Description
It contains definition, evolution and classification of Telemarketing as described by theoretical models. A research on mobile marketing has also been covered in the report to make it relevant for present scenario
Use of Telemarketing for Sales
Sales Management Project
Submitted to
Prof. Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan
Submitted by Tapan Dixit, 222 Karan Madan, 234 Anuj Pachauri, 239 Sudhanshu Porwal, 242 Jaybind Jha, 328 Manhar Singh Bhullar, 358
Telemarketing Group 4
Letter of Transmittal
Date: 24th August, 2009
Dear Prof. Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan,
The report takes a broad perspective of telemarketing in present scenario and its use in sales. It contains definition, evolution and classification of Telemarketing as described by theoretical models. A research on mobile marketing has also been covered in the report to make it relevant for present scenario. Business model of JustDial has been studied to analyze the application of telemarketing and The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ of Europe has been used to understand the effectiveness of Telemarketing. Fallouts and current trends in telemarketing have been used to predict the future of telemarketing. The report is meant only for understanding and evaluation of the course: Sales Management, as a part of MBA curriculum.
Group 4 Course: Sales Management, Trimester IV Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies
2 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4
Executive Summary
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Its evolution can be traced way back to 1895 when Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company sent a mailing printed on tinted paper to names taken from the Elite Directory or Blue Book advertising telephone connections. Telemarketing has come a long way since then and has now become an important component of the marketing strategies of firms. Telemarketing can be classified based on two separate parameters-the type of call (inbound or outbound) and the customer (B2B or B2C). Its application can be found in activities such as selling, setting appointments, generating leads, customer service, etc. The 1990s witnessed a boom in the mobile phone market which provided a new channel to reach consumers. Telemarketing using mobile phones gave birth to mobile marketing which now has become an effective form of communicating with consumers. Just Dial, a Directory service offering live search in 240 Indian cities, is a very good example of application of telemarketing in mobile phones. Measuring the effectiveness of telemarketing is a tough task. A survey done by Aspect Software in that direction provides useful insights to consumer?s perceptions towards telemarketing. At the same time, there exist certain fallouts of this new medium of marketing ranging from issues pertaining to ethics and to regulation of the industry. Telemarketing is an evolving phase. The future holds lots in store for this field in terms of changing technology and changing scope of regulation. It remains to be seen as to what shape it finally takes in the years to come.
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Telemarketing Group 4
Table of Contents
Telemarketing: Definition and Evolution ........................................................ 5 Classification of Telemarketing ......................................................................... 6 Applications of Telemarketing........................................................................... 8 Mobile Marketing ............................................................................................. 11 Mobitisements.................................................................................................... 12 Bluecasting ......................................................................................................... 13 Business Case: Just Dial ................................................................................... 14 Effectiveness of Telemarketing ........................................................................ 16 Fallouts in Telemarketing ................................................................................ 20 Telemarketing the road ahead ......................................................................... 23 References .......................................................................................................... 25
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Telemarketing Group 4
Telemarketing
Definition Philip Kotler defines telemarketing as the use of the telephone and call centers to attract prospects, sell to existing customers and provide service by taking orders and answering questions. Wikipedia has extended Kotler?s definition of telemarketing, it defines telemarketing as a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Evolution Evolution of telemarketing can be tracked back to 1895. Since then telemarketing has become more sophisticated every day. ? 1895 - Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company sent a mailing printed on tinted paper to names taken from the Elite Directory or Blue Book. “Have you ever thought of having a telephone in your house?” it asked. “Those little worries and annoyances that cause so much friction in household affairs are abolished by the telephone, which makes the householder independent of distance, weather and promises.” Relatively few people then owned a phone. Most had to visit a telephone center to place a long-distance call. Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph had since 1878 attracted only 12,500 subscribers in New York City, including 2,500 garnered in recent months through advertising and direct mail. ? 1905 – The New York Sun reported in 1905 that department stores were “now arranging to take care of all night orders received by telephone. One advantage is found in the fact that a shopper can file her order for bargains as quoted in evening papers without the inconvenience of visiting the store in the day rush. She is thus also enabled to anticipate the „all sold out? announcement affecting cut rate offerings. Deliveries as a rule are facilitated.”And how would the customer pay for merchandise? In 1903, Printers? Ink magazine reported on a “well-defined demand in 5 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 large cities for a telephone money order system. In the ordering of theater seats, concert tickets, sleeper berths, railroad tickets, staterooms and other things that can be secured by telephone the main difficulty is the transmitting of money. ? 1957 – DialAmerica was founded in 1957. Currently the largest privately-owned telemarketing company in the United States, the company employs about 8,000 people and generates around $185 million in annual revenue. Their representatives make 250 million inbound and outbound calls annually. The vast majority of call centers are outbound facilities, contacting consumers for the purpose of conducting phone sales, in many major cites and it also has several inbound facilities. ? 1990 – Telephone Consumer Protection Act was passed. It provides a federal right to be free from certain types of telephone solicitations and faxes. This made a telemarketer?s task difficult with a legal implication of their day to day job. ? 1990 – Boom in the mobile phone market provided one more channel to reach consumers. It added a new dimension to telemarketing. Consumers could be reached directly and SMS became one of the cost effective ways of advertising. Today, the mobile marketing has become an important part of Telemarketing.
Classification of Telemarketing
I. Type of call
Telemarketing can be classified on the basis of calls made or received by the firm.
a) Inbound - Customers are calling a firm to place an order or to request more information or customer service. Inbound telemarketing must be used in conjunction with some other method of promotion such as direct-response television advertising, print placements or direct mail. In this role, telemarketing primarily involves order taking because the buyer sees an offer and calls to place an order or providing more information about the product. Inbound telemarketing calls that result in sales are primarily associated with 1800 numbers. 6 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 b) Outbound - Companies are calling customers and prospects to make a sale or to offer information which it hopes will lead to a sale. Selling by telephone is the most profitable application of telemarketing. At present, the entire focus is on outbound telemarketing as it is used for generating leads, setting qualified appointments and pursuing collections. Outbound telemarketing is more active and requires more management of resources in comparison to inbound marketing.
II.
