Call Center Outsourcing

A Guide To Outsourcing Telemarketing

Read Time: 20 minutes

Introduction

Outsourced telemarketing offers businesses a strategic way to expand customer outreach, qualify leads, and drive revenue without overburdening internal teams. By partnering with experienced providers, companies can access skilled agents, advanced technologies, and scalable operations tailored to their goals and industry needs. This guide explores the key functions, benefits, and considerations of outsourcing telemarketing to help you determine the best fit for your business.

Key takeaways

Outsourced telemarketing boosts efficiency and scalability by providing access to skilled agents, advanced technologies, and flexible staffing options that reduce operational costs and improve customer engagement.
A successful outsourcing partnership depends on alignment with your company’s goals, brand voice, compliance standards, and industry expertise, ensuring high-quality, consistent customer interactions.
Key functions like lead qualification, appointment setting, and customer follow-ups are handled by dedicated experts, allowing your internal team to focus on core business operations and growth initiatives.

What is outsourced telemarketing?

Every business needs to market their products or services, but knowing where to start and how to engage your ideal customer requires a targeted approach.

In telemarketing, or direct marketing, sales representatives use technology to contact these potential customers, maximizing their reach and—hopefully—effectively connecting with these leads.

In-house telemarketing vs. outsourced telemarketing: Which is best?

Deciding who should own your telemarketing strategy is the first step to maximizing profit and reach. In-house and outsourced telemarketing each come with pros and cons as well as specific purposes that can align with your needs.

Let’s delve into each to discover the best fit for you.

1. In-house: Your internal team handles inbound calls, appointments, and follow-through along with their day-to-day tasks.

This works for companies not experiencing overwhelming demand. If tasks naturally incorporate into your internal team’s responsibilities and job functions, outreach can enhance the customer experience.

It could also be a simple way to avoid the investment of outsourcing a team or building out an internal one dedicated to these tasks.

However,

If you want to grow your business, this isn’t a sustainable option.

You may be able to hire a few employees, but demand surges significantly overwhelm small teams, leading to neglected daily tasks, lost sales opportunities, long wait times, customer churn, and dissatisfied employees who are always playing catch-up—ultimately, significant revenue loss.

2. Outsourced telemarketing: Partnering with a provider who specializes in direct marketing leverages experts around the world to handle your efforts.

Unrestricted by space, you can select teams in time zones similar to or different than yours for the coverage you need.

Agents at Global Response use cutting-edge technologies to streamline training, empowering them to become an extension of your brand as they implement the most current outreach strategies.

Our proactive approach efficiently clears backlogs, manages leads, and aligns businesses with customers for effective telemarketing outsourcing.

Download our In-House vs. Outsourced Telemarketing Pros and Cons List & see which solution is right for your business

How does call center outsourcing work?

Outsourcing your call center operations is a powerful way to ensure high-quality service in every interaction while reducing workloads from your team and improving customer engagement and satisfaction.

Learn how to outsource the best contact center for you throughout every step of the journey with these steps, insights, and tips.

Initial setup

In your search for a partner, you should shop around, just like any customer. As you research providers, ensure your objectives align.

Companies specialize in different industries, use various technologies, and come to the table with unique approaches to customer support, so whatever you choose should fit with your company’s goals and culture.

In the first stage of your search, you should look for providers with experience achieving measurable results for companies similar to yours.

Request or read published case studies to get a clear picture of their methods, integrations, hiring timelines, and results.

Important questions to ask:

Do they target the key performance indicators you do?
How do they utilize communication channels to enrich customer experiences?
Do they demonstrate the value you seek?

Their answers (and your own discoveries) can help you set course for a successful partnership.

Onboarding and training

Specialties and results ensure you’re looking in the right place for an outsourcing provider, but the team’s integration determines the success of these operational changes.

Because of the significance of these teams, many people hesitate to entrust customer interactions to agents they haven’t personally met or vetted.

Thankfully, outsourcing contact centers are experts in just that.

BPO outsourcers vet applicants for the qualities and skills you need, training new hires in your materials and culture to understand and reflect the branding, services, and communication style of your business.

Dedicated agents specialize in your industry, bringing transferable knowledge to your business and ensuring strict adherence to relevant regulations, guidelines, and practices.

Global Response also utilizes cutting-edge training technologies that are built to streamline the contact center agent onboarding process.

AI software transforms heavy, dense material into easy-to-use, gamified, interactive courses that boost speed to proficiency, knowledge retention, and agent confidence, slashing onboarding and training times and costs.

Managing operations

Another potential area of concern surrounding an outsourced team is the lack of control businesses have over the new team’s daily operations.

