How Automation REALLY Impacts Outbound Sales (With Use Cases)

When it comes to completing tasks, sometimes we can use a little help. No agent should have to waste time by manually dialing numbers–only to hang up after a certain amount of time because nobody is answering the call.

Outbound call center automation helps your sales and service teams focus on the things that are most important–connecting with customers.

How outbound call automation improves efficiency

Did you know that top performers in sales prospecting generate almost 3x more sales meetings than their peers?

Yet, many sales teams still lose productivity to repetitive tasks, wasting precious time on recurring activities that could easily be automated.

For technology that can increase productivity with just a click, call center automation software is perhaps one that helps the most. To maximise efficiency, call automation makes it easier for sales and service teams to focus on key tasks by connecting to more customers in less time.

Call center automation quickly proves its worth and delivers measurable benefits, including:

• Improved agent utilisation
• Less waiting times for agents in call setup
• Increased number of successful calls
• Increased number of leads processed
• Increased revenue 

92% of employees say that having technology that helps them do their job efficiently improves their work satisfaction, according to a study by Ultimate Software. 

Let’s look at a few of the key ways that call center automation can help increase efficiency, productivity, and work satisfaction. 

5 Ways to Automate your Outbound Calls and Sales Prospecting

Automate your workflows

Every process consists of one or more workflows that it takes to complete it–a series of steps that need to be completed sequentially. 

Workflow automation is all about taking steps performed by a team and automating them with technology. This automation is a great way to manage repetitive tasks and reduce the chances of human errors, like dialing the wrong number.

Within a Sales-CRM you can easily set up rules to automate many of your day-to-day sales tasks. For example, your sales managers could automatically be notified whenever a high-quality lead is entered into the system. Based on that, follow-up actions for the sales rep could be set up.

Supercharge your outbound call automation 

Automated dialer software is a powerful tool that can streamline your outbound calls and make the process much more efficient. Automated dialers–as the name suggests–automatically dial phone numbers from a list of contacts. Instead of deep diving into different dialer methods, let’s look into how you could optimise your process rather than automating an old way of working. 

How predictive lead scoring can help outbound sales teams 

Predictive Lead Scoring is a machine learning-based predictive scoring mechanism that scores leads based on their likelihood to become an opportunity. 

It puts the leads with the highest probability of becoming a sales opportunity on the top of the call list. If you take this feature into use, you eliminate the need for aggressive dialing modes like predictive and progressive dialers. 

Instead of aggressively calling an unsorted list, you call a pre-qualified list in a targeted way with a much better outcome.

Provide agents with real-time process guidance

It’s no secret that multitasking is an essential skill for sales agents. They’re often juggling many tasks at once while talking to a lead. 

Automated Agent Guidance provides agents with assistance on how to handle specific situations, keeping everything they might have to say top of mind. It’s like a little bird whispering in their ear, helping them handle objections on a sales call and providing real-time process guidance. 

In the future, AI-powered assistants will become more relevant to optimise the outcome of human interactions when agents talk with customers and nurture relationships. Agent desktops that contain enhanced customer context for one-to-one engagement and process guidance allow agents to focus on really connecting with the customer. 

Modern agent desktops that will evolve to handle complex work is in fact one of the three mega trends for customer service in 2020. A Forrester Report discusses how a long-term investment in AI will transform agents’ roles by giving them the tools they need to succeed. 

Enrich your sales calls with account data for better insights

Outbound sales calls are being transformed by digital innovation. Having enriched data (data that has been enhanced with relevant context) enables companies to make personalised and highly targeted outbound calls. And real-time tracking means your sales teams can act on leads straight away.

A CRM tool is typically a critical piece of your sales automation setup. Outbound sales is a complicated process, and an effective CRM manages a big part of it for you. 

The CRM keeps track of your leads, logs the contacts you have with them, and organizes every part of the outbound sales process. It also syncs data with other tools and sales automation software your reps and managers use. 

New conversation intelligence tools like Gong or Wingman provide powerful visibility into your customer conversations. Your sales teams can quickly see summaries of all calls–including notes and transcripts–and easily correlate trends in sales calls with deal outcomes thanks to AI-powered insights. 