Based on customer
Telemarketing can be classified on the basis of whether the customer is a corporate or a consumer. a) Business to Business (B2B) – In B2B telemarketing, telemarketer searches for potential companies and the right people with whom to initiate a sales call. It involves generating leads, setting qualified appointments and advertising. B2B telemarketer has to be very professional and needs to be well informed about the potential company, as the sales value is generally high. In most of the B2B deals, telemarketing is used for initial discussion which is then followed by personal selling. Eg: Selling an information system to a company. b) Business to Consumer (B2C) – In B2C telemarketing, telemarketer searches for potential consumers and he tries to make a sale on the telephone. Telemarketer has to be informative about the product which he is selling and make a same sales pitch to all the consumers he/she is calling. Most of the companies these days use a recorded sales pitch to reach large number of consumers. Eg: Hello Tunes advertisements by telecom companies to the existing customer.
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Applications of Telemarketing
1. Selling Telemarketing based selling involves outgoing solicitations for a firm?s products or services. With existing customers, it can be used to elicit reorders, sell additional product or services, or increase the volume of products purchased. It can also resell inactive customers, sell new prospects and handle smaller customers that are not profitable to sell. Inbound telemarketing is to be used more effectively as the potential customers are at the door step.
2. Setting Qualified Appointments
Setting qualified appointment involves calling prospects, qualifying them, and setting appointment for sales people. Salespeople have a variety of duties they must perform as a part of their jobs, including preparing and giving face-to-face presentations, writing proposals and completing paperwork. As a result, they may have relatively little time to prospect actively for new customers. A trained telemarketer who does little else besides set appointments for salespeople usually becomes more and more proficient and can offer outperform salespeople in this role. Even though sales people may have much knowledge about the firm?s product line, telemarketers can do better because of their concentrated focus on prospecting. Without the burden of prospecting, salespeople are free to spend more time selling, which sharpens their selling skills and improves their closing ratios
3. Generating Leads
A lead generation program provides a source of information about prospects who have expressed an interest in the product or service offered by the firm. As a result, the prospect is contacted by a sales representative or is sent information to stimulate a sale. To ensure the success of lead-generating programs, the firm needs to manage a
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Telemarketing Group 4 database of every lead. Sales representatives should fill out a contact form after each appointment and each follow-up call. Data from these forms become a part of the database. Telemarketing is as effective as the prospect list it uses. A firm can have the best product or service in the marketplace, but only a list of target market members who are good prospects to make a purchase will result in a successful campaign. Therefore, it is imperative that the names of those to telephone are carefully selected. These leads may be either customers with whom the firm already has a relationship or people who fit the profile of the firm?s existing customers and therefore should have a high propensity to buy.
4. Surveying
Some firms use telemarketing surveys to gather market data about customers and prospects, including information about who makes the decision in the household or business, what the customer(s) product needs are, and any product purchasing plans. This activity generates leads by indentifying potential candidates for future selling. The information collected through surveys is entered in a database for future reference.
5. Providing Customer Service
When telemarketing is used in connection with a customer service function, customer calls, for example, to inquire about their order is, to complain that they have received wrong products, or to report that their shipment has been damaged. After solving the customer?s problem, the customer service representatives may take the opportunity to announce new products or product modifications, along with price information.
6. Advertising (Public Relations)
Advertising that serves public relations function involves calling companies or individuals that could benefit from a firm?s products or services and describing the opportunity to them. Such calls are scripted in much the same way as general advertising copy. The caller communicates information about a new product or service or a modification to an existing product or service. No sales attempt is made 9 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 on this kind of call because it just informs the other party of something he or she should find of interest.
7. Pursuing Collections Credit department telemarketing does not sell a company?s products or services. Rather, it pursues receiving payment. Collections are an often overlooked aspect of telemarketing. The credit department?s phone related activities also include credit verifications.
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Mobile Marketing
Definition: Mobile marketing can be defined as process of sending spam-free, personalized, permission-based marketing messages to customers through their cell-phones. Mobile marketing has emerged as one of the most popular and effective method of telemarketing as the penetration of mobiles into people?s lives and the dependency of lifestyles on mobiles has increased randomly. In addition, this is also compounded by the increasing reach of different levels of society to mobile phones as well as the rapidly increasing number of mobile subscribers. Mobile marketing is not only cost-effective, but advertisers can be sure their ad has been seen by the consumer, which is not the case with TV or print. In India, there are over 429 million mobile subscribers (March 2009 – TRAI Report) and the number is growing each day. This has encouraged several FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies, banks, magazines and TV stations in the country to extend their promotions to the mobile phone platform. On a deeper look, comparing the number of subscribers between wired and wireless connections, out of 429 million subscribers there are 392 million wireless subscribers which are increasing rapidly as against a meager number of 37 million wired subscribers whose growth is not only stagnant but also decreasing with time. This rapid advent of mobile phones as well as the transcendental developments in technology has created an opportunity to reach the customers through ways other than calling.
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Telemarketing Group 4
Mobitisements
Mobitisements are the customized & specialized advertisements passed through SMS to customer?s mobile phones. The service company provides its users text messaging absolutely free of cost. The text messages are appended with ads which can be geo-targeted. Users get this free text messaging service in exchange for opting in to have targeted ads appended to their message. Mobitisements act as one of the best methods of Click to Call Promotions as the user can open, the message, receive the contact nos. and directly make a call by pressing a single button. Mobitisements are better than television ads as it carries a personal message according the words being used in the text sms/location of the receiver. Also, there is no channel surfing so a user cannot avoid a message. The current market size is around Rs.30 Crores, and is expected to grow 5 times to 150 crores by 2011. Some of the companies which have made a strong base in this field are www.indyarocks.com, www.160by2.com, www.way2sms.com.
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Bluecasting
Definition: Bluecasting, which stands for Bluetooth broadcasting can be defined as provision of any small digital content to Bluetooth enable devices. The content can include photos, podcast style audio content, video, mobile ticketing, text messages, games or even other applications. Bluecasting is provisioned by a Bluetooth Kiosk a physical server provisioning the digital media over Bluetooth to interested devices. These kiosks are generally located in public spaces such as malls, bars or mass-transit terminals. In India there are some temples which offer ringtones, wallpapers of Gods and some other content using bluecasting.