Going from heavy to little involvement in customer experience can be jarring, but it’s important to remember that this is the perk of an outsourced contact center: we handle the day-to-day support operations so you can focus on developing business initiatives and handling face-to-face customer interactions.

Global Response hires teams with the infrastructure to manage agents so you don’t have to, including these features:

Contact center AI technologies capture, record, and score all interactions via phone, video, chat, email, and social media.
Real-time AI provides automated summaries and data reports after each call for immediate feedback and continuous agent coaching.
Interaction monitoring tracks customer insights, allowing the team to better understand customers while holding agents to high standards.
Account managers oversee each agent, adapting strategies and training to boost agent performance and customer satisfaction.

Gathering feedback and reporting

You can put so much work into something, but without an accurate and comprehensive way to evaluate the results of your work, you can lose steam and direction and stray from the growth trajectory you were on.

Once again, a dedicated partner proves invaluable in helping you make sense of the data and determining the effectiveness of your efforts.

Outsourced providers gather customer feedback through automated reports, increasing your team’s transparency and service quality.

Global Response also empowers you to transform from a reactive customer support response to proactive customer care strategy by accurately predicting customer behavior via sentiment analysis and AI-driven insights.

Want to scale your business?

Global Response has a long track record of success in outsourcing customer service and call center operations. See what our team can do for you!

Benefits of outsourcing telemarketing

Still not sure if choosing to outsource telemarketing is the right option for you?

Let’s cover the bottom line: what makes it worth the effort?

These outsourcing benefits will drastically boost quality, operational efficiency, and long-term business success.

Cost savings

Outsourcing significantly reduces costs related to internal hiring and training.

Partnering with a telemarketing BPO connects you with affordable local and global agents, lowering overhead and operational costs with ready-to-work agents.

Compare it with the costs of hiring internally:

Call center setup
Staffing: salaries and benefits
Inventory, production labor, utilities, rent, software, hardware, Internet services
Admin salaries, HR, insurance, accounting services
Training material creation, management oversight, timely training schedules

Outsourcing your team removes slashes these costs and empowers you to do more work, capture more leads, and grow more revenue.

Access to skilled agents

Outsourced agents specialize in telemarketing and leverage emerging technologies, ensuring your team uses the most up-to-date strategies in your industry.

Expert telemarketing agents have vast amounts of experience in sales and customer support.

Our teams seamlessly train agents in your business to tailor their knowledge and skills to your purposes.

At Global Response, your industry is our passion.

Discover the perks of accessing skilled teams in Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Tunisia, and the US to determine the right fit for you.

Improved customer outreach

Connecting with customer support experts in your industry around the world not only saves you money; it also improves your customer relationships.

Diversify your support team to match your audience by sourcing agents of similar backgrounds, languages, and cultures in nearshore countries such as Mexico and the US.

Increase your customer reach by spanning time zones and regions, staffing after-hours and overflow so no customer gets left behind even in the busiest of times.

With outsourcing, you can truly customize your team to engage customers better than ever before.

Experts in our global teams also possess various skillsets that can revolutionize your operations, simplifying processes, reducing escalations, and improving customer satisfaction.

Agents don’t have to be on-site to connect with your audience. Reduce churn with dedicated agents.

Focus on core business functions

Entrusting your customer support and telemarketing efforts allows you to focus on main business operations without worrying about if you have the sales to keep operating.

Enjoy greater results with a professional team that handles recruiting, hiring, training, constant agent coaching, and regular performance monitoring to achieve the results you seek.

Let Global Response guide your operations through the various levels of customer service to establish a culture and a business of constant improvement.

Common challenges and solutions in telemarketing outsourcing

No business change worth making comes without growing pains.

Anticipate the common challenges in outsourced telemarketing to more swiftly and confidently implement the solutions that turn roadblocks into successes.

Misalignment of brand voice

Problem: Outsourcing runs the risk of hiring a team that isn’t the right match for your company or your audience.

If agents don’t understand your brand voice, there’s higher risk for miscommunication, inaccurate or inappropriate responses, and lowered customer satisfaction.

Agents are the face of your company, so misalignment will alter the public’s perception of your business and increase time, resources, and expenses in disaster recovery.

Solution: The surest way to align agents with your brand voice is to immerse them in your culture and values—and thankfully,

Global Response is an expert in that. We use cutting-edge technology to train agents in your brand while reducing onboarding and nesting time.

We ensure knowledge retention through gamified learning, and we encourage excellent performance with incentives and constant agent coaching tailored to live feedback and historical data.

Result: The results speak for themselves. Our teams target the key performance indicators that will drive customer satisfaction and business success. More than 200 global companies rely on Global Response to deliver outstanding customer engagement results.

