Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Call Center Empowerment

Think about this, in a survey released by WhitePages of more than 540 telemarketing centers, fewer than 2/3rds of companies that have telemarketing centers are able to deliver actionable customer service information to sales people due to data overload and a lack of focus on customer satisfaction. That is only 1/3!

 Using Big Data in Contact Center, managers were overwhelmed by too much data flowing in and out from too many sources and that was causing an inefficiently in both consolidation and utiliization. Heck even small amounts of data can flood out a company’s program.

If reps are not able to or allowed to take the next step towards customer satisfaction or getting to the purpose for the call, you really need to empower them with the tools, the data and the freedom they need. Then they need to be not just calling but be given enough time for each call. This has always been a big problem for any kind of telemarketing work. Its smarter to stay with a customer as long as it takes to get to the customer of prospect to the desired action point, than work on getting a specific number of calls per minutes.

Telemarketing reps are not as connected to customer data, and for good reason. More than 40% of customer contact information is still manually inputted by the rep instead of being fed through an automated API or Web-based system. Some of the reason for that is that there is not a good CRM system on the market that I have seen that works for even an average number of prospects or client data. As a result, half of telemarketing  reps say they faced productivity challenges by having to ask customers for even the basic contact information they should be given in the first place. Some of that goes with the territory but the better the data, the better the list, the better the results are going to be.

For more than one program I have run, I get a little upset when the Owner or the CFO or the Marketing Manager asks me about the number of calls they are getting per hour or how many people we need to get run a certain program. Its like they could care less about quality. Companies continue to look at telemarketing reps and centers as cost centers instead of revenue centers.

Companies must look at telemarketing in a different way. If they decide to use them to sell or up-sell products and services, they have to empower the telemarketer to sell better. That means keeping data updated so that reps will immediately know who they are calling and giving them enough time to get the job done.

Companies need to distribute the data to the reps to let them get action. Business is way too competitive. You really have to start looking at telemarketers as a competitive advantage.  Telemarketers that are able to use the training they've been given are happier in their jobs and do a better. And a happy caller is a productive caller.

Larson Notes & Satire:  For many this should be outsourced. Do you really have the time to manager a telemarketing department? Consider what is the best job you could or should be doing for your company?  Where does your real talents lie?

If you’re behind with your numbers we CAN help! If you want your business to be more and have more, call us for an appointment.

If you need a Signature Page that will bring your company's web site not just more hits but good solid sales leads call 847-794-8710 or 847-991-1294. I'll get you set up. And it even works on those $10 and $15 a month sites.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Google Cut Off SEO Keyword Data

Well they did it again. For at least the second time this year Google has changed how they are ranking your web site. Google said a few weeks ago that all keywords from organic searches will be encrypted and/or secured through the HTTPS protocols. From an SEO perspective, this means site owners and marketers will no longer benefit from organic referral keyword data.




Ouch there goes all those SEO amitures running around saying 1st page Google guaranteed. Don’t know why anyone would fall for that stuff anyway but. . .

The term "Not provided" is a term that SEOs have had to deal with for the past couple of years. If you are unfamiliar with "not provided," this is how a referral keyword is listed in Google Analytics as a result of an encrypted search. "Not provided" started in October 2011, when Google decided to change its privacy policy to protect users who were logged into their Google accounts. These logged-in users performing a query through Google would then have their keywords suppressed from Web analytics tools. These keywords showed as "not provided" in Google Analytics, as "keyword unavailable" in Omniture and as "search phrase not provided" in WebTrends

Over the years, the amount of traffic from "not provided" referrals grew. This was not only due to an increasing number of users logged into Google accounts, but also, Firefox 14 included secure search in its search bar. Then Safari with iOS6. Then this year, Chrome started encrypting searches performed.

In September, something happened. Something that made "not provided" become the rule of the web. In September 2013, there was a sudden spike of "not provided" traffic. That is basically when Google started turning off the magic switch on organic keyword referrals.

What does this mean for marketers? How can you adjust to make sure your site is found effectively in search?

This move has made many SEO marketers mad. Well ya, now they have to work harder. It really changed how hard they have to work top get results. I will say a good SEO marketer is worth their weight in gold but the bad ones were really getting away with murder. Efforts to focus on keywords at the page level will become much more difficult. You still have to be mindful. Key words and met tag descriptions are still a must but where data was available to show SEO marketers which keywords to target, well now it's almost a guessing game. What could be done in a month now will take a year. Google Webmaster Tools do continue to provide some degree of organic keyword referral data, but it there are limitations. Some people are saying that this is merely sampled data and no complete. Additionally, it only shows the top 2,000 keywords, and data that is no older than three months. Google says it is working on extending the backdate to a year, but this still means SEO marketers will have to download keyword data on a monthly basis. Otherwise there will be no way to make year-over-year comparisons.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Yep, if you are not on the cutting edge you’re on the cutting block. If you site has going down I the rankings or not getting the hits you were, well face up to the face that you don’t know everything or maybe it’s time to find someone new to work on your sites SEO and page ranking.

There is a reason that Larson & Associates is #1 in a Google, Yahoo or Bing key word search. Trying typing in “telemarketing for printers”  Maybe we do it better then the rest.

If you’re behind with your numbers we CAN help! If you want your business to be more and have more, call us for an appointment.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.