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JUST DIAL Just Dial is a Directory service offering live search in 240 Indian cities. It is currently India?s no.1 local search destination. The company even intends to extend its business to the international countries. The Just Dial website has more than one lakh visitors daily, receives two lakh calls, and is spreading to international markets like the US with 1-800-JUSTDIAL number already in place. Just Dial now has eight centers in India and more than 3500 employees. There are 2 million vendors and businesses catalogued, of which 60000 have signed up for sponsored links. The search engine is available through different modes like Internet, phone, wireless and print (yellow pages). Working Model:
Company Listing Sponsor Listing
• Customer requires specific company’s contact information • Free of cost
• Customer requires general contact informtation related to a business • Chargeable, Rs 2333/month or Rs 28000 / yr
The company maintains two listings called the Sponsor listing and the Company listing (nonsponsor positions. If the customer requests for specific company?s contact information, the contact is provided from the Company listing. On the other hand, if a customer requires any general contact information related to a business, then the contacts are provided from the Sponsor listing. This service is free of cost to the caller. The companies in the Company list
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Telemarketing Group 4 are not charged but the companies in the Sponsor listing are charged at the rate of Rs 2333 per month or Rs 28000 per year. There is no limit to the number of times a contact can be released during a month.
Competitive Advantage:
The company bridges the gap between buyers and sellers by helping buyers find the right providers of products and services while helping sellers improve the efficiency of their marketing channels. The company has gained its numero uno status by establishing the following competitive advantages: The leading local search brand in India Large customer base and nationwide coverage Highly scalable platform Excellent track record in user experience Very high customer satisfaction Modern and constantly updated infrastructure and technology Vastly Experienced management team
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Effectiveness of Telemarketing
The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ Europe
Established in 2005 by Aspect Software, the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index provides an indicator to quantify consumer satisfaction with the quality of their telephone and online interactions with companies and their representatives. The Aspect Index, which is conducted in North America and Europe, is a dynamic model that is adjusted over time to reflect changes and trends in contact center performance, use of various communication channels, and the importance that consumers place on a variety of service attributes. The Aspect Index Europe provides a comparison for consumer satisfaction and contact center perception across six countries – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The 2007 Aspect Index Europe is based upon responses to surveys of more than 1,000 European consumers, (producing an overall confidence level of +/-3 percent) and an additional 250 consumers who recently had excellent or exceptional contact center experiences; representing a cross section of countries, age groups, incomes, profession and education. It measures gaps between consumer expectations and their level of satisfaction for 25 separate elements of their most recent experience. Methodology The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index research methodology, conducted by independent market research firm Leo J. Shapiro & Associates LLC, consisted of quantitative studies with consumers to help gain perspective on consumer satisfaction with contact center performance.
Quantitative Study with Consumers: • A cross-section of consumers was interviewed using online methods to determine overall satisfaction with contact center experiences.
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Telemarketing Group 4 • A total of 1,031 interviews were completed with consumers across six European countries – France (165), Germany (169), Italy (160), the Netherlands (176), Spain (166), and the United Kingdom (195); producing an overall confidence level of +/-3 percent. • Leo J. Shapiro & Associates conducted an additional 257 online surveys with consumers who have had an exceptional call center experience within the past month to provide information about where these contact centers excel and identify drivers of consumer satisfaction. Respondents were evenly split across the six European countries.
The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index references consumer importance ratings from the 2006 baseline survey. Both surveys focus on consumer experiences primarily associated with the following industries: financial services, communications, and retail company services.
Important Findings ?
European consumers gave centers an overall satisfaction grade of 64% which increases to 86% for consumers who have had an outstanding interaction.
?
Consumers who have exceptional experiences are 33% more likely to conduct future business with a company.
?
83% of consumers said that their telephone or online interactions are the same or better than typical face-to-face interactions.
?
85% of the consumers who use email state that they find contact center interactions to be better or the same as face to face interactions, virtually the same number as those who use the telephone:
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Telemarketing Group 4
?
Consumers who use telephone rate their satisfaction lower than those who use online methods to contact the company.
?
The research finds that more than one quarter of email customers use these channels for simple questions, suggesting that European consumers are more likely to utilize the telephone to contact companies about complex issues or problems. Furthermore, seven in 10 say they use phone because they want to speak with a live person.
?
The Aspect Index finds that 62% of all telephone-related consumer experiences begin with an automated system. Once they reach an agent, more than half of those consumers are forced to repeat information they have already provided. 60% of consumers who are asked to repeat information are asked to rehash most of the data while, the remainder are asked only to restate some. The Aspect Index Europe shows that the amount of information a consumer is asked to repeat after transferring from an automated system to a live agent directly correlates to how much future business they say they will conduct with a company. 18 Sales Management
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?
Consumers who have exceptional experiences resolve Inquiries/Issues in fewer contacts:
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Fallouts of Telemarketing
Widespread negative perceptions and criticism Telemarketing has been negatively associated with various scams and frauds, such as pyramid schemes, and with deceptively overpriced products and services. Fraudulent telemarketing companies are plenty and are frequently referred to as "telemarketing boiler rooms" or simply "Boiler Rooms." Telemarketing is often criticized as an unethical business practice due to the perception of high-pressure sales techniques during unsolicited calls. Some of the basic fallouts of Telemarketing are;
? ?
An increasing number of people have become averse to telemarketing. More people are using technology to screen out unwanted callers, particularly telemarketers
? ? ?
Government is implementing tougher measures to curb unscrupulous telemarketers Lots of businesses use telemarketing. If hiring an outside firm to do telemarketing, there is lesser control in the process given that the people doing the calls are not your employees
? ?
May need to hire a professional to prepare a well-crafted and effective script It can be extremely expensive, particularly if the telemarketing is outsourced to an outside firm
?
It is most appropriate for high-ticket retail items or professional services.
To combat this (TRAI) Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (the Authority) issued “Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007” for putting in place a mechanism for curbing the unwanted telemarketing calls.
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The Regulation was made effective with its publication. ? ?Proposal to have National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC registry) containing list of telephone numbers of the subscribers who do not want to receive Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC). It includes SMS as well. ? ?DoT authorized National Informatics Center (NIC) for installation, operation and maintenance of NDNC registry. ? ?
