Outbound calls – are we talking about scam and telesales?

No! So if that’s what you’re here for… you’re out of luck.

So are we talking about? Automated outbound calls are an increasingly common part of customer service. The rise of the blended contact centerhas blurred the lines between all kinds of service.

The type of business that used to only receive calls now has the option to think bigger. The outbound calls we’re talking about focus on proactive service, gold-standard CX and, yes – making extra sales where possible.

Forget high volume, low success calling. We’re going to talk about going the extra mile for customers by taking the service to them.

Trust me – in the long run, it’s the more profitable strategy.

#1 Using automated outbound calls to close new leads

Leads enter a business from numerous places; online forms, in-store conversations, referrals… essentially, a decent proportion of customers actually seek out your business.

The most effective way to turn those new leads into customers is to make contact – fast. The odds of a lead entering your sales pipeline is 21 times greater if you contact them within 5 minutes, versus 30 minutes. 

The simple technique you need to master is automation. (It’s right there in the title of the post!) You’ll never place outbound calls fast and at scale if you’re processing the leads manually. That’s why most businesses rely on something like No-Code automation to bring data from lead management systems straight to the auto dialer.

It’s a smooth process; the lead expresses interest, the dialer automatically schedules a call, and your agent is engaging a new customer within minutes!

#2 Slash customer frustration with virtual queuing

Customers hate waiting on hold. It’s something that every business knows. But what can you do? There are only so many agents and it can be very difficult to predict call volumes.

Therefore – some customers have to wait on hold. Unavoidable, right?

Nope – wrong.

By far and away the best solution is virtual queuing. In a nutshell, this means that the customer is given the chance to hang up the phone. Then, you simply call them back once an agent is free.

A few pointers on making this work:

• You should make it clear to the customer that they’ll keep their place in the queue
• You should also give them a clear idea of roughly how long the wait will be
• This only works when it’s automated!

As you can see, this doesn’t prevent the need to wait for an agent. But it does achieve something important – while waiting, the caller doesn’t need to stay on hold (which 70% of customers find ‘extremely frustrating’).

#3 Check in with abandoned calls

Even at the best of times, some customers are going to bail before they reach an agent. Now, you might be tempted to say ‘Hooray – one less customer to deal with!’

But of course, that would be short-sighted…

When a caller abandons your call queue, there are several possible explanations. Maybe they realized that they don’t need help after all. Maybe they misdialed.

Or – far more likely – they got tired of waiting and just gave up. Their problem isn’t solved and the next time you hear from them will probably be on social media.

So how to avoid that?

It’s simple really; you can call them. Once there’s a lull in call volume, why not reach out to that customer. It gives you a chance to solve their issue and a chance to apologize for missing them.

Any goodwill you lost will be made up – and then some!

Abandoned calls are the scourge of customer success. Simple No-Code automation makes it easy to create the process to solve that scourge!

#4 Lift up your customer lifetime value

Of all the metrics to keep an eye on, customer lifetime value (CLV) is among the most important.

In short, CLV is the amount of money a typical customer spends with you over the entire time they’re a customer. Businesses typically raise CLV by encouraging customers to stay longer or spend more. Both are good options!

But a lot of customers fade into the background after their first few purchases. They might never think about your business again.

Automated outbound calling is a sure-fire way to prevent that. Naturally, you shouldn’t bother existing customers with weekly check-ins. But there’s nothing to say you can’t make, say, annual calls to show that you care.

We started this post by saying we’re interested in scammy telemarketing operations. Well, this is the exact opposite! You have a perfectly valid reason to call your current customers and make sure they’re getting on well with your product.

You hardly need to push for sales at all in this scenario; simply being ‘front of mind’ is enough.

How to start automated outbound calls

We talked a little about No-Code automation and how it’s changing modern contact centers.

Why is that?

Basically, No-Code solutions allow contact center operational teams to design and implement new strategies in a matter of days, or even hours. It’s simple to integrate key systems like CRM, Helpdesks, lead management… basically anything.

Then, you can create automated call flows that draw from all of those systems. You’ll have the power to achieve anything we’ve discussed on this list.