Outbound call center

What are outbound call centers used for?

Today, the most common outbound call center services include:

• Lead generation and sales calls to prospects
• Cross-selling and up-selling calls to existing customers
• Customer retention calls (managing renewals)
• Proactive customer service (e.g. informing customers of service outages, delays, etc.)
• Scheduled customer callbacks
• Market research and information gathering
• Customer feedback and customer satisfaction surveys
• Appointment setting
• Debt collection

Outbound call centers are usually enabled by cloud-based call center software and are designed to help businesses actively engage with prospects and customers to increase sales. Outbound call center agents are expected to make large volumes of calls per hour – this activity is typically enabled by using different types of dialers. Some of the key outbound call center metrics that should be measured are first call close, conversion rate, calls per agent, calls per account, hit rate, hold time, call abandoned ratio, average call length, list closure rate, call quality/ etiquette and revenue per successful call.

Challenges outbound call centers face

Outbound call centers may face a number of distinctive challenges. Since the nature of outbound calls is predominantly intrusive and is driven by the needs of businesses, rather than customers (except in cases of call-back requests and proactive customer service), customers are more likely to be defensive and wary of the call. This means outbound calling can be rather stressful for agents as they constantly have to deal with persistent refusal, lack of interest, or rudeness.

On top of managing the delicate balance between being a welcome interruption and an unwelcome nuisance, outbound call centers must comply with laws such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Do Not Call (DNC) registries, which requires a carefully planned outreach strategy.

Benefits of using outbound call center software

Increase sales and revenue

Generate more sales by reaching out to potential leads or maximize customer lifetime value by capitalizing on up-selling or cross-selling opportunities.

Retain more customers

When it comes to product or service renewals, a phone call can be a great way to check-in with a customer, have a genuine conversation, and prevent customer churn.

Improve customer service

Improve your overall customer service and customer experience by proactively reaching out to customers before they even know there is a problem or before they even have to ask for assistance.

Get customer feedback

Calling is a highly personalized way of getting customer feedback. Streamline the process with outbound calling and gain more information by having a thorough conversation.

Enhance agent efficiency

With outbound contact center software, agents always have access to each customer’s data which allows for more efficient, comprehensive, and customized interactions.

Track important metrics

Track critical call center metrics and KPIs to get a complete overview of how your sales and customer service teams are performing and where improvements are needed.

What outbound call center features does LiveAgent have?

LiveAgent’s cloud-based call center software supports both inbound and outbound call center functionality. That means it can efficiently be used by your customer service and sales teams altogether for reaching out to leads, prospects, or existing customers.

Click-to-call capability

LiveAgent’s web-based call center has the ability to call any phone number on the web. Initiate outbound calls to your potential customers – right from your LiveAgent dashboard, while visiting your prospect’s websites. This feature can be of great assistance to sales teams. It empowers agents to have more conversations and decreases the time spent on manual dialing.

In-depth customer insights

LiveAgent’s call center software offers a built-in CRM and integrates with other major CRM providers. A CRM provides your agents with instant access to comprehensive customer insights, including each customers’ personal data, previous purchases, and service history. With that information at hand, they can efficiently up-sell or cross-sell relevant products/ services or offer proactive customer support.

Unlimited call recordings

With unlimited call recordings, agents can safely store all customer calls and voicemail messages and access them as necessary right inside their LiveAgent account. This can be extremely handy when your call center representative needs a reminder of what transpired in previous interactions in order to reach out to customers with relevant offers.

Call center analytics

LiveAgent’s built-in analytics module tracks a variety of call center metrics and KPIs. Generate various reports to get a full overview of how your call center is performing, including detailed statistics for each of your agents. This will help you identify areas that need tweaking, power up high-performing agents, and support those who need it.

How to set up a LiveAgent outbound call center software

LiveAgent’s outbound call center can be set up in a matter of minutes.

1. Log into your LiveAgent account and click Call
2. Click Numbers
3. Click on the orange Create button

4. Select your VOIP provider (the VOIP provider from which you’ve purchased your phone number)

5. Enter a name (it can be anything, it’s just for you to remember which number it is)
6. Select the department into which incoming calls to this phone number will be routed
7. Enter the dial-out prefix
8. Check the Record Calls checkbox if you want to record all incoming/outgoing calls from this phone number
9. Type in your credentials from your VOIP provider (Hostname, Username, Password)
10. Click Add
    If the phone number was successfully added and is active it will have a green dot next to it.
11. Next, click on the Edit button and click on IVR.

Set up your IVR/welcome messages using this guide IVR (welcome/offline messages).

12. After you’re done setting up your IVR, click on Configuration
13. Click Call
14. Click Settings
15. Alter the settings according to your preferences and click Save
16. Use this guide to add your hardware and software phones to the Devices screen
17. Next, forward this guide to your agents so they can set up preferred devices for answering calls