The NDNC to be established in 3 months time by NIC.
After the establishment of NDNC registry, Telephone subscriber (Landline or cellular) who does not wish to receive UCC can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider for inclusion in the NDNC.
?
The telemarketer will have to verify their calling telephone numbers list with the NDNC registry before making a call.
?
Telemarketer will have to register with NDNC Registry to avail the facility of scrubbing their calling list.
?
?An amount of Rs 500/- per call / message has been prescribed to discourage telemarketers who make calls to numbers registered in Do Not Call list. TRAI issued Telecom Tariff Order (Forty-Fifth amendment) 2007 today notifying tariff of Rs. 500/- for each such Unsolicited Commercial Communication.
?
The defaulter telemarketer will face disconnection of telecom service.
The NDNC list came into effect in October 2007 and in the next one year TRAI data shows that over 10,000 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the regulation. Out of these, 8602 disconnections are of those
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Telemarketing Group 4 telemarketers who are not registered with the DOT. Further, 8,543 telemarketers have been fined Rs 500 and 2,801 telemarketers have been fined Rs 1,000 for violation of NDNC rules.
But the DNC list is also only effective to some extent and there have been some amendments to make it more effective ever since its inception, e.g. ?
In January 2008, proposing an amendment to the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007, TRAI said a telecom service provider not complying with the regulation should attract a penalty of Rs 5,000 for first offence and Rs 20,000 for subsequent offences.
?
More recently in December 2008 TRAI has mandated mobile operators prefix a service provider and service area code in order to allow the authority to track unsolicited SMS?. Thus, an SMS received from the Hard Rock Café in Mumbai, if sent via Vodafone, will have to be displayed as VM-Hardrock. This is in order to help crack down on alphanumeric SMS?, the source of which was difficult to track.
Canadians getting more Telemarketing calls after putting names on Do Not Call (DNC) List:
In some countries it has been misused by the telemarketers, for example in Canada. This DNC list has been labeled a "disaster” and received heavy criticism due to both the large number of exempt groups and serious loopholes that allowed anyone to obtain the list. When the US first instituted its Do Not Call list, there was some fear that unscrupulous telemarketers would actually use the list as a "good list" of people to call. In fact, many people were nervous to use the list at the beginning for just that reason. However, for the most part, there haven't been that many abuses of the list. But the Canadian list works by allowing anyone to buy it -- supposedly so they can cleanse their own lists of any DNC numbers. But, it can also be used by unscrupulous scammers -such as those offshore -- who apparently are buying the DNC list in order to have a "verified" list of people to call with scams. People reported that they had actually experienced a notable increase in the number of calls since registering for the list, and were starting to get calls at cellular phone numbers that had never received telemarketing calls before. 22 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4
Telemarketing: The Road Ahead
? After DNC and failure of predictive dialing (Silent calls) ,telemarketing is more likely to be a 2 way conversation then one way sales pitch-to build relationship rather than start them. Predictive dialing uses a computer-based system that automatically dials groups of telephone numbers, and then passes calls to available operators or agents in a calling center once the calls are connected. Predictive dialing was introduced for the purpose of increasing efficiency within calling centers. Prior to its development, most call centers used devices known as autodialers, which were merely computers equipped with telephony boards that could dial a number without a caller having to manually enter it on a keypad. If the call goes unanswered, is met with a busy signal or answering machine, or reaches a fax machine, the predictive dialer immediately ends the call. Only calls that are answered by a live person are put through to an operator. Therefore, productivity is increased because callers do not have to listen to unanswered calls or wait for someone to pick up. When a person answers the phone, predictive dialing puts the call through to an agent, although there is sometimes a brief delay as the predictive dialer attempts to determine whether the person's voice is a recording, in which case the call is ended. The goal in using predictive dialing is to avoid having agents in a calling center sitting idle. Predictive dialing systems are judged on how well they keep callers from sitting inactive and how well they avoid silent calls -- calls in which a live person answers the call but there is no agent to take it, and so the predictive dialer ends the call. So the future of telemarketing can be seen as more of a customer retention tool and less of customer acquisition purpose. ? Event based and trigger based marketing events where companies make service calls or sales pitches in response to actions taken by customers-offer exceptional potentials to both companies and consumers. These marketing events give companies the opportunity to contact customers who have demonstrated an interest in learning more about the products and services they discovered through direct mail marketing, traditional advertising, online promotions or some other trigger.
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Telemarketing Group 4 ? Global multilingual telemarketing: "We will see global telemarketing expand a hundredfold in the future," says Ken Knecht, an expert of telemarketing. "As international telephone rates come down, it will be possible to take calls from anywhere in the world and place them, too." ? Whilst outsourced telemarketing is nothing new, recent market research has indicated that high-tech companies feel that a 'co-sourcing' approach not only delivers an ROI but also provides the flexibility and control companies want. ? We see the future to be more offshore call centers, with more targeted marketing as databases get better and data mining tools become more powerful. ?
Marketing of Telemarketing: The concern for quality is in the marketing portion of telemarketing. The level of marketing expertise of clients, whether internal or external, will certainly continue to increase. The industry needs to stay a step ahead of the complexity of challenges and opportunities that the future will bring. The ability to coordinate with and use state-of-the-art marketing research, direct mail, print advertising and the electronic media must improve. With the improvement in the quality and sophistication of those areas must come the development of more effective methods of results projection and program analysis. There is a need to increase sales and research capability while improving the back-end results and order fulfillment techniques.
However it can be anticipated that several driving forces will continue the expansion of telemarketing: 1. Continuing demand for convenience and speed in the transaction of business. 2. Continued improvement in the capabilities and the price performance of computer technologies and telecommunication. 3. The abundance of software support systems that facilitate the development of more extensive and more creative databases about customers and potential customers. 4. Continued increase in the cost of other forms of communicating with customers.
