Your lead generation call center has a team and a dialer. What other ingredients do you need to take your operation to the next level?
That was the question driving the discussion during this webinar on how to maximize your leads while minimizing your CPA. The panel of industry experts included Dylan Graham, VP of Sales at Retreaver; Yung Chung, Director of Sales at ActiveProspect; Jay Schwartz, Partner at Medigap Life, and Convoso CEO Nima Hakimi.
The participants focused on how tactics and call center technology can maximize leads and optimize performance while lowering cost per acquisition (CPA). Key topics covered include:
- What separates the best lead generation call centers from the rest
- Best practices to boost contact rates
- The three contact center efficiencies that drive profitability
- How to optimize ALL your leads using powerful technology solutions
- A real-life use case and the lessons learned
Separating the Best Call Centers from the Rest
To start, every lead gen call center must have, at minimum, leads and a dialer. After a point, though, Nima Hakimi says there’s a lot of room for optimization. “You reach a point as a business where, to keep growing and keep scaling, you need the right leads and the right technology partners to take things to the next level.”
To graduate to that next level, Dylan Graham of Retreaver says call centers need to take uncontrolled variables out of their processes. “You could have two call centers sending calls to the exact same type of buyer, the exact same type of call, and one will do phenomenally and one won’t do well at all. There’s huge, huge, huge variables that separate call centers; no two call centers are alike.
“With so many variables in the way a call center works, it’s smart to eliminate as many of these as possible and get a couple really solid controls in your call flow.”
That’s where the right call center technology comes in.
Boosting Contact Rates with a Powerful Dialer
A focus on call center technology starts with the right dialing software. Your dialer is the bedrock of your technology stack. Jay Schwartz says, “One of the most important things in lead gen is having the right dialer.”
The panel discussed how you can increase your contact rate with these three dialer-driven solutions. Watch the full webinar to see how else a dialer can impact your contact rate.
Smart Dialing Strategies: According to Schwartz, the right dialer is the one that does a lot of the hard work for you. Use a dialing software that automates intelligent call strategies. “[You need a] smart dialer that actually figures out how often to call a lead, when to call, who to call, and who not to call.”
Caller ID (DID) Management: Robust DID management is another must-have. According to Schwartz, “DID rotation is what we found to be the single most important aspect in a dialer.” Convoso’s Caller ID Reputation Management offerings made it easier for Schwartz’s high-volume call center, Medigap Life, to reach more prospects.
Compliance State of Mind: You also need a dialer that helps support compliance. Find a solution that will help you navigate STIR/SHAKEN protocols and avoid carriers’ call blocking and flagging.
Using the 3 Key Efficiencies to Drive Call Center Profitability
Profitability doesn’t only come from an increased contact rate. According to Hakimi, world-class call centers achieve success and more profits by driving efficiencies in three key buckets. Here are some highlights from what Hakimi had to say:
Lead Efficiency
On looking at CPA by lead vendor: “You want to be able to look at your CPA on a lead vendor level. You want to have the ability to see which vendors are providing the most conversions, to see where the ROI is, and to see which [lists] to turn on and off. In a call center, if you’re not making those decisions in a timely manner, every minute and hour counts. If you have hours go by and a certain list is not converting, you’re losing thousands and thousands of dollars.
Manager Efficiency
On leveraging TRUE predictive dialing: “You need to be able to set it and forget it so that the dialer determines how to scale the calls up and down to make sure that there’s a consistent flow of calls coming through. There are a lot of systems out there where you have to manually sit there and determine how to increase or decrease the number of calls being placed. A manager needs to be able to do the things they need to do, and not have to micromanage every piece of the system.”
Agent Efficiency
On quicker disposition processes: “[In a high-volume environment] every click counts. You want to streamline that process where going from one call to the next happens in as few clicks as possible. A lot of systems you need to take 3, 4, 5 clicks for that to happen, and if you count that over hundreds or thousands of calls, it really adds up.”
On dynamic scripting: “If you’re buying or generating leads from many different places, the last thing you want to do is call that person with a very generic message. You want to be as personalized as possible. At the end of the day, everybody wants to feel important and that, in some way or another, you do care about them.” Using insights from ActiveProspect and Retreaver that go straight into the Convoso dialer, you can use dynamic scripting capabilities that deliver a very unique script.
Using Call Center Technology for Lead Optimization
During the webinar, Yung Chung took a deep dive into ActiveProspect’s capabilities. He showed how the platform ensures how only the best, compliant leads make it into your sales process and dialer.
TrustedForm Verifies and Documents Consent
The TrustedForm lead verification offering is able to verify and document consent through certificates and video replays. Lee Schwartz said that working with ActiveProspect has changed the game for Medigap Life.
“When we first got into business, I did not need…video playback [of consent]…It really was like the wild west.” Fast forward to today, and that’s no longer the case. “The carriers are very stringent on understanding who we’re contacting with the right permissions…And [government regulatory bodies] are going to require a TrustedForm [verification]…So it’s super important.”
Leverage Customer Insights to Optimize Performance
However, when integrated into your call center technology stack along with Retreaver and Convoso, ActiveProspect delivers much more than just compliance support.
The platform also enhances leads with intent and consumer insights. Typically, you only get a few data points on your leads. But with the ActiveProspect integration, Chung says you can optimize performance using a full “universe of data:”
“It all comes down to what you know about that customer and what you can do about it. With [ActiveProspect’s] built-in integrations, you can know something as crazy as how big somebody’s roof is or if their basement is finished. What this data allows you to do is make sure that only the ideal customer profile that you’re going for makes it into your system, so that dialers like Convoso and systems like Retreaver can optimize off of that and do even better.”
The Power of Call Center Technology
This sort of integration is essential for call centers looking to scale their businesses, says Dylan Graham. “There’s information [available] at every single part of a process and every single part of a business…It’s useful just to know all of those parts and data [points]. But it’s not enough.”
“When you connect them all together and pull them into one system or in one dashboard, which is what Retreaver is capable of doing, that’s when you can really start to pour some jet fuel on the fire that is your call process.”
It doesn’t stop there either, though. According to Hakimi, you need your technology stack to deliver one more ingredient: automation. “Scale without automation doesn’t exist,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a bit challenging. Technology isn’t always easy. But once it’s implemented and you get the hang of it, you can take things to the next level.”
Lessons Learned: A Real Life Use Case
Take it from Jay Schwartz, who provided real-life context throughout the webinar. With the ActiveProspect and Retreaver integrations backed by the Convoso dialer, Medigap Life took its lead generation program to new heights.
“[At Medigap Life] we dial somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 numbers a day. And our connectivity with Convoso is around 11 to 12%, which is significantly greater than where we came from before, which was in the 3.5 to 4.5% [range].”
On the power of call center technology, Schwartz summed it up like this: “It really does work. And it does show it really falls to the bottom line.”
Tune into the webinar to hear Schwartz’s full story. And see the results for yourself by scheduling a demo of the Convoso dialer today.