Outbound call centers are responsible for reaching out to customers to make sales, address questions or concerns, and generate leads that can turn into long-term customer relationships. Outbound call center excellence relies on multiple factors: agent performance, metric tracking and analysis, and prioritization of customer experience.  

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5 Ways to Create Engaged & Empowered Call Center Agents

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In this article, you’ll learn: 

• What is an outbound call center?  
• 7 outbound call center excellence success strategies 
• Track the right metrics 
• Emphasize the need for quality calls 
• Segment your customer base 
• Implement omnichannel support 
• Use conversation intelligence software for continuous coaching and training 
• Incentivize performance 
• Allow some leeway with scripts 
• Lean on artificial intelligence to improve outbound call center efficiency and success 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is an outbound call center? 

An outbound call center is a type of call center where agents make outgoing calls to customers or prospects. These calls are typically made for various purposes, such as sales, marketing, customer service, market research, or appointment setting. 

In an outbound call center, agents are responsible for initiating the conversation with the person on the other end of the line. This could involve cold calling potential customers to promote a product or service, following up on leads generated through marketing campaigns, conducting surveys to gather feedback, or simply providing support or assistance to existing customers. 

7 outbound call center excellence success strategies  

Each outbound call center is unique in the type of customers it serves and the agents it employs. Still, most call centers can use some or all of the following strategies to build relationships with their customers and prospects, increase leads, and boost revenue. 

1. Track the right metrics 

Analyzing the right call center metrics can have a big impact on contact center operations, performance and ROI.

Some of those KPIs include:
📵Call abandonment rate
⏩Average speed of answer
⏰Average talk time
🔄Transfer rate

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Nail down the metrics – key performance indicators (KPIs) – your call center needs to analyze most to give you a blueprint to follow when tracking performance. A few of the top KPIs for outbound call centers include: 

• Call pickup rate: The percentage of outbound calls customers answer. 
• Call time: The duration of each call. 
• Wait time: The time an agent spends between calls. 
• Call abandonment rate: The percentage of customers who disconnect early in the call or before speaking with an agent. 
• Calls per agent: The number of calls an agent makes during a specific period, usually by hour or day. 
• After-call work: The time an agent spends on work related to a call after disconnecting the call, like inputting customer information, writing notes, or categorizing the call. 
• Customer satisfaction score: The score a customer gives after a call is completed, indicating their overall satisfaction with the call. 
• Sales per agent: How many sales an agent has compared to their number of calls, usually indicated as a percentage. 

2. Emphasize the need for quality calls 

The quality of calls is more important than the quantity of calls, even in an outbound call center, where more calls can equal more sales. However, if agents simply call customers just to increase their call quantity metrics, they’re likely focusing more on numbers rather than providing value to customers. 

Sales per agent and customer satisfaction scores can help you pinpoint if quantity has been suffering when attempting to increase call volume. 

3. Segment your customer base 

Personalize offers for customers by segmenting your customer base. Placing customers into appropriate categories allows you to provide custom offers to different types of customers, like those in higher or lower income brackets or those who might find more value in one product versus another. 

You might even assign agents to specific customer segments, providing a dedicated team for each type of customer. 

4. Implement omnichannel support 

Outbound call centers should implement omnichannel support software to gather leads across multiple channels, including phone, email, or social media. This software organizes all customer contacts from any channel in one place so agents can keep connections moving across all channels. 

5. Use conversation intelligence software for continuous coaching and training 

“CallMiner is a market leader when it comes to improving CX.” -Daphnee Lysius-Dicette, Senior Product Manager, BPO division of NTT.

Read how the company is using conversation intelligence to understand #VOC, deliver data-driven agent coaching, improve QA efficiency, and more.

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Conversation intelligence tools monitor 100% of customer conversations and interactions with agents to deliver valuable insights along the way. In addition to giving agents pointers about how the conversation is going, conversation intelligence also allows the software to provide real-time coaching during calls, identifying key areas in conversations to upsell or offer a deal.  

Plus, conversation intelligence tracks and records each call, so supervisors can review them and pinpoint agent strengths and weaknesses for training purposes. 

6. Incentivize performance 

Excellent agents should have recognition for their performance to foster a supportive and growth-minded call center culture. Consider bonuses or perks for high-performing agents who meet specific goals or continuously exceed KPI goals. You might even have a weekly competition to highlight the highest-performing agents. 

7. Allow some leeway with scripts 

Scripts can keep agents on track during customer conversations and help them align their talking points with a company’s branding. However, agents come across as real people, not scripts. Well-trained agents should be able to veer from the script when needed to foster real relationships with customers, successful outbound call centers encourage them to do so. 

Lean on artificial intelligence to improve outbound call center efficiency and success 

With the help of artificial intelligence tools, an outbound call center can be highly productive, efficient, and successful in managing leads, growing a customer base, and making sales.  

CallMiner’s conversation intelligence software includes multiple AI-driven tools to coach agents, provide important insights, organize customers and calls, and more. Request a demo to discover how the CallMiner platform can help you drive outbound call center excellence.  

Frequently asked questions 

How do I run a successful outbound call center? 

Successful outbound call centers need the right tools for agents to feel supported and prepared. Implementing software that allows for omnichannel support, customer segmentation, speech analytics, and metric tracking can enhance a call center’s success. Managers can also emphasize the need for quality calls and incentivize agent performance. 

How do you increase outbound call center productivity? 

The right call center software can increase outbound call center productivity by reducing the time agents spend categorizing calls and completing after-call work. It can also identify areas of opportunity, like decreasing call times or segmenting customers to create personalized offers, to reduce wasted time.  

What metrics should an outbound call center track? 

Outbound call centers should lean on several key metrics to determine their overall productivity, efficiency, and agent performance. Call pickup rate, sales per agent, calls per agent, and call abandonment rate are all helpful for this. Call centers can also track the time agents spend on after-call work and customer satisfaction scores.