Automated outbound calls are calls made by your contact center to your customers. When used appropriately, they can help your company stay afloat when the odds are against you.
This post explores several ways you can use automated outbound calls.
To get us on the right track, let’s look at a few differences between inbound and automated outbound calls.
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Inbound calls vs. Automated Outbound Calls
The main difference between the two approaches is the direction of calls. Inbound call centers strictly take calls. On the other hand, outbound call centers make calls. Automated outbound calls are scheduled and made by customer service systems.
For instance, the CRM can schedule outbound calls targeting contacts on their 100th day of service. As you can imagine, this doesn’t just happen, unless you’ve strategically designed it to be.
Let’s find out how you can get started making automated calls.
Getting started with Automated Outbound Calls
The first thing to put in place is automation. You’ll achieve this when your contact center tools are integrated, sharing information, and pushing events between each other.
Let’s consider the case of automated outbound calls. Your CRM essentially pushes the customer information, call dates, and call agenda to your automated dialler. This, along with the agent to conduct the call session.
To achieve automation, you could either call your software applications vendors and have them work together (a long and costly process). Or you can look into the use of no-code automation platforms.
The advantages you stand to gain from having automated outbound calls infused with the rest of your contact center activities are immense.
Advantages of outbound calling
- Reduced customer acquisition cost
- Eliminate support wait queues
- Increase Customer Retention rates
Automated Outbound Calls and lower Customer Acquisition Cost
Automated outbound calls reduce the effort of following up with leads. Low effort always translates to lower cost in the long run. By causing a marked increase in conversion rates (roughly 30%), we can safely say outbound calls make a business more profitable.
The main focus when using automated outbound calls for customer acquisition is pace. The faster you reach out to new leads, the more likely you are to close.
Eliminate queues
Automated outbound calls make it possible to schedule call backs when the customer support queue is long. This (optionally) places customers in a virtual queue, where they can do other things besides listen to your call-wait playlist.
A good 70% of customers would confirm that they prefer not having to wait on hold as your agents serve other customers. This is only possible when you have an automated way of keeping track of their position in the queue and calling back when they reach the front – automated outbound calls.
Increased customer retention rates
Keeping customers happy is a full-time task, and outbound calls play a huge part in winning on this front. Seemingly random check-in calls to every customer are a sure way to confirm that your company is always thinking about their happiness.
Such automated calls eliminate the need for customers to call you (which also means shorter support queues). If they call, at least it won’t be as frequently as they would if your contact center model was entirely inbound focused.
Outbound call center metrics to keep an eye on
It’s not enough to simply set up an outbound call center and have calls flying out. You should start measuring the impact of each effort you’re investing in. To do this, consider the following outbound call center metrics;
- Calls made by each agent – The more calls your agents make, the more customers they’re reaching out to.
- Average call session time – Short calls are cost effective. However, be sure that customers are leaving the call satisfied before you look to cut them even shorter. Long calls, on the other hand, should force you to invest in training your agents.
- First contact resolution – A measure of how many issues get solved (no follow-up call necessary) the very first time they’re raised on the call.
These three are just the tip of the iceberg when looking at the variables you can monitor in outbound call centers. Still, these three are a good few to get you started and improving over time.
What is a blended contact center
Most cases, the mission of pivoting to becoming an outbound call center reaches a point of equilibrium. This happens when you have a functional contact center with both inbound inbound and outbound calls taking place. When this happens, you have a blended contact center. Hitting this sweet spot is seldom by mistake.
Following the advice we’ve shared throughout this post should significantly improve your contact center’s performance. This should show in the metrics we also specified and you should consistently monitor with the urge to improve.
About babelforce
babelforce is a global cloud communications platform focused on No-Code integration and automation. It allows non-technical people to build even the most complex integrated processes for customer-facing teams, particularly in the call center.