Speed up your sales pipeline with scheduling automation 

Scheduling outbound sales calls is like a puzzle where pieces are constantly changing and shifting. Here these pieces are the customer’s schedule, agent availability and skill sets. 

This proves why dynamic scheduling is absolutely crucial if you want to reach out to a lead at the right time. What if you could take everything but the phone call off your sales reps’ plates? You can with scheduling automation.

A study by the Annuitas Group shows that companies that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads! 

And it pays off to act quickly: Contacting a lead within a minute improves conversions by 391% - compared to only 17% when waiting a day to reach out. 

Adding scheduling automation to your sales workflows will help you close more deals faster. This will be valuable if your business takes leads in via a form, email or other sources and your team then reaches out manually. Any delay might cause a missed opportunity and automation tools help by scheduling timely follow-ups for all prospecting leads. 

Integrate your website data and your calendars with your CRM so your sales team can automatically schedule calls with prospects. 

Fully automated scheduling tools like Calendly and Acuity are easy to use and save time both for your team and your prospects. 

Which call types are perfect for outbound call automation?

• Lead generation calls, such as warm calling and follow-up calls 
• Scheduling calls, such as scheduling appointments, outbound confirmations and making reservations 
• Cross-selling and upselling calls that offer customers value  
• Account and membership calls, such as account authentication and update account information 
• Order management calls, such as placing orders, order status, and returns
• Collection calls for missing payments

Use Cases -  How companies are automating outbound for success 

RevenueWell delivers over 80,000 monthly reminder calls for dentist appointments 

RevenueWell is an automated marketing and patient communication solution for dental offices. The company is using intelligent voice notification technology to send appointment reminders to patients. 

The automated and personalised phone messages help reduce costly no-shows and streamline patient communication, which drives greater ROI for the dental practices. 

It alerts patients via automated phone calls of last-minute openings or cancellations and helps dental offices fill existing appointments. RevenueWell sends over 80,000 voice notifications to clients monthly.

Studies have shown that appointment reminders via message or voicemail help practices reduce cancellations by 24%.

DirecTV Increased Sales and Reduced Average Handle Time with real-time Sales Guidance

Jacada is a customer service automation company. Their cloud-based call center software provides reps with real-time sales guidance and “just in time” recommendations during interactions with leads. 

DirecTV, a subsidiary of AT&T, approached Jacada with the objective to simplify sales processes, reduce average handling time and improve conversion rates. 

Rich integration with the campaign management software enhances the overall call flow. Agents can query it during interaction with the customer. Guided workflows that automate decisions and tasks help them handle objections on sales calls. 

The results: 

• Average handle time was reduced by 40% 
• Sales conversions increased by 2% 
• New hires can hit sales targets within their first week
  
  

How Benemen’s voice platform enables sales automation in the best possible way

Add human touch to your customer interactions by adding data driven voice services to your CRM. 

At Enreach, we develop the most innovative, holistic and technically advanced voice products and call center technology on the market. We continue extending the capabilities of voice - to influence sales, strengthen CX and grow revenue. 

Integrating with CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365, we put voice at the center of your workflows.

With the Salesforce High Velocity Sales module, for example, BeneVoice helps to streamline prospect outreach with Sales Cadences. High Velocity Sales ensures that the sales reps are getting in touch with the most probable leads. Then with one click-to-call, BeneVoice for Salesforce places the outbound call–straight from the Salesforce User Interface.   

Leverage the power of the voice channel in outbound sales 

Voice is a vitally important channel for any organisation. 

In outbound sales, it’s crucial for your reps to get their message across to potential customers in just the right way. 

One of the biggest reasons to invest in outbound sales automation is the control you have over the volume of sales you make and their scalability. 

A successful outbound sales strategy that allows you to connect to customers on the phone can significantly increase revenue. If you have the right tools to make it happen. 

Make outbound calls from your CRM with just a click

By bringing telephony to your CRM, your sales team can place calls with a click. All while viewing and capturing all meaningful sales data, so they never lose track of previous conversations. 

BeneVoice tracks data from sales calls, customer requests, sales inquiries, and more. It’ll automatically log the data in your CRM to build up a rich, AI-driven real-time view of your sales activities. 

Speak to an agent and learn how our tools for voice-centric sales automation can help you drive more sales and increase revenue.