Did you know a report suggests that the contact center outsourcing market is projected to grow from USD 101.73 billion in 2023 to USD 145.88 billion in 2028, while registering a CAGR of 7.48%?
Outbound call support is one of the most sought-after services that these centers provide. But, they won’t help unless you eliminate mistakes in outbound calls.
Outbound refers to reaching out to remote customers to provide proactive customer service. Considering it in the context of outbound customer support, it involves initiating calls to customers for purposes such as providing information, conducting surveys, collecting feedback, and following up with customers. Simply put, if you want to boost sales, build rapport or a strong customer relationship, and address customers’ concerns, it emerges in a constructive role.
Though it can be leveraged for purposes like promoting products or services and maintaining proactive connections, you must know what not to do during outbound calls. If you don’t know, let us guide you.
Mistakes During Outbound Call Support
Various types of call centers are available to provide assistance like a pro.
- Collecting Contact Details, But Not the Insights
So! What do you do? Do you collect contact details that your chatbot or inbox entrusts? Certainly, they are valuable, but not all of them are useful. Many customers reach out to get assistance or answers. But you cannot align them with your email marketing or other campaigns. This is simply because they may not all be from customers.
So! How would you analyse if the query is from customers?
The data can answer it better. You can check out the overall journeys of individuals. The last page viewed will have the answer. Simply put, you can discover his or her intent through the last-tracked URL of your website. It will help you remove barriers and personalise answers.
If your chatbot fails to show it in real time, it’s high time to review your technology and integrate it with data-driven analytics tools. This is the best way to actually filter interested and disinterested customers.
- Contacting Customers at the Wrong Time
Connecting with a customer brings a golden opportunity & lots of benefits like engaging him or her and drawing desirable details or concerns. All in all, you can discover his or her intent, which can guide you on how to convert or cross-sell him or her.
But if your timing is wrong, you can see that opportunity going out of your hands. You lose it by reaching out to them early when he or she is not ready. Or, it can be so late, as he or she might have reached someone else.
In these cases, timing appears to play a key role. Your staff should be aware of overseas timing so that there won’t be any delay.
- Focusing on Call Frequencies, But Not on Personalisation
This is the era of digital technologies, where contact center tools are available to take calls and assist customers. Many customer support center outsourcers use a progressive or predictive dialer. With its support, they become fond of using it more frequently so that all customers can be answered quickly. But in that speedy dialing, they miss on quality. They fail to provide a personalised experience. This is where they have to work hard.
Despite being helpful and amazing at reaching out to people efficiently, you should trust real outbound customer agents. They connect and excel by solving problems.
- All-Size-Fit Messaging
If you check out artificial customer support (the bots), they require triggers or prompts to answer. Once they have input, they start responding as we do. But they have certain limits in their working system. They cannot answer spontaneously. Likewise, you cannot run a script to answer customers because each one comes with a different history and unique purpose. Remember, a small, customised effort can pay off in the long run.
If the customer has revealed his intention, just follow and provide assistance accordingly. There is no need to start from scratch every time with the same scripted messages. You can sign an agreement with an experienced outbound contact centre where they use advanced tools. These tools are capable of customising messages. Actually, they track location, history of calls, and other aspects, which help them understand the exact point of concern.
- Completely Relying on Human Responses
A few years ago, it was humans who started responding as sales agents and entirely answering. The entire research on customers, messaging, expression, and the best time to call or follow up was carried out by human resources.
Fortunately, the advent of artificial intelligence, or AI, has changed everything. The virtual assistants are, at present, available 24/7 , benefiting businesses. They replicate human-like follow-ups as the customer intends. It can mimic the message that is scripted on the basis of call agents’ real-time interactions with customers. AI can read, understand, and enhance the customer experience through guided answers and automated replies (which are often the best actions).
Introducing these tools is the need of the hour because the customers’ queries are increasing over and over. To answer them all in a fast turnaround time, you require AI-driven solutions. Sales teams can help you discover greater efficiency in the process by achieving targets and personalising answers.
Conclusion
There are multiple challenges an outbound customer support center may face. It can be related to relying only on human agents, same-bot-driven answering to all calls, focusing on frequencies, calling at any time, and ignoring customer insights. These are common mistakes that many companies make that need correction or fixing.