sales, those sales are often more complex than business to consumer (B2C) sales. These complex sales require different telephony software than the simpler B2C sales, such as a different kind of auto dialer.

All auto dialers work in a similar way, but not every kind could be described as a complex sale dialer. The purpose of any dialer is to increase the amount of calls and contacts a sales agent can complete in a business day. All auto dialers load a previously generated list of phone numbers and then systematically call each of those numbers. These calls are then routed through to a sales agent. This method is significantly faster than manually dialing, often bringing an increase in call volume upwards of four times what it was previous.

One of the largest differences in telephone dialers is the amount of phone numbers that the dialer calls at a time. Ratio dialers or predictive dialers call several at a time. This ensures that on each dialer a customer will be reached, but comes with some very large drawbacks. First, when a call is answered the dialer has to determine that there is someone on the line before they patch that call through to the sales agent. During this process there is a few second gap between when the contact answers the phone and when the sales rep starts speaking. This “telemarketer pause” is one of the negative experiences that contacts often complain about. Another problem that these kinds of dialers face occurs when more contacts answer the phone than there are available reps. When this occurs the extra calls are dropped, even when their was a person on the contacts line.

Both of these problems are not acceptable for a complex sale dialer. One of the unique qualities of the business to business sale is the “gatekeeper.” This can be either a recorded message system to navigate through or a receptionist whose job could very well be to prevent sales calls from reaching his or her employer. In order to speak to the important decision makers, sales teams cannot afford to come across as automated and impersonal. That is why power dialers are a much better solution for complex B2B sales. These complex sale auto dialers call only one phone number at a time for each available agent. This still speeds up the sales process dramatically, but eliminates the problems of dropped calls and telemarketer pauses.

Inside sales is the process of collecting leads, making contacts, and closing sales from a remote location – typically over the telephone. This differs in several ways from outside sales, where sales professionals meet with their prospects face to face. Because it is different inside sales professionals need to utilize sales technologies in order to be the most effective, and compensate for the personal touch. An auto dialer is one such technology that is essential to productive inside sales call centers.

Call centers need to make as many quality calls in a day as they possibly can. A high number of outbound calls also allow call centers to contact individual leads numerous times, if necessary, in order to convert as many customers as possible. Many call centers use ratio auto dialers or predictive auto dialers because of the high level of calls that can be made each day with these solutions.

Ratio and predictive dialers both burn through a large number of leads very quickly because both types of dialers dial more leads than there are available sales agents to take those calls. This is done to account for the number of calls that are not answered or busy. These auto dialers also come with a percentage of dropped calls. For B2B call centers that have a more complex sales process and typically a higher profit on each call, dropped leads are not an option. In this case a power dialer is the only type of auto dialer that should be used.

Power Dialers call only one lead for each sales agent at a time. When a call starts to ring it is routed through to the agent. If the answering machine picks up the auto dialer can be instructed to leave a prerecorded message while the sales agent takes another call. Since these B2B sales are complex and could require a significant amount of time, the power dialer will not begin dialing other leads until the sales agent finishes his call. This solves the problem of burning through leads, dropped calls, and lag time.

Companies using a power dialer can expect to triple their daily call volume compared to manually dialing, but cannot dial the same volume of leads that a company using a ratio or predictive dialer can in a day, which for B2B companies is not necessary. What this kind of auto dialer may lack in shear call volume it more than makes up in its ability to provide each lead with a quality sales experience.

How to use an Auto Dialer... aka Don't be a rude Telemarketer

What 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.

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What does a dialer do? How about a CRM?

What does an auto-dialer do? The short answer is that it increases sales. That is a tall order for any one business tool. That is why auto-dialers go hand-in-hand with CRMs (customer relationship managers). This pairing provides all the options needed to triple or quadruple sales.

An auto-dialer is a telephony software solution that lets a single telephone operator call through a large volume of phone numbers. What that means is that any particular sales agent can increase the amount of calls that they make during a regular business day. The more calls made the more sales are made. The auto-dialer pulls these numbers from the CRM, which stores contact information in a database.

The auto-dialer automatically routes calls through to the sales rep. Wasted time dialing and dialing wrong or busy numbers is eliminated by the use of an auto-dialer. In addition, an auto-dialer can be programmed to only call numbers in specific time zones or geographic locations at predetermined times of day or days of the week. This allows agents to call leads only during the most productive hours.

Auto-dialers also speed up the how much time a sales rep needs to spend following up on calls each day. One way it does this is by automatically capturing and recording information on each call. This can include the name, address, zip code, and call duration for each lead. In addition, comments about the result of the contact can easily be typed into the CRM to be retrieved the next time that customer is dealt with by the sales team.

Following up is quicker and easier by email messaging or fax messaging software solutions built in to many Customer Relationship Managers. When a sales rep makes a promise to email or fax additional information to the contact he or she can do so immediately with a click of the button from within the CRM. Additionally, email and fax templates can be saved in the system that sales reps can quickly select and send. Consenting contacts can also be added to email campaigns. This is where the Customer Relationship Manager automatically sends, at predetermined intervals, a selection of previously written emails to the lead. The CRM automatically personalizes the emails with the name or business of the lead. These email campaigns serve to help the lead be prepared, or nurtured, for a future conversion

The dialer and CRM both cut time and increase revenue in sales. They effectively get agents connected to leads, keep in contact with clients, and prepare leads that did not convert to become valuable customers in the future.