Make the Right Calls
October 2006
|
B-to-B marketers know that it’s a multichannel world out there. However, multichannel direct marketing doesn’t only refer to setting up a Web site and launching that e-mail marketing program to complement your direct mail efforts. Outbound telemarketing also can be a valuable component of your multichannel efforts—one that can build your customer base and ultimately increase customer lifetime value. Neil Sexton, president and founder of Trinidad, Colo.-based B-to-B outbound telecenter and multichannel marketing company TeleGreet, notes there are a number of key outbound initiatives B-to-B marketers can use to improve their businesses:
1. Full account management. The purpose of this outbound activity is to provide your best customers with a higher level of service. Benefits include lower attrition; enhanced customer experience by assigning of a dedicated resource; and learning more about what your best customers want from you. “Most companies can afford to deploy some additional resources [to] their top customers,” says Sexton. “That’s usually the first place that I recommend people take a look.”
2. Assimilation. This is for companies in a robust customer acquisition mode. To successfully “assimilate” new customers into your program, Sexton suggests calling every new customer over a specified dollar value, with three objectives in mind: to thank her for her order; to make an additional offer if she orders again within a set period of time; and to qualify the customer by asking questions about her business and how she uses your products or services to find out if there is opportunity to escalate her through your outbound process, potentially through the group of people who handle your top customers.
3. Reactivation. The process of bringing lapsed customers back in the fold is essential, since “we know that in B-to-B approximately 30 percent of our buyers turn over every year,” points out Sexton. First, prioritize the lapsed customers. Go after former high-value customers with no activity in a period defined as too long by your business. This activity also might include calls to recently lapsed customers, who are more likely to come back than customers who’ve been missing for years. Just as with assimilation calls, begin by thanking customers for their past business. Also, make it a priority to find out why a customer left your program, and track those reasons closely so you can address any recurring problems. You almost always will want to make an offer to this group and to qualify them for possible larger opportunities.
4. Lead qualification. This involves contacting customers you want to know more about. Look to internal customer lists that either show great promise by their order activity, or internal customer lists where overlay data suggests there is more business opportunities to be had. You also can use acquired lists of high potential customers or lists from new markets where there may be a need for your products/services. The key to lead qualification outbound calls is to create value with a quick benefit statement. Once initial rapport and value is created, you need to have a prioritized list of “data gather points” for your sales reps to get information. In lead generation, you are not looking for a sale, as a rule, says Sexton. Rather, as soon as prospects begin to ask questions, in essence, they begin to qualify themselves. The key benefit of this type of outbound contact is learning about new markets and lists while capturing key buyers early in the process.
How do you identify which of the above opportunities is most appropriate for your business? “It almost always starts with looking at data, slicing and dicing your customer base, while looking at your new customer velocity and your lapsed customer profiles,” says Sexton. Examine each of the customer categories most important to your business in descending dollar value and lifetime value to help identify where outbound efforts would be most beneficial to your bottom line.
1. Full account management. The purpose of this outbound activity is to provide your best customers with a higher level of service. Benefits include lower attrition; enhanced customer experience by assigning of a dedicated resource; and learning more about what your best customers want from you. “Most companies can afford to deploy some additional resources [to] their top customers,” says Sexton. “That’s usually the first place that I recommend people take a look.”
2. Assimilation. This is for companies in a robust customer acquisition mode. To successfully “assimilate” new customers into your program, Sexton suggests calling every new customer over a specified dollar value, with three objectives in mind: to thank her for her order; to make an additional offer if she orders again within a set period of time; and to qualify the customer by asking questions about her business and how she uses your products or services to find out if there is opportunity to escalate her through your outbound process, potentially through the group of people who handle your top customers.
3. Reactivation. The process of bringing lapsed customers back in the fold is essential, since “we know that in B-to-B approximately 30 percent of our buyers turn over every year,” points out Sexton. First, prioritize the lapsed customers. Go after former high-value customers with no activity in a period defined as too long by your business. This activity also might include calls to recently lapsed customers, who are more likely to come back than customers who’ve been missing for years. Just as with assimilation calls, begin by thanking customers for their past business. Also, make it a priority to find out why a customer left your program, and track those reasons closely so you can address any recurring problems. You almost always will want to make an offer to this group and to qualify them for possible larger opportunities.
4. Lead qualification. This involves contacting customers you want to know more about. Look to internal customer lists that either show great promise by their order activity, or internal customer lists where overlay data suggests there is more business opportunities to be had. You also can use acquired lists of high potential customers or lists from new markets where there may be a need for your products/services. The key to lead qualification outbound calls is to create value with a quick benefit statement. Once initial rapport and value is created, you need to have a prioritized list of “data gather points” for your sales reps to get information. In lead generation, you are not looking for a sale, as a rule, says Sexton. Rather, as soon as prospects begin to ask questions, in essence, they begin to qualify themselves. The key benefit of this type of outbound contact is learning about new markets and lists while capturing key buyers early in the process.
How do you identify which of the above opportunities is most appropriate for your business? “It almost always starts with looking at data, slicing and dicing your customer base, while looking at your new customer velocity and your lapsed customer profiles,” says Sexton. Examine each of the customer categories most important to your business in descending dollar value and lifetime value to help identify where outbound efforts would be most beneficial to your bottom line.
—Irene Cherkassky
|
Business-to-Business Lead Generation Strategies (2nd Edition)
Business to Business Marketing Research