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References
? Book : Marketing Management, Philip Kotler ? Book: Direct Marketing, William J McDonald ? Book: Telemarketing, Stanley Leo Fidel ? Wikipedia ? Report: Aspect Index of European Countries ? www.JustDial.com
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doc_498266350.pdf
It contains definition, evolution and classification of Telemarketing as described by theoretical models. A research on mobile marketing has also been covered in the report to make it relevant for present scenario
Use of Telemarketing for Sales
Sales Management Project
Submitted to
Prof. Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan
Submitted by Tapan Dixit, 222 Karan Madan, 234 Anuj Pachauri, 239 Sudhanshu Porwal, 242 Jaybind Jha, 328 Manhar Singh Bhullar, 358
Telemarketing Group 4
Letter of Transmittal
Date: 24th August, 2009
Dear Prof. Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan,
The report takes a broad perspective of telemarketing in present scenario and its use in sales. It contains definition, evolution and classification of Telemarketing as described by theoretical models. A research on mobile marketing has also been covered in the report to make it relevant for present scenario. Business model of JustDial has been studied to analyze the application of telemarketing and The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ of Europe has been used to understand the effectiveness of Telemarketing. Fallouts and current trends in telemarketing have been used to predict the future of telemarketing. The report is meant only for understanding and evaluation of the course: Sales Management, as a part of MBA curriculum.
Group 4 Course: Sales Management, Trimester IV Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies
2 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4
Executive Summary
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Its evolution can be traced way back to 1895 when Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company sent a mailing printed on tinted paper to names taken from the Elite Directory or Blue Book advertising telephone connections. Telemarketing has come a long way since then and has now become an important component of the marketing strategies of firms. Telemarketing can be classified based on two separate parameters-the type of call (inbound or outbound) and the customer (B2B or B2C). Its application can be found in activities such as selling, setting appointments, generating leads, customer service, etc. The 1990s witnessed a boom in the mobile phone market which provided a new channel to reach consumers. Telemarketing using mobile phones gave birth to mobile marketing which now has become an effective form of communicating with consumers. Just Dial, a Directory service offering live search in 240 Indian cities, is a very good example of application of telemarketing in mobile phones. Measuring the effectiveness of telemarketing is a tough task. A survey done by Aspect Software in that direction provides useful insights to consumer?s perceptions towards telemarketing. At the same time, there exist certain fallouts of this new medium of marketing ranging from issues pertaining to ethics and to regulation of the industry. Telemarketing is an evolving phase. The future holds lots in store for this field in terms of changing technology and changing scope of regulation. It remains to be seen as to what shape it finally takes in the years to come.
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Telemarketing Group 4
Table of Contents
Telemarketing: Definition and Evolution ........................................................ 5 Classification of Telemarketing ......................................................................... 6 Applications of Telemarketing........................................................................... 8 Mobile Marketing ............................................................................................. 11 Mobitisements.................................................................................................... 12 Bluecasting ......................................................................................................... 13 Business Case: Just Dial ................................................................................... 14 Effectiveness of Telemarketing ........................................................................ 16 Fallouts in Telemarketing ................................................................................ 20 Telemarketing the road ahead ......................................................................... 23 References .......................................................................................................... 25
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Telemarketing
Definition Philip Kotler defines telemarketing as the use of the telephone and call centers to attract prospects, sell to existing customers and provide service by taking orders and answering questions. Wikipedia has extended Kotler?s definition of telemarketing, it defines telemarketing as a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Evolution Evolution of telemarketing can be tracked back to 1895. Since then telemarketing has become more sophisticated every day. ? 1895 - Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company sent a mailing printed on tinted paper to names taken from the Elite Directory or Blue Book. “Have you ever thought of having a telephone in your house?” it asked. “Those little worries and annoyances that cause so much friction in household affairs are abolished by the telephone, which makes the householder independent of distance, weather and promises.” Relatively few people then owned a phone. Most had to visit a telephone center to place a long-distance call. Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph had since 1878 attracted only 12,500 subscribers in New York City, including 2,500 garnered in recent months through advertising and direct mail. ? 1905 – The New York Sun reported in 1905 that department stores were “now arranging to take care of all night orders received by telephone. One advantage is found in the fact that a shopper can file her order for bargains as quoted in evening papers without the inconvenience of visiting the store in the day rush. She is thus also enabled to anticipate the „all sold out? announcement affecting cut rate offerings. Deliveries as a rule are facilitated.”And how would the customer pay for merchandise? In 1903, Printers? Ink magazine reported on a “well-defined demand in 5 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 large cities for a telephone money order system. In the ordering of theater seats, concert tickets, sleeper berths, railroad tickets, staterooms and other things that can be secured by telephone the main difficulty is the transmitting of money. ? 1957 – DialAmerica was founded in 1957. Currently the largest privately-owned telemarketing company in the United States, the company employs about 8,000 people and generates around $185 million in annual revenue. Their representatives make 250 million inbound and outbound calls annually. The vast majority of call centers are outbound facilities, contacting consumers for the purpose of conducting phone sales, in many major cites and it also has several inbound facilities. ? 1990 – Telephone Consumer Protection Act was passed. It provides a federal right to be free from certain types of telephone solicitations and faxes. This made a telemarketer?s task difficult with a legal implication of their day to day job. ? 1990 – Boom in the mobile phone market provided one more channel to reach consumers. It added a new dimension to telemarketing. Consumers could be reached directly and SMS became one of the cost effective ways of advertising. Today, the mobile marketing has become an important part of Telemarketing.
Classification of Telemarketing
I. Type of call
Telemarketing can be classified on the basis of calls made or received by the firm.
a) Inbound - Customers are calling a firm to place an order or to request more information or customer service. Inbound telemarketing must be used in conjunction with some other method of promotion such as direct-response television advertising, print placements or direct mail. In this role, telemarketing primarily involves order taking because the buyer sees an offer and calls to place an order or providing more information about the product. Inbound telemarketing calls that result in sales are primarily associated with 1800 numbers. 6 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 b) Outbound - Companies are calling customers and prospects to make a sale or to offer information which it hopes will lead to a sale. Selling by telephone is the most profitable application of telemarketing. At present, the entire focus is on outbound telemarketing as it is used for generating leads, setting qualified appointments and pursuing collections. Outbound telemarketing is more active and requires more management of resources in comparison to inbound marketing.
II.
