By Heather Dubas, Operations Manager
Imagine that sinking feeling you get when you see the alerts and hear the warning sirens that bad weather is approaching. Those of you in the Midwest particularly will know what I am talking about. You realize a storm is heading right for you, and you worry, and try to think of everything you can do to prepare for the worst, but really just hope it will pass quickly. A feeling of helplessness overcomes you and you cannot even fathom what you will do to clean up the mess.
An equally destructive storm hit the outbound marketing industry on July 10, 2015 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) Declaratory Ruling. The biggest challenge that came with the TCPA Declaratory Ruling was the way that wireless numbers could be dialed. An autodialer (predictive dialer), the most efficient and cost effective way to make telemarketing calls, was no longer allowed to contact wireless numbers in many cases. A new way to reach these customers needed to be implemented. Life as we knew it the world of telemarketing would never be same, and we had to adapt to a new normal.
At Telepromm, we set out to rebuild and help our clients lunge forward into the new normal. We had many call center partners with a core understanding that in order to retain and build future business, changes would have to be made to keep things moving. These changes meant necessary time and monetary investments, and made it difficult to forecast ROI, especially when we were not able to contact as many customers as we were before. Telepromm strategized with our call center partners and determined that to dial wireless numbers, we would have to do it manually, putting an agent in control of each individual call. We were enthusiastic to set our new strategy in motion. Within a few months, clients that had 40-50% of their calls stopped in July were back at it again.
We had one client in particular that had their hours cut in half that day in July. This is a significant decrease for all involved and it leaves a lot of revenue on the table. Our team did a lot of hard work to come up with a plan that showed that even though we would not be hitting as many contacts per hour, we would still be able to hit reasonable numbers of wireless customers to be successful. Within a short amount of time, we teamed up with our call center partners and had a solution to dial these numbers again. And even though we have seen a 70% decrease in dials per hour and a 50% decrease in contacts per hour, we have seen overall conversions double providing almost as many sales per hour as we originally had seen before the change. Over the last 6 months, we have proven that we can provide a way to dial these numbers, abide by all telemarketing laws and regulations, and still exceed our initial projections to the client. We have many other clients that have since taken advantage of this service who are seeing great results as well.
Many B2C and B2B outbound marketing programs include potential customers who utilize wireless numbers only, and being able to reach wireless customers can have a huge impact on a campaign. If you are looking for a way to manage your wireless dialing, we would love for you to reach out to us. Telepromm wants you to have your own wireless success story!
Heather Dubas is an Operations Manager for Telepromm. As an Operations Manager, Heather is responsible for managing client programs and ensuring program success. Heather has a B.S. in Business Administration and prior to joining the Telepromm team, she spent time working in Account Management at a highly respected call center in the Midwest. Having over 5 years of B2B telemarketing sales experience, Heather is there to assist in achieving your desired results.
