Outbound vs Inbound Telemarketing: a Guide

Have you considered working with a telemarketing specialist? In this guide, we cover the different types of outbound and inbound call centre outsourcing to help you decide whether scaling your telesales operations is a sensible step to take.

What is telemarketing?

Telemarketing is the process of utilising a group of call centre specialists who are experienced in engaging with a target audience to meet a pre-agreed objective, such as increasing new business revenue or customer lifetime value (CLTV). Typically, this is to inform a customer or data segment about a new product or service, but it can also be for a number of other reasons, including:

• Acquiring new customers
• Generating demand
• Conducting market research
• Cleansing customer data
• Up-selling or cross-selling
• Receiving inbound calls in response to an email and/or direct mail campaign

Outsourced contact centres can also help retailers, brands and the public sector remedy operational struggles, such as:

• Reaching out to your existing customers
• Working with different language groups
• Entering new overseas markets
• Measuring and improving a business’s reputation
• Increasing customer insights through NPS and CSAT surveys
• Appointment scheduling
• Consent gathering
• Event booking
• Lost sales analysis (learning the reasons behind metrics such as ‘abandoned cart’)

Telemarketing can be either proactive or reactive and is the process of entrusting a third-party expert or redeploying first-party resources to deliver on agreed KPIs. Moreover, contact centres increasingly offer multi-channel support via email, live chat and social media instead of the traditional Call Centre model.

What is outbound telemarketing?

Outbound telemarketing involves engaging with an audience who hasn’t necessarily shown any interest in your product or service. Working with a specialist is important because they will be trained to have the required empathy to deal with sales rejections. An outbound telesales specialist will be experienced with learning in great detail whether the prospect is a good fit for your offering by listening to their needs and addressing any objections they may have.

It is the role of the marketing and sales department within an organisation to ensure a detailed brief is provided to the outbound call centre. Furthermore, it is critical that the marketing function works in harmony with the Data Protection Officer, CRM leader and third-party data provider to ensure the target audience list is compliant and honours their permission preferences.

Because the likelihood of conversion is lower with outbound than inbound calling, outbound data sets are usually much larger – but the accuracy of this data is still key. In the B2B space, a select few data providers can highlight which prospects have shown intent in a particular product or service, and it’s technology like this that helps outbound campaigns increase their likelihood of conversion.

What is inbound telemarketing?

As a company’s outbound marketing scales, so will its requirement for inbound support. This is for audiences who have shown an interest in your product or service, and the contact centre resource is deployed ready to answer their calls with minimal friction.

Inbound customer service advisors are reliant on marketing and sales activity such as display advertisements, social media posts, and email and direct mail campaigns. Inbound telesales can also help support networking events and other types of presales qualification.

In the B2B space, inbound specialists are usually appointed in response to campaigns and website contact numbers. In the direct-to-consumer and general B2C spaces, eCommerce retailers often work with an inbound specialist in response to product sampling campaigns, social media remarketing and above-the-line advertising. Operationally, inbound support can help with product recalls, surveys and informing customers about complementary products to increase Average Order Value (AOV). In contrast to outbound telesales, inbound call centre specialists will experience higher conversion rates and fewer objections.

It is the role of the customer experience department within an organisation to develop self-service portals to minimise unnecessary inbound phone calls so that specialist resource is only utilised in instances where they can truly add value.

Inbound telemarketing case study: TOCA Social

“TOCA Social is the world's first interactive football and dining experience. Whistl has been working with TOCA Social since early 2021, using our expertise to assist them in designing their customer processes and journey through the contact centre communication channels. In mid-2021, Whistl began handling calls and emails from their Guests and will shortly be launching Live Chat to provide a new channel of choice. Whistl manages in excess of 850 interactions per week to provide a seamless service to TOCA Guests.” – read more.

Outsourced multichannel customer support case study: Popsa

“Popsa is an established platform that allows customers to automatically create personalised products using machine learning algorithms via its iOS and Android apps. Popsa has appointed Whistl Contact Centres to support its London team from its Gateshead facility. Whistl handles inbound email in both English and ten additional languages.” – read more.

What does the future hold for outsourced call centres?

The industry is in high demand, predicted to grow at a compound rate of 9% annually through to 2028. Firms looking to outsource are prioritising multichannel support in response to consumers’ diversified channel preferences, so call centre helpers are increasingly required to integrate with customer experience management platforms. Furthermore, clients expect transparency of work being completed and detailed scheduling to minimise wastage when outsourcing. It is therefore, imperative for firms to work with a digitally-mature contact centre.

What makes the Whistl Group unique as an outsourced telesales provider?

At the Whistl group we provide a range of outbound and inbound contact centre services. More than a traditional telemarketing specialist, we offer retailers, brands and the public sector multi-channel support, engaging with their target audiences and customers via live chat, social media and email. We have the flexibility and technical aptitude to work with your customer experience management software, helping our clients achieve a consistent, on-brand omnichannel customer experience.

Working with Whistl reaps clients many other benefits:

• We offer fast turnaround
• More than 18 years’ experience
• Fully ICO and Ofcom compliant
• Average customer tenure of over 10+ years
• UK-based, we have multiple sites, helping you scale
• More than 500 customer support agents
• We offer full KPI reporting via dashboards

Get in touch with our team today to learn more about Whistl’s telemarketing outsourcing solutions.