Telemarketers, list brokers, and sales teams adapt to Do Not Call List, Offshore Call Centres, Outsourcing, and Voice-Over-IP era.
Changes in the business environment and rapid technological developments have inspired innovation and adaptation in the telemarketing, list brokering, and sales industry. But the new landscape has proven to be treacherous enough to put many small telemarketing and data brokers out of business altogether, and has reinforced the existing market-driven trend towards greater reliance on 'offshore call centers.
(PRWEB) July 20, 2004 -- To trick a phrase, it turns out that reports of the death of telemarketing at the hands of federal and state Do Not Call" (DNC) lists have been greatly exaggerated. As in other highly competitive industries, changes in the business environment and rapid technological developments have inspired innovation and adaptation. SalesLeads.tv, a Florida based lead list broker, is one niche player in this industry that has responded quickly to the new legal and market challenges facing its clients and partners. The Do Not Call list" and surveyed lead" solutions it is now offering its customers demonstrate the kind of agility that has enabled some companies to ride out the turbulence shaking up the industry.
The 2003 roll out of the National Do Not Call Registry, overseen by the Federal Trade Commission, broadsided many telemarketing firms, despite the great deal of public interest, controversy and lobbying by business and consumer groups that attended its creation. The DNC list has been extremely popular, and already the database contains the names of over 62 million Americans. There have been numerous spectacular fines levied against both large and small companies in several states, and the FTC has likewise signaled its intent to prosecute violations of the Registry system to the hilt. Fears of punishing fees and legal costs have rippled through the telemarketing industry, even as the American Teleservices Association and other advocacy groups have attempted, unsuccessfully thus far, to contest the DNC legislation. According to SalesLeads.tvs principal John Fischer, these fears are well-founded: If youre not in compliance with DNC, which means for starters having a SAN number and working from scrubbed lists, then you are running a huge risk of being fined into the ground, and at the very least youre wasting your time with deadbeat leads."
The new landscape has proven to be treacherous enough to put many small telemarketing and data brokers out of business altogether, and has reinforced the existing market-driven trend towards greater reliance on 'offshore call centers. SalesLeads.tv works with many call centers based overseas, and Fischer reports that a high percentage of these companies initially have problems understanding and navigating the FTC regulations: A lot of these outfits are strong on the logistics end of marketing and other teleservices, but they can benefit immensely from experienced consulting and updates on the list management side."
Another strategy that SalesLeads.tv has developed in order to stay competitive in the current high tech market is, ironically enough, a renewed focus on pre-qualifying leads through their survey room" the old fashioned way: by calling ahead and getting permission for the first sales contact. SalesLeads.tvs lists are generated through data selects based on customized demographic and industry criteria, the individual leads are then approved by a compliance officer, and finally the prospects are called and screened. In the case of qualified investor leads, for example, the original list is created using Dun & Bradstreet data, the leads are reviewed for compliance, and then a consultant calls and introduces the product and reads a 'risk disclosure' agreement.
This method is applied by SalesLeads.tv to both DNC purged lists, and CAN SPAM" compliant leads. The goal of course is to opt out" prospects before they reach the telemarketing center or sales team, thereby eliminating a potentially costly inefficiency. So far, the results have been promising, and Fischer sees cause for optimism: It was definitely hairy at the end of 2003, but weve managed to recover nicely by listening to what the market and the lawyers have been telling us, and weve been able to pass our knowledge along to our clients, explain to them how the game has changed, and at the same time prove to them that the opportunities for doing business in this field are still tremendous."
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