Telemarketing often receives a bad wrap because people associate it with an interrupted dinner. To the business community, however, it can be an essential method of increasing profitability. In general, telemarketing entails contacting potential customers via the telephone to either build or expand a client base and generate sales leads.

The Benefits of Using Telemarketing

While telemarketing plays a vital role in reaching prospective clients, organizing the process in-house can be time-consuming and costly. Telemarketing companies help businesses that rely on this service by handling all operations off-site. This allows businesses to focus their energy on other endeavors, as well as save on technology and personnel investments by using someone else's resources.

When looking to outsource telemarketing, keep in mind that a high quality service should perform each of the following functions:

1. Integrate business sales processes that work with a current company's focus
2. Mine company databases
3. Generate qualified leads through cold calling and follow up on Web-based, television, or mass mail campaigns
4. Create brand awareness
5. Set up appointments for demonstrations
6. Provide an in-bound customer service problem resolution resource for customers

Compare Telemarketing Vendors: Understand What You Are Buying

When searching for a telemarketing vendor, a company should first assess its overall goals, and then forecast the call volume of its campaign. This will help determine both the cost and the resources needed to get the campaign up and running. Some key questions to ask when contacting a telemarketing company for a quote include:

1. Do you require a minimum number of calls per month?
2. Will my company be charged by the call or by the minute?
3. How many sales representatives will my company need to accommodate its call volume?
4. What are the initial start-up costs? Are travel, training, and script writing included?
5. Will the telemarketing company be located within or out of the United States?

The Dilemma with Outsourcing to Telemarketing Companies

In today's uncertain economy, businesses looking to outsource their telemarketing needs face the decision of whether to use an offshore or a domestic service. The cost of an offshore service can be 25 percent less than that of a service based in the United States. However, regardless of whether a company outsources at home or abroad, it should keep in mind the following factors when narrowing down its search:

1. Offshore telemarketing sales staff should have good English speaking skills
2. All sales representatives should have excellent product knowledge and understand the industry for which they are working 
3. A good reporting system is essential to monitoring customer satisfaction, type of sales, and revenue. Companies such as Grindstone and Intellitarget, for example, offer Web monitoring to help their clients keep track of campaign effectiveness
4. Call center reps should have a positive attitude, training, and project themselves and the service in a professional manner?
5. A service that provides a telephone monitoring system allows companies to listen in on calls to check for quality
6. Every telemarketing company must adhere to FCC regulations
7. Every telemarketing company should have an existing customer base and a good reputation
8. Quality telemarketing companies provide system integration between in-house computer system and their own technology

Telemarketing sales can be an essential--and profitable--part of a sales campaign. It's always important to keep an open mind and research options thoroughly.