Based on customer
Telemarketing can be classified on the basis of whether the customer is a corporate or a consumer. a) Business to Business (B2B) – In B2B telemarketing, telemarketer searches for potential companies and the right people with whom to initiate a sales call. It involves generating leads, setting qualified appointments and advertising. B2B telemarketer has to be very professional and needs to be well informed about the potential company, as the sales value is generally high. In most of the B2B deals, telemarketing is used for initial discussion which is then followed by personal selling. Eg: Selling an information system to a company. b) Business to Consumer (B2C) – In B2C telemarketing, telemarketer searches for potential consumers and he tries to make a sale on the telephone. Telemarketer has to be informative about the product which he is selling and make a same sales pitch to all the consumers he/she is calling. Most of the companies these days use a recorded sales pitch to reach large number of consumers. Eg: Hello Tunes advertisements by telecom companies to the existing customer.
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Applications of Telemarketing
1. Selling Telemarketing based selling involves outgoing solicitations for a firm?s products or services. With existing customers, it can be used to elicit reorders, sell additional product or services, or increase the volume of products purchased. It can also resell inactive customers, sell new prospects and handle smaller customers that are not profitable to sell. Inbound telemarketing is to be used more effectively as the potential customers are at the door step.
2. Setting Qualified Appointments
Setting qualified appointment involves calling prospects, qualifying them, and setting appointment for sales people. Salespeople have a variety of duties they must perform as a part of their jobs, including preparing and giving face-to-face presentations, writing proposals and completing paperwork. As a result, they may have relatively little time to prospect actively for new customers. A trained telemarketer who does little else besides set appointments for salespeople usually becomes more and more proficient and can offer outperform salespeople in this role. Even though sales people may have much knowledge about the firm?s product line, telemarketers can do better because of their concentrated focus on prospecting. Without the burden of prospecting, salespeople are free to spend more time selling, which sharpens their selling skills and improves their closing ratios
3. Generating Leads
A lead generation program provides a source of information about prospects who have expressed an interest in the product or service offered by the firm. As a result, the prospect is contacted by a sales representative or is sent information to stimulate a sale. To ensure the success of lead-generating programs, the firm needs to manage a
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Telemarketing Group 4 database of every lead. Sales representatives should fill out a contact form after each appointment and each follow-up call. Data from these forms become a part of the database. Telemarketing is as effective as the prospect list it uses. A firm can have the best product or service in the marketplace, but only a list of target market members who are good prospects to make a purchase will result in a successful campaign. Therefore, it is imperative that the names of those to telephone are carefully selected. These leads may be either customers with whom the firm already has a relationship or people who fit the profile of the firm?s existing customers and therefore should have a high propensity to buy.
4. Surveying
Some firms use telemarketing surveys to gather market data about customers and prospects, including information about who makes the decision in the household or business, what the customer(s) product needs are, and any product purchasing plans. This activity generates leads by indentifying potential candidates for future selling. The information collected through surveys is entered in a database for future reference.
5. Providing Customer Service
When telemarketing is used in connection with a customer service function, customer calls, for example, to inquire about their order is, to complain that they have received wrong products, or to report that their shipment has been damaged. After solving the customer?s problem, the customer service representatives may take the opportunity to announce new products or product modifications, along with price information.
6. Advertising (Public Relations)
Advertising that serves public relations function involves calling companies or individuals that could benefit from a firm?s products or services and describing the opportunity to them. Such calls are scripted in much the same way as general advertising copy. The caller communicates information about a new product or service or a modification to an existing product or service. No sales attempt is made 9 Sales Management
Telemarketing Group 4 on this kind of call because it just informs the other party of something he or she should find of interest.
7. Pursuing Collections Credit department telemarketing does not sell a company?s products or services. Rather, it pursues receiving payment. Collections are an often overlooked aspect of telemarketing. The credit department?s phone related activities also include credit verifications.
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Mobile Marketing
Definition: Mobile marketing can be defined as process of sending spam-free, personalized, permission-based marketing messages to customers through their cell-phones. Mobile marketing has emerged as one of the most popular and effective method of telemarketing as the penetration of mobiles into people?s lives and the dependency of lifestyles on mobiles has increased randomly. In addition, this is also compounded by the increasing reach of different levels of society to mobile phones as well as the rapidly increasing number of mobile subscribers. Mobile marketing is not only cost-effective, but advertisers can be sure their ad has been seen by the consumer, which is not the case with TV or print. In India, there are over 429 million mobile subscribers (March 2009 – TRAI Report) and the number is growing each day. This has encouraged several FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies, banks, magazines and TV stations in the country to extend their promotions to the mobile phone platform. On a deeper look, comparing the number of subscribers between wired and wireless connections, out of 429 million subscribers there are 392 million wireless subscribers which are increasing rapidly as against a meager number of 37 million wired subscribers whose growth is not only stagnant but also decreasing with time. This rapid advent of mobile phones as well as the transcendental developments in technology has created an opportunity to reach the customers through ways other than calling.
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Mobitisements
Mobitisements are the customized & specialized advertisements passed through SMS to customer?s mobile phones. The service company provides its users text messaging absolutely free of cost. The text messages are appended with ads which can be geo-targeted. Users get this free text messaging service in exchange for opting in to have targeted ads appended to their message. Mobitisements act as one of the best methods of Click to Call Promotions as the user can open, the message, receive the contact nos. and directly make a call by pressing a single button. Mobitisements are better than television ads as it carries a personal message according the words being used in the text sms/location of the receiver. Also, there is no channel surfing so a user cannot avoid a message. The current market size is around Rs.30 Crores, and is expected to grow 5 times to 150 crores by 2011. Some of the companies which have made a strong base in this field are www.indyarocks.com, www.160by2.com, www.way2sms.com.
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Bluecasting
Definition: Bluecasting, which stands for Bluetooth broadcasting can be defined as provision of any small digital content to Bluetooth enable devices. The content can include photos, podcast style audio content, video, mobile ticketing, text messages, games or even other applications. Bluecasting is provisioned by a Bluetooth Kiosk a physical server provisioning the digital media over Bluetooth to interested devices. These kiosks are generally located in public spaces such as malls, bars or mass-transit terminals. In India there are some temples which offer ringtones, wallpapers of Gods and some other content using bluecasting.
