What is Telemarketing?

Telemarketing is marketing using the telephone to reach prospective customers through outbound calls, which are usually unsolicited. These telemarketing calls are now considered an invasion of an individual's right to privacy. This form of marketing is one of the most controversial and disputed among other sales strategies. The purpose of telemarketing is to make a sale, which is the ultimate objective of all sales calls. Usually, the callers or salespersons are equipped with all relevant information about the prospective customers, including their prior purchasing patterns and buying behaviors.

Telemarketing Controversy

The increase in telemarketing calls raised public irritation and outcry, prompting the U.S. Congress to enact restrictive laws in 1991. These laws formulated several parameters regarding telemarketing calls. Such calls cannot be made between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. Consumers who did not wish to be bothered with such sales calls could register with a national "Do Not Call" List, which was introduced in 2001. If telemarketers flouted these restrictive measures, they could be fined at least several hundred dollars for each transgression.

Telemarketing Call Centers

A call center is the commercial hub of a telemarketing company. It usually consists of a row of cubicles with telephones, call lists and prepared scripts for the callers. The Telephone Service Representatives (TSRs) or telemarketers, as they are commonly known, sit in these cubicles and make calls throughout the day to the telephone numbers on the call list. The list contains names, telephone numbers and also information about the person's buying habits and preferences. TSRs inform people about a specific product or service in a persuasive way. The primary goal is to sell the particular product or service. The information on the call list is meticulously collected from various sources by the telemarketing company. Telemarketing services use call list information to help identify prospective customers, and TSRs use the specific details of the data in appropriate ways in order to increase the chance of making the sale.

The Telemarketers

There are many different types of telemarketers, each of which have different goals for their calls. But there are a couple of things all telemarketers have in common.

Telemarketers get information sheets about the product or service they are trying to sell. Telemarketers also receive prepared scripts to use as a guide for talking --- and, in some cases, making sales pitches --- to the persons called. As they go along, telemarketers build on their sales pitch skills --- gathering hands-on experience as they make more calls.

Another commonality is that telemarketers should be prepared to factually answer any questions, about the product or service, posed by the persons called.

But not every telemarketer is selling a product or service.

For example, there are telemarketers who conduct customer surveys or opinion polls to gain consumer data for a company.

In contrast, there are telemarketers who call seeking donations for a charitable organization. Yet another type of TSR might be hired by a bank or credit card company, for example, to remind people about overdue payments.

No matter what your telemarketing objectives are, outsourcing to telemarketing services ---which usually employ professionals who have the unique skill set for sales and communications via telephone --- can be a very good investment.

It might be easy to teach someone about your product or service. But can you really teach someone the unique skill set required for telemarketing?.

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