Take it from a real customer’s experience:

“We are seeing an increase in existing and repeat customer business. There was a transformation from people contacting customer service with comments like ‘I wanted to get something else and now I never want to do business with you again,’ to now becoming repeat loyal customers thanks to Global Response.”

Low contact rates

Problem: Sometimes, lead lists go cold. Outdated technologies fail to update prospect information, leading to inaccurate lists and low contact rates. Without support, your business may struggle to engage leads.

Solution: A dedicated team will qualify leads, sifting through the weeds to find the real and relevant prospects most likely to still need your services.

Result: A more accurate handling of your leads and a streamlined sales funnel that pushes your business forward. Outsourced appointment setters and sales representatives add value to your company and are trained on upsell and cross-sell opportunities, ensuring a greater revenue potential.

Regulatory compliance

Problem: Manual processes introduce plenty of room for error, and without the infrastructure to handle your volume, increased demand only heightens these risks.

Solution: Access vital contact center technology with strict regulatory adherence built into its operations. Live assistance flags potential compliance issues, helping agents catch and correct risks before they escalate.

Result: Minimized issues underscore your credibility, establishing trust with customers and pushing you to the front of your industry. Global Response prioritizes strict compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, minimizing errors and handling data securely for continuous customer and business success.

Types of telemarketing services to outsource

Outsourcing is a great solution for a variety of telemarketing purposes, and finding out if it suits your needs is an important step to determining if it’s right for you.

Develop your outsourced telemarketing plan by discovering how outsourcing can suit these services.

B2B telemarketing

Business operations require sourcing services and products from other businesses, and you need telemarketing to secure that supply chain.

Meet your business-to-business telemarketing needs by outsourcing with a provider who can attain and develop critical relationships with your business partners.

Look for these qualities in an outsourced B2B telemarketing provider:

Personable sales representatives who research and understand the perspectives and histories of you and the potential partner
A team that understands your industry, values, and offerings. They should be prepared to answer, “Why you?”
A plan with a natural and professional script
Goal-oriented mindsets undeterred by rejection
A powerful elevator pitch

Lead qualification services

Sifting through the lists of potential customers or partners takes the combined efforts of an organized team if you have the volume.

In outsourcing, these agents come to the table with established lead qualification skills and train in your business to apply those skills to your marketing efforts.

Your lead qualification approach should start by defining basic qualification criteria for potential partners or clients, including their type of company, location, industry, revenue, or number of employees.

This research will help you contact and evaluate the leads most likely to be a good match for your business.

Follow the BANT framework to get on the same page with your lead:

Budget: Asking for your lead’s budget will tell you if they can afford to work with your business and help you determine which basic or more complex offerings are appropriate for the relationship.

Authority: Determining who has the authority to make a decision ensures all the right people are included in the conversation for a seamless transaction.

Need: Asking what needs the prospect is trying to meet helps you determine if your company is the right solution for them.

Discover the roadblocks that have blocked their success to accurately assess your own capabilities in targeting them.

Trying to force a fit will only set you up for a contentious relationship, so setting clear expectations is vital for a thriving partnership.

Timeline: When the client hopes to make the purchase and implement your resources helps you prioritize your time or determine proper fit.

Set realistic expectations including your typical implementation timeline and if any adjustments can be made for urgent hiring.

Qualifying leads works through a variety of methods, and sorting your leads as you go helps your team streamline the process, empowering you to close more deals in less time:

Appointment setting

Once leads are determined to be a good match for your business, the qualifier sets up an appointment with a sales representative for a detailed discussion confirming the client’s needs, expectations, and timeline, as well as the product and any possible customizations.

Market research

Assessing the market ensures you know the evolving needs of your potential customers and your ability to meet them.

Don’t fail to discount your competitors and what’s working for them, including where they succeed at your struggles.

As you search for an outsourced telemarketing provider, conduct a regional analysis to determine the best choice to source your agents.

How outsourcing telemarketing companies helps increase sales

Outsourced telemarketing nurtures leads, increasing customer conversions by focusing your company’s efforts on the prospects that are most likely to buy your services.

Contracting with a partner whose sole purpose is to conduct these efforts ensures your company is capturing all potential engagement opportunities with customers, including these strategies:

Targeted calls: A form of cold-calling, targeted calling applies different parameters to your list of leads, narrowing down prospects by demographic, years in business, location, or other factors to help you determine the most appropriate leads to target.
Upselling and cross-selling: Dedicated agents can leverage natural opportunities as they’re engaging with customers to sell additional relevant products or services. This captures valuable revenue while improving the customer experience by anticipating their needs and providing a valuable solution to meet those needs.
Re-engagement with churned customers: Re-activation campaigns are a vital marketing strategy. It can cost up to five times more to acquire a new customer than it costs to keep an existing customer. Outsourced telemarketing companies can focus on this re-engagement, increasing your revenue and reputation with your audience.