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JUST DIAL Just Dial is a Directory service offering live search in 240 Indian cities. It is currently India?s no.1 local search destination. The company even intends to extend its business to the international countries. The Just Dial website has more than one lakh visitors daily, receives two lakh calls, and is spreading to international markets like the US with 1-800-JUSTDIAL number already in place. Just Dial now has eight centers in India and more than 3500 employees. There are 2 million vendors and businesses catalogued, of which 60000 have signed up for sponsored links. The search engine is available through different modes like Internet, phone, wireless and print (yellow pages). Working Model:
Company Listing Sponsor Listing
• Customer requires specific company’s contact information • Free of cost
• Customer requires general contact informtation related to a business • Chargeable, Rs 2333/month or Rs 28000 / yr
The company maintains two listings called the Sponsor listing and the Company listing (nonsponsor positions. If the customer requests for specific company?s contact information, the contact is provided from the Company listing. On the other hand, if a customer requires any general contact information related to a business, then the contacts are provided from the Sponsor listing. This service is free of cost to the caller. The companies in the Company list
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Telemarketing Group 4 are not charged but the companies in the Sponsor listing are charged at the rate of Rs 2333 per month or Rs 28000 per year. There is no limit to the number of times a contact can be released during a month.
Competitive Advantage:
The company bridges the gap between buyers and sellers by helping buyers find the right providers of products and services while helping sellers improve the efficiency of their marketing channels. The company has gained its numero uno status by establishing the following competitive advantages: The leading local search brand in India Large customer base and nationwide coverage Highly scalable platform Excellent track record in user experience Very high customer satisfaction Modern and constantly updated infrastructure and technology Vastly Experienced management team
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Effectiveness of Telemarketing
The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ Europe
Established in 2005 by Aspect Software, the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index provides an indicator to quantify consumer satisfaction with the quality of their telephone and online interactions with companies and their representatives. The Aspect Index, which is conducted in North America and Europe, is a dynamic model that is adjusted over time to reflect changes and trends in contact center performance, use of various communication channels, and the importance that consumers place on a variety of service attributes. The Aspect Index Europe provides a comparison for consumer satisfaction and contact center perception across six countries – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The 2007 Aspect Index Europe is based upon responses to surveys of more than 1,000 European consumers, (producing an overall confidence level of +/-3 percent) and an additional 250 consumers who recently had excellent or exceptional contact center experiences; representing a cross section of countries, age groups, incomes, profession and education. It measures gaps between consumer expectations and their level of satisfaction for 25 separate elements of their most recent experience. Methodology The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index research methodology, conducted by independent market research firm Leo J. Shapiro & Associates LLC, consisted of quantitative studies with consumers to help gain perspective on consumer satisfaction with contact center performance.
Quantitative Study with Consumers: • A cross-section of consumers was interviewed using online methods to determine overall satisfaction with contact center experiences.
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Telemarketing Group 4 • A total of 1,031 interviews were completed with consumers across six European countries – France (165), Germany (169), Italy (160), the Netherlands (176), Spain (166), and the United Kingdom (195); producing an overall confidence level of +/-3 percent. • Leo J. Shapiro & Associates conducted an additional 257 online surveys with consumers who have had an exceptional call center experience within the past month to provide information about where these contact centers excel and identify drivers of consumer satisfaction. Respondents were evenly split across the six European countries.
The 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index references consumer importance ratings from the 2006 baseline survey. Both surveys focus on consumer experiences primarily associated with the following industries: financial services, communications, and retail company services.
Important Findings ?
European consumers gave centers an overall satisfaction grade of 64% which increases to 86% for consumers who have had an outstanding interaction.
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Consumers who have exceptional experiences are 33% more likely to conduct future business with a company.
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83% of consumers said that their telephone or online interactions are the same or better than typical face-to-face interactions.
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85% of the consumers who use email state that they find contact center interactions to be better or the same as face to face interactions, virtually the same number as those who use the telephone:
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Consumers who use telephone rate their satisfaction lower than those who use online methods to contact the company.
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The research finds that more than one quarter of email customers use these channels for simple questions, suggesting that European consumers are more likely to utilize the telephone to contact companies about complex issues or problems. Furthermore, seven in 10 say they use phone because they want to speak with a live person.
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The Aspect Index finds that 62% of all telephone-related consumer experiences begin with an automated system. Once they reach an agent, more than half of those consumers are forced to repeat information they have already provided. 60% of consumers who are asked to repeat information are asked to rehash most of the data while, the remainder are asked only to restate some. The Aspect Index Europe shows that the amount of information a consumer is asked to repeat after transferring from an automated system to a live agent directly correlates to how much future business they say they will conduct with a company. 18 Sales Management
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Consumers who have exceptional experiences resolve Inquiries/Issues in fewer contacts:
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Fallouts of Telemarketing
Widespread negative perceptions and criticism Telemarketing has been negatively associated with various scams and frauds, such as pyramid schemes, and with deceptively overpriced products and services. Fraudulent telemarketing companies are plenty and are frequently referred to as "telemarketing boiler rooms" or simply "Boiler Rooms." Telemarketing is often criticized as an unethical business practice due to the perception of high-pressure sales techniques during unsolicited calls. Some of the basic fallouts of Telemarketing are;
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An increasing number of people have become averse to telemarketing. More people are using technology to screen out unwanted callers, particularly telemarketers
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Government is implementing tougher measures to curb unscrupulous telemarketers Lots of businesses use telemarketing. If hiring an outside firm to do telemarketing, there is lesser control in the process given that the people doing the calls are not your employees
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May need to hire a professional to prepare a well-crafted and effective script It can be extremely expensive, particularly if the telemarketing is outsourced to an outside firm
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It is most appropriate for high-ticket retail items or professional services.
To combat this (TRAI) Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (the Authority) issued “Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007” for putting in place a mechanism for curbing the unwanted telemarketing calls.
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The Regulation was made effective with its publication. ? ?Proposal to have National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC registry) containing list of telephone numbers of the subscribers who do not want to receive Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC). It includes SMS as well. ? ?DoT authorized National Informatics Center (NIC) for installation, operation and maintenance of NDNC registry. ? ?
