When you spend budget on telephone data lists for your outbound call centre or telesales team, you’re making an investment – one that should be delivering an excellent return on investment (ROI).
These data lists can play a vital role in driving your business, providing opportunities to sell. But that depends on getting the best possible data and using it effectively. So how do you know whether your data is any good? How can you make sure it’s worth the money you’re spending? And how can you make sure it delivers results and earns you money back?
Whether you have a small telesales team or a 100 seat outbound call centre, a predictive dialler can help increase your ROI by evaluating the quality of your data, how it is used, and how it could work harder.
Here’s how.
Evaluate data quality
You need to make sure the overall quality of your data is decent. Until you start calling, you never know if the numbers on your list are incorrect, out of date, or even registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).
A predictive dialler can help you examine the quality of your telesales data list. Thanks to highly accurate logging of call outcomes and fast access to other useful metrics, you’ll be able to see how much of your data is useful.
And with a clear idea of data quality, you’ll know whether to return to the same supplier for more.
Evaluate data utilisation
You need to know how your data is being used.
You could work your way through the data you have, making calls and loosely measuring outcomes. But, even in a smaller sales team, your call volume could make analysing data usage a time consuming, costly task. With a predictive dialler, you can get a clearer view of data utilisation metrics:
- Contact or call Rates – the number of records where the phone number has been dialled.
- Complete Rates – the number of records where an outcome was achieved – a sales or a no. These should not be dialled anymore.
- Retire Rates – the number records flagged as bad numbers because they are out of services or fax lines.
- Penetration Rates – the number of records that you have gotten through to, both completes and retires.
Penetration rate is the valuable metric that helps with revenue forecasting. Successful campaigns will have goals from the onset, revenue targets and penetration rates. As you work your way through the list, working towards your penetration goal, you can forecast revenue, based on current campaign performance.
You can read an interesting article on this subject, on supportingadvancement.com, a website that provides support and knowledge for those involved in fundraising. It offers an excellent example of how Data Penetration Rates can be used to forecast revenue for fundraising campaigns.
With automated auditing and accurate call dispositioning, you’ll be able to see what’s working – instantly. So you can make sure data lists are being used in a way that maximises return, and always be ready to feed in a new list as the old one runs out.
Use your data efficiently
Of course, good data alone doesn’t lead to better results. You need to use it in the most efficient way possible.
A predictive dialler takes your data list and schedules it effectively, automating the dialling process. The dialler can be set up to improve Call answer rates, therefore list penetration rates. This then increases the amount of time your agents can spend on calls, enabling you to focus on improving what you can control – their sales performance.
When a predictive dialer is set up properly, it can work in a number of ways to improve call answer rates:
- automatic call backs or presenting a local caller ID based on postcode
- switching from calling mobiles after 5.30 to home phones automatically
- randomising call backs to avoid patterns
And above all else, the combination of a high quality list and a powerful dialler empowers your team – to call more of the right people, talk more, and, crucially, sell more.
Choosing the best data telephone Data Provider
When looking to source data for your campaigns, make sure to check for recency ratings and connectivity rate guarantees. Good suppliers will be able to provide these. If a broker has a good recency rating they usually shout about it, so they shouldn't be hard to find, but if you need a head start here's some companies we've identified:
- Marketscan
- Experian
- Databroker
Also ensure that when you import your data into your CMS, you are recording a data source against each record that enables you to refer back the source of the data.
Remember, when you’re calling or using personal data, it’s important to consider data protection. Breaching guidelines from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) could result in significant financial and reputational damage – which isn’t great for your ROI.
To find out more about how Hostcomm’s hosted predictive dialler could help you use data lists effectively, call us on 0808 168 4400.
