There has been a lot of fear going trhough the telemarketing industry regarding the privacy legislation and do not call lists. This of course isn’t a problem for me anymore. The bus hire industry doesn’t use telemarketing (as far as I know) but it does potentially have implications for the outbound call industry.

Before being involved in bus hire I was involved in telesales. The do not call lists that were being introduced by governments worldwide were darks cloud gathering. Would this destroy the industry?

The short answer is no. You see, most of the sales in the telesales industry are not made by cold calling. Although you will often see batteries of people in call centres making cold calls, that i actually where a minority of sales are made. The majority are made from selling to people who are already your customers.

By this I am talking baout renewal sales and upselling (selling an existing customer another of your products). This, the main source of income for the telesales industry is not affected by the privacy legislation – the prospects are already your customers.

The legislation is actually quite good for the industry. It focuses telesales on quality, not quality. The quality of a pure, cold call is very low indeed. It is so low in fact that it is almost not economic to call from a low cot country like India – the returns are SO low.

There are of course massive amounts of cold calls coming from telesales centres in India and the Philippines. These calls cost a few cents to make and are made on predictive dialling systems. I have yet to meet anyone who has ever bought anything from these guys. Cold calls coming from someone with a foreign accent on a dodgy phone line (which of course has a pause after your answer) just don’t give the customer the confidence to buy something. These days when a customer hears that pause they are at best on guard and at worst they just hang up.

It is fair to say that cold calling is dead. The overseas call centres do have their place in my opinion – inbound calls. The operators are usually very intelligent and capable – but selling is not only not their forte, they really don’t have a chance. Inbound call centres in India and the Philippines are definitely here to stay. When you need someone to help you with a technical issue, a bill enquiry etc it makes sense to outsource this service to an english speaking country with lower costs. This is actually the way the industry is moving. I believe the only direct selling that is being done from foreign countries is in areas like time share. Time share is probably the highest margin product that I know of. Selling time share from india into the USA is like selling male enhancement products using spam emails. Very low cost per email / call and a very very high margin and a very very very low success rate. The numbers must work – but only just – it has got to be a line ball proposition. This will probably be the last to die.

So, take it from an ex telemarketing guy (now a bus hire guy) – stay away from cold caling if you can. If you don’t have any existing customers, enter into joint ventures with companies that do have large customer bases that you can call.

Author Bio: Rob Gower is a marketing guy who works in bus hire. In his previous life Rob worked in the telesales industry and now shares his thoughts and ideas.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: bus hire sydney, direct selling