The NDNC to be established in 3 months time by NIC.
After the establishment of NDNC registry, Telephone subscriber (Landline or cellular) who does not wish to receive UCC can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider for inclusion in the NDNC.
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The telemarketer will have to verify their calling telephone numbers list with the NDNC registry before making a call.
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Telemarketer will have to register with NDNC Registry to avail the facility of scrubbing their calling list.
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?An amount of Rs 500/- per call / message has been prescribed to discourage telemarketers who make calls to numbers registered in Do Not Call list. TRAI issued Telecom Tariff Order (Forty-Fifth amendment) 2007 today notifying tariff of Rs. 500/- for each such Unsolicited Commercial Communication.
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The defaulter telemarketer will face disconnection of telecom service.
The NDNC list came into effect in October 2007 and in the next one year TRAI data shows that over 10,000 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the regulation. Out of these, 8602 disconnections are of those
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Telemarketing Group 4 telemarketers who are not registered with the DOT. Further, 8,543 telemarketers have been fined Rs 500 and 2,801 telemarketers have been fined Rs 1,000 for violation of NDNC rules.
But the DNC list is also only effective to some extent and there have been some amendments to make it more effective ever since its inception, e.g. ?
In January 2008, proposing an amendment to the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007, TRAI said a telecom service provider not complying with the regulation should attract a penalty of Rs 5,000 for first offence and Rs 20,000 for subsequent offences.
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More recently in December 2008 TRAI has mandated mobile operators prefix a service provider and service area code in order to allow the authority to track unsolicited SMS?. Thus, an SMS received from the Hard Rock Café in Mumbai, if sent via Vodafone, will have to be displayed as VM-Hardrock. This is in order to help crack down on alphanumeric SMS?, the source of which was difficult to track.
Canadians getting more Telemarketing calls after putting names on Do Not Call (DNC) List:
In some countries it has been misused by the telemarketers, for example in Canada. This DNC list has been labeled a "disaster” and received heavy criticism due to both the large number of exempt groups and serious loopholes that allowed anyone to obtain the list. When the US first instituted its Do Not Call list, there was some fear that unscrupulous telemarketers would actually use the list as a "good list" of people to call. In fact, many people were nervous to use the list at the beginning for just that reason. However, for the most part, there haven't been that many abuses of the list. But the Canadian list works by allowing anyone to buy it -- supposedly so they can cleanse their own lists of any DNC numbers. But, it can also be used by unscrupulous scammers -such as those offshore -- who apparently are buying the DNC list in order to have a "verified" list of people to call with scams. People reported that they had actually experienced a notable increase in the number of calls since registering for the list, and were starting to get calls at cellular phone numbers that had never received telemarketing calls before. 22 Sales Management
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Telemarketing: The Road Ahead
? After DNC and failure of predictive dialing (Silent calls) ,telemarketing is more likely to be a 2 way conversation then one way sales pitch-to build relationship rather than start them. Predictive dialing uses a computer-based system that automatically dials groups of telephone numbers, and then passes calls to available operators or agents in a calling center once the calls are connected. Predictive dialing was introduced for the purpose of increasing efficiency within calling centers. Prior to its development, most call centers used devices known as autodialers, which were merely computers equipped with telephony boards that could dial a number without a caller having to manually enter it on a keypad. If the call goes unanswered, is met with a busy signal or answering machine, or reaches a fax machine, the predictive dialer immediately ends the call. Only calls that are answered by a live person are put through to an operator. Therefore, productivity is increased because callers do not have to listen to unanswered calls or wait for someone to pick up. When a person answers the phone, predictive dialing puts the call through to an agent, although there is sometimes a brief delay as the predictive dialer attempts to determine whether the person's voice is a recording, in which case the call is ended. The goal in using predictive dialing is to avoid having agents in a calling center sitting idle. Predictive dialing systems are judged on how well they keep callers from sitting inactive and how well they avoid silent calls -- calls in which a live person answers the call but there is no agent to take it, and so the predictive dialer ends the call. So the future of telemarketing can be seen as more of a customer retention tool and less of customer acquisition purpose. ? Event based and trigger based marketing events where companies make service calls or sales pitches in response to actions taken by customers-offer exceptional potentials to both companies and consumers. These marketing events give companies the opportunity to contact customers who have demonstrated an interest in learning more about the products and services they discovered through direct mail marketing, traditional advertising, online promotions or some other trigger.
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Telemarketing Group 4 ? Global multilingual telemarketing: "We will see global telemarketing expand a hundredfold in the future," says Ken Knecht, an expert of telemarketing. "As international telephone rates come down, it will be possible to take calls from anywhere in the world and place them, too." ? Whilst outsourced telemarketing is nothing new, recent market research has indicated that high-tech companies feel that a 'co-sourcing' approach not only delivers an ROI but also provides the flexibility and control companies want. ? We see the future to be more offshore call centers, with more targeted marketing as databases get better and data mining tools become more powerful. ?
Marketing of Telemarketing: The concern for quality is in the marketing portion of telemarketing. The level of marketing expertise of clients, whether internal or external, will certainly continue to increase. The industry needs to stay a step ahead of the complexity of challenges and opportunities that the future will bring. The ability to coordinate with and use state-of-the-art marketing research, direct mail, print advertising and the electronic media must improve. With the improvement in the quality and sophistication of those areas must come the development of more effective methods of results projection and program analysis. There is a need to increase sales and research capability while improving the back-end results and order fulfillment techniques.
However it can be anticipated that several driving forces will continue the expansion of telemarketing: 1. Continuing demand for convenience and speed in the transaction of business. 2. Continued improvement in the capabilities and the price performance of computer technologies and telecommunication. 3. The abundance of software support systems that facilitate the development of more extensive and more creative databases about customers and potential customers. 4. Continued increase in the cost of other forms of communicating with customers.
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References
? Book : Marketing Management, Philip Kotler ? Book: Direct Marketing, William J McDonald ? Book: Telemarketing, Stanley Leo Fidel ? Wikipedia ? Report: Aspect Index of European Countries ? www.JustDial.com
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