Outbound transition

[Clare12]

I am being asked to add a small group of outbound agents to a traditionally inbound center. This would be a totally new area for us. Does anyone have good "getting started" tips, minimum equipment/tools needed, what to avoid/watch out for? Also, any reading material that might be a primer for starting this up? I plan to hire different people for this area, and will be altering the interview script for this task. The agents assigned to this area will be doing telesales, mostly b2b but some residential.

[gkern]

If this is an area that you might want to outsource, since you do not do much outbound yourselves, then I would be happy to talk with you about it. We also provide inbound customer service and technical support call response.

Greg Kern
CallTech Communications
512-261-0409

[Rjutkiewicz]

My response would be to transform your contact center into a "blend" environment.
When inbound service levels drop to a desired level, your agents automatically recieve outbound calls.

If you still are only interested, you can purchase just the Outbound dialing software now, and consider blending down the road. Davox has customers with as few as 8 agents, but the ROI to add our software really becomes cost effective at about 20 agents.

[mpsheehan]

My center is blended with most of the work on the outbound side. I wouldn't hire new people for this position. I'd utilize existing people (they probably know the product the best)-then hire (if needed)the new folks for the inbound, which is scripted and (for me) easier to train.
I find telesales tougher to find folks for-
This is also a good way to give long time reps something diff., or reward highly skilled reps.
You may be able to look at your operation and absorb some of existing staff-which could help with your numbers.
Watch out for measures-depending on the ability of your systems it maybe difficult to measure telesales effectiveness.