Factors to consider for call center outsourcing

Determining the best fit for your outsourcing telemarketing operations requires prioritizing the qualities you want to see in a partner.

Compile your checklist based on all of the above factors, skills, processes, and best practices—and don’t forget to include these factors, as well.

Industry expertise

Selecting a partner with relevant industry knowledge ensures a smooth takeover of operations and continuous implementations of best practices.

Industry expertise facilitates effective training, streamlining onboarding and saving your company time and resources in implementing powerful solutions.

See immediate results with a partner with the resume to match.

Compliance and data security

Industry knowledge is just one valuable factor that ensures your team operates in adherence to all necessary regulations and guidelines to your market, but it’s not enough alone.

Your new BPO should have all measures in place to enhance compliance with regulations and data security measures.

Secure handling of customer information will increase trust in your brand and save your company money and resources in correcting issues or errors.

Ask your potential partners how they prioritize security and how they have minimized risks via technology support or other strategic initiatives.

Transparency and metrics

Regular reporting is the biggest way to measure the success of your new contact center’s efforts.

Establish clear performance metrics to assess each agent and accumulate valuable data about not only your operations but also about your customers, the issues they face, and the success of your solutions.

These performance metrics will tell you valuable information about your operations:

Average Handle Time (AHT):

How long it takes to handle an issue in a call, text message, video call, chat interaction, or email. Shorter isn’t always best, so be willing to allow agents to spend time building a rapport with customers while maximizing efficiency for peak customer satisfaction.

Average Speed of Answer (ASA):

How fast it takes your agents to answer the call or respond to a request. Overwhelmed teams and long queues can expand this, so an outsourced team will significantly reduce the ASA, improving call wait times and customer experience. Don’t forget to factor peak times as you evaluate fluctuations in ASA over time.

Errors:

The amount of errors in collecting or handling customer information. Reduce errors via streamlined processes and proactively addressing flagged risks.

Escalations:

How often a customer requests or needs assistance from additional team members. Reduce escalations by immediately addressing errors, practicing de-escalation tips, and streamlining processes.

Hold Time:

The amount of time a customer is on hold as agents search for answers or route them to another party. Interactive Voice Responses (IVRs) can reduce hold time by routing customers to the appropriate resources from the start.

First-Contact Resolution (FCR):

This directly tracks the efficiency of a solution by telling you how often agents resolve issues on the first interaction. FCR can provide insight into severity of issues and how often customers seek help about a particular problem.

Call Abandonment Rate (ABA):

ABA tracks customer wait time: specifically, how often customers are ending calls before reaching an agent. High ABAs indicate a poor call queuing process or inefficient call handling.

Conversions:

Specific conversions vary according to the business, but conversions track how often a caller turns into a prospect, how often prospects set and make appointments, and how often appointments or tours lead to purchases or applications. Conversion data informs your operational decisions, including agent and internal staff behavior for positive experiences along the way.

When should we opt for call center outsourcing?

Outsourcing is an ideal solution anytime, but it can be particularly effective for businesses experiencing specific challenges for the dedicated support it provides and the resources providers access:

Rapid business scaling: Hiring internally requires large financial investment, and building out your customer support agents on a strict timeline overwhelms businesses.

Outsourced call centers can meet your urgent hiring needs by accessing an updated agent pool of experts ready to start working on your timeline.

Limited internal resources: You don’t need the office space or software set-up to achieve the results you seek when you partner with an expert who has all the necessary connections.

Seamlessly integrate with technologies that can power your new operations with a fully equipped outsourced contact center capable of tailoring their solutions to you.

Specialized customer engagement: Your customers deserve dedicated support, but your internal team still needs to keep operations running smoothly, administer daily tasks, or develop products and services.

Provide your audience with the specialized care they seek in issue resolution, technical support, or product guidance with a dedicated outsourced team.

The Global Response approach to telemarketing outsourcing

Global Response implements a tailored approach to customer care and telemarketing outsourcing for your business.

Our flexible strategy includes a mix of the most vital tenets of customer care:

First, our well-trained agents integrate seamlessly into your team, immersing in your brand and pairing industry knowledge with your specialties to meaningfully engage your prospects. Access expert support locally or globally for affordable dedicated care.
Next, our specialized strategies incorporate what makes you stand out with industry-leading initiatives to push your business forward. We leverage emerging technologies to drive exceptional results from AI-assisted hiring and training to streamlined workforce management and live agent support. We proactively engage customers, understanding insights from historical and real-time data for comprehensive and lasting changes in the customer experience.

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