Why You Can't Afford Not to Monitor Telemarketing Projects

You triple-check all your other marketing vehicles, why not telemarketing?

By Bruce Sprague 03/16/2011 -02:54 PM

Given the importance and amount of money being spent on telemarketing, it is essential for audience development professionals to spend some of their time monitoring these projects. It is not uncommon for a magazine to have over 50 percent of the audience sourced to telemarketing. Before you send a direct mail effort you proof the piece. Before you send an email you check to make sure the copy is correct and the links are working. Telemarketing should also receive quality control checks through monitoring.

To set up a session tell the vendor you want to monitor your project.  I always listen on the first or second day of calling. If there are problems they can be corrected quickly. If the vendor says they cannot monitor you should consider finding a new telemarketer. There should not be a charge for this service.

Each vendor’s process is a little different but the end result is that you will be able to listen to live calls. Someone from the vendor should also be on the call. In this way they also hear if there are any problems. Review any concerns you have with your contact. This should include not only how they read the script but also how the rep talks with your subscribers. I have had people removed from projects due to their poor “attitude.” The telemarketer is representing your magazine. Make sure they are doing it professionally.  

Some common mistakes discovered by listening to calls:

• Requal or New Name? Having monitored many projects I am surprised how often the agent uses a new name introduction when the project is a requalification effort (or vice versa). The advantage of a requal project is you can tell the subscriber, or the assistant, that he or she is already receiving the magazine. People, especially assistants, are much more receptive if they already receive the magazine. This will increase your conversion rates and decrease the need for as many replacement subscribers.

• Check all that apply? You approved the script so the assumption is the agent will read it correctly. Unfortunately, the agent may not present all the response options to the subscriber. He or she may move on to the next question after receiving only one response. This makes the subscriber less valuable because you do not know as much about the person as if the question was asked properly. This seemingly small mistake may also impact the list rental revenue generated from the circulation file. If there is less data to rent revenues could drop.

• What is your Job function?  This question may not even be asked during the interview. If the agent obtained the person’s job title while verifying the name and address information they may  assume what the job function is. For example, the person’s title is Vice President, Engineering. The agent may assume this belongs in the corporate management job function. However, the magazine may also have a engineering job function. The subscriber may place themselves in the engineering category rather than the corporate management area.

• Subscribers love our magazine? Maybe—monitoring presents a chance to hear how subscribers feel about the magazine. If the majority of the people are not interested in continuing to receive the magazine you need to do more research. Perhaps it is a single title or industry that does not want the magazine. You can then share this information with the publisher and/or editor. If the publisher insists on reaching this segment you can tell her/him it will be more expensive to cultivate this group because there is little interest in the magazine.

• What is the quality of the list(s) rented for new name campaign? Monitoring allows you to hear how many of the people are no longer at the company, how many of the phone numbers are disconnected or wrong, how many of the people are not interested in the magazine. Some of these problems indicate the list is old or poorly maintained. In this case you need to go back to the owner for a refund.  Another possible situation is the list was pulled incorrectly.  Mistakes do happen. If the list is not what you ordered go back to the list manager/owner/broker and request a refund.

Taken individually these situations do not seem to amount to much. However, when the omissions are multiplied by the number of completed calls made during a campaign, the impact could be severe.

You want to do everything possible to ensure the campaigns are being run correctly and the magazine is getting its full value for the dollars invested.  The one thing you do not want to have happen is for the audit bureau to find these problems while listening to the recordings.