Outbound Telesales Order Generation

[johnbear]

I operate a web based promotional gift company and have engaged an outbound telesales company to ring prospect customers. In my brief I have set an expection of a 12% conversion rate as the list comprised companies that should require promotional gifts in the very near future. All agreed the rate appeared achievable, but upon starting the campaign results haven’t been at all promising.

The quotation rate is running at around 6% so the sales conversion rate is likely to between 1% to 3%. As each order would generate a gross profit of around £80 I don’t see how outbound sales can generate a good ROI.

The issues might be that the prospect list isn’t suitable, the conversion rates for telesales are unrealistic or my gross profit per order cannot support a telesales operation.

I would appreciate advice from those of you with experience in this area, in particular price sensitive commodity type products.

[srebbe64]

I've no experience of pronotional gift companies, but if you're looking for 12% call - order I'd say that's optimistic. You might get 12% call - enquiry and then convert 1 in (say) 3 in my opinion. However, as mentioned above, I have no direct experience of that particular sector but just a general experience from a range of companies.

[johnbear]

So your working on a 4% conversion rate.

I pay £4.6 to reach a decision maker (it may take upto 5 calls) so 100 calls = £460. Conversion per 100 calls 4 x £80 gross profit means calls centres can't work for me as I am going to loss £140 per 100 calls!

Edited by johnbear on Monday 25th February 20:17

[srebbe64]

If I were you I'd give it a go for a couple of weeks in order to get a decent size sample, then you can work out the KPIs and decide whether it makes financial sense. At face value it doesn't, but the sample's not big enough to be conclusive.

[johnbear]

I've engaged a company on a 500 decision maker sample, with the option to terminate at 250. But so far I am well out of pocket and don't see breakeven occuring unless it suddenly turns around.

I am also a little concerned that they are not hungry enough to get me leads - they are very nice but that may not be enough.

Often deal with London agencies and you can sense how intense these guys are about winning accounts. I'am often quoting them prices at 9pm at night and their clients are still in the office as well.