The decision to outsource part of your sales team - whether you're revamping an insourced team or whether you don't have on insourced team - can be a very tough one to make. What are the most crucial factors to look for in an outsourced teleprospecting team? Most people's answer would be: cost. While cost of service is a very important factor when considering an inside sales teleprospecting partner, there are numerous other questions to ask to determine whether the company you're researching is well-run, successful, and most important, trustworthy. In a discovery call about that company, ask these 4 questions to get a real feel for the way they conduct their business. These questions and more are featured in our new guide, "Your Lead Generation Home Away From Home: How Outsourcing Teleprospecting and Inside Sales Functions Can Augment Your Tech Company's Revenue."
1. What kinds of clients do you serve?
Identify the specialist and generalist outsourcing companies. Generalists will take any type of client, but their processes won’t be specific to your industry. Many generalists only see a 20-30% conversion rate to next steps in the sales process. However, with a specialized teleprospecting firm, you should see a 60-70% conversion rate. Specialists will make a point to say that they specialize in the tech industry. Specialists will also have an army of advocates for their service, and are happy to provide you with client references and/or case studies specific to your industry, product or service, or perhaps even share how they solved a similar challenge to the one your company is facing. If you want a more streamlined sales process with people who have experience selling products and services similar to yours, steer clear of the generalists and only consider specialist sales providers.
2. How exactly will leads be qualified and transferred?
The qualification conversation is very important to have before implementation. Understand the outsourced partner’s criteria for quality leads and ensure that it is communicated well. Will the quality leads passed over express a business pain that can be solved by your product or service? Are they interested in the next step? What exactly defines a “next step?” Not only will these questions give you a glimpse into the best practices the company uses to deliver quality leads to their clients, it also helps you understand the necessary criteria your insourced team might have to look for as well.
3. Do you have a feedback process? If so, what type?
It’s important to know the kind of feedback process your outsourced partner provides. Closed-loop feedback allows for communication between everyone involved, including the outsourced team and your own team, on each opportunity. After a lead is passed from your outsourced team to your internal team, the movement of that lead should be documented and reported on by each partner. The outsourced team would like to understand if that lead was converted to an opportunity and is being pushed further down the sales funnel. On the other hand, the outsourced team should also receive feedback if the lead did not convert to an opportunity, complete with reasons why the lead was stalled in the process. This information keeps both teams on track with their metrics and allows for better communication on what’s working and what’s not, as well as more insightful conversations on how to serve your sales numbers.
4. What metrics should we use to gauge progress?
With customized reporting dashboards for their clients, your outsourced teleprospecting provider can suggest what metrics are best to focus on when measuring lead qualification progress and offer explanations as to why some metrics are better than others to track. For example, call volume isn’t as important as positive lead feedback percentage, or passed leads that agreed to the next step. With some recommendations from your teleprospecting partner, agree early on what both of you will be tracking to ensure success, and agree together when or if those metrics need to be changed.
Interested in reading more about outsourcing inside sales functions? Our new guide contains even more questions to ask the company you're considering as well as advice for successful implementation and proven benefits to outsourcing teleprospecting to the perfect team for your company. Download it here or click the button below.
Allison Tetreault is the Marketing Content Coordinator at AG Salesworks. She writes, designs and promotes new marketing content every month, monitors and produces updates for social media networks, gathers important data for marketing and sales efforts, and maximizes the potential of content marketing efforts.
