Outbound Center Benchmarks

[atroianos]

Can somebody provide me with info regarding productivity measurements and benchmarks for outbound sales and research centers? Our call center performs two roles: (1) sales lead generation (prospecting, not closing) and (2) File cleansing (updating contact information, etc). Specifically...

1. What percentage of calls made result in a "right party connect", meaning you reach a decision maker?

2. In what percentage of calls will the contact be "uncooperative" or unwilling to provide info? I am guessing 10% but I really don't know.

3. How many total calls are realistic for an 8:30-5pm operation, per agent?

4. What's the norm for error when updating information?

If anyone has any tips, please contact me!

[Tom Naras]

You are asking some very good questions regarding agent productivity and performance. However there is no one off-the-shelf set of benchmarks that will answer your questions due to the fact that your call center environment and target respondents are different from other call centers.

You will need to conduct a performance analysis based on your call center's performance history (and you have all that data right!). Although performance analysis is usually a tedious task, it will need to be done in order to measure leadgen statistics and file cleansing stats.

For example, once you review your call center's performance data, you may see a trend that your agents may experience lower productivity from collecting data from hotels in the New York area vs collecting data from hotels in Georgia. Or you may find that certain hotel chains are harder to reach than others. Once you understand your target respondent, you can model/forecast more accurately and set performance metrics accordingly.

I have done this for a number of years for market research companies, leadgen companies, and file cleansing companies. I'd be happy to discuss this in further details if you wish.



Tom Naras
tnaras@cox.net

[Dan Reynolds]

We do Outbound Lead Generation, Database Cleanup, Surveys and such. You can contact me and I would be glad to exchange metrics.