As a dental marketing consultant for over 18 years, I have been telling doctors that they need legwork people, such as telemarketers. Why is telemarketing still needed especially in the digital age? Isn’t all the social media stuff enough to keep customers buying from you over and over again? The answer is NO.
When is the last time you went to your dentist? Do you respond to his emails? Or Facebook messages? Or several concerned phone calls coming from his office to remind you to get that checkup and that prevention is still cheaper and better than cure? I can tell you that the cheapest way to ensure that a customer does come in ( especially for local businesses) is still that powerful human voice over the phone asking about the customer, caring for that customer etc.
Do you realize that human interactions are still more impressionable than electronic communications like emails etc.
It can take quite a while before the owner of a business can start getting real benefits and understand of how important it is to make regular calls to their prospective and current clients — there is also a lot of strong evidence from very reliable and large companies supporting the fact that telemarketing really does work, and in fact, it works really well!
A dentist spending money on expensive dental advertising will find a lack of returns especially in the slow economy. However, hiring someone, even part-time help, to call patients to remind them it is time for a checkup will yield profits many times more than the cost of hiring this person.
Here are some challenges that arise from hiring telemarketers:
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Hiring them
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Training them
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Supervising them
Those above at first glance look like rather simple tasks, but here are a few things you need to know about telemarketers:
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It is an extremely difficult job due to the huge amount of rejections each day (about 150 rejections to be exact!)
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Telemarketers need a 10-15 min break after every 45 minutes or so of calling
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Telemarketers work best in a pack, like wolves. And when they take their breaks, they need to be with equals. They need to be with their fellow “wolves”. I know this sounds funny, but that is how it is.
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Telemarketers get lonely if no other colleagues are constantly around to compare statistics, get encouragement from, and yes, bitch about the job.
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Telemarketers need to be monitored , corrected, and encouraged about their statistics every hour or two (number of calls, people reached, people closed)
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Despite all of the above points in place, telemarketers have a turnaround of less than 3 months.
In case the above is NOT in place, you can count on an even faster turnover. Quitting and firing, and hiring and training, will go on and on and it will only drive the cost of those telemarketers up and up-two to three times the cost, which you pay as salary.
But, inflating the cost of telemarketers by 2 to 3 times their actual salary is only half of the problem.
The real pitfall will be NO telemarketers on the job most of the time. The cycles of having someone on the job and then not having anyone on the job, will start having bigger and bigger gaps of not having somebody on the job. Pretty soon, you will give up — The road to your success will seem too long. Having a long road is a real danger to any project.
So, the real high cost in telemarketing (for that much in any other job) is NOT whether telemarketing costs $10, $12, $14 or $25 per hour, but whether someone is on the job. (By the way, never pay less than $12 as you will never get anyone worth anything, and keep in mind that you better pay some bonuses.) Do not forget that the hiring, firing, and training will at least amount to the same dollar as the salary.
Telemarketing out-sourcing reasons, or why to use an automated service:
By outsourcing your telemarketing and using automated services, you will not only save money per hour due to training, hiring, and supervising costs, but you will also save on taxes.
There is also the part where in-house telemarketers are less flexible in terms of the hours they are willing to work.
For instance, for recalling patients of a doctor’s office, one is better off to have the calling done from about 4pm to 9pm as well as on weekends.
For calling businesses, one must call during the business hours.
Sometimes one will want to add 2 or 3 telemarketers for only a week at a time.
You have to keep in mind space limitations as well. Most small offices don’t have the space for extra computers and telephones.
One also needs to consider the fact that most small businesses have a hard time to let new staff work alone in the practice.
Outsourcing telemarketers or using automated services bypasses those problems and provide great flexibilities.
In short, outsourcing/automating the telemarketing puts people at the job when needed and at a predictable cost – always. There NEVER will be NO people on the job, which as we said is the biggest money loss of all.
Hiring outside telemarketing services, especially automating, is far less expensive in actual dollars spent per hour, but even if it were 100% more expensive, because of the stress involved in keeping the telemarketers on the job, it would still be worth it to have someone on the job all the time without your involvement.
That said, the most important thing is that you do have a large telemarketing crew, which is best done with automated telemarketing.
In-house or outsourcing is secondary as long as you have lots of people on the job. Or lots and lots of calls in automated ways, which are better tolerated than live calls, as they are less intrusive.
So, here you have it. Get those calls made, and one of the very best ways, if not the best way, is automated calling.
Because of advanced technology, it is the most predictable and direct marketing method available today.
Note: For doctors or dentists in the health care industry there are many outside sources that help profit your practice. Use outside marketing wisely, but do not forget that good staff management and dental practice management inside the office can also bring in new customers.
