Why Call Centers Don't Work

If you need help generating qualified sales leads, and growing your sales, one of the first things that will come to mind is to consider a call center. But call centers don't work. Here's what they won't tell you, and why.

According to the US Department of Labor, there are over 2.5 million telemarketers, just in the US - and millions more overseas. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people in every city are available to make phone calls for you, many paid as little as minimum wage. Many will claim to be able to make effective B2B calls, and dominate the staffs of call centers with a bill rate of $15-$25/hour or so.

Especially after the "Do Not Call" rules came into existence, many of these call centers had to switch their focus to B2B, since the B2C business dried up. One day they were selling replacement windows, and the next day they were calling CEOs. But how is that possible?

The answer is: It isn't.

Over the years, JV/M (like many B2B telemarketing firms,) has tried several times to build a call center. We felt it would be nice to have more control, and to be able to take advantage of call center technologies. But every time we try to recruit locally (we're in the Philadelphia area,) we have been unable to find enough qualified candidates, no matter how much we offer to pay. We would spend hundreds of hours interviewing candidates, but so few were really qualified to make B2B calls that we had to give up. We finally decided to create a screening test so we would only have to talk to candidates who met some minimal qualifications, and instead use a "virtual" model. What did we do, and what did we learn?

Being in the business for so long, we knew what skills were necessary in a qualified B2B telemarketer. For example, while we knew that being able to establish rapport was important, in B2B it's even more important to be able to stimulate interest and to establish credibility, because decision makers are very busy, and usually make rational decisions. We also learned that business judgment is important, and, most of all, good questioning skills. The test we developed presented real-life situations, and looked for candidates who really knew what to do, and what to say when they were trying to penetrate a business.

What we found was that less than 5% of the candidates knew the right answers to questions like these:

• "You are assigned to get appointments with the CFOs of the Fortune 100, but call all of them without getting a lead. What do you do?" Over 90% of candidates say "Ask for another list," despite the fact that there are only 100 companies in the Fortune 100! There simply isn't another list.
• "You call a prospect, and get his voice mail. What do you do?" Amazingly, over 80% of candidates wouldn't leave a voice mail, even though a good voice mail can be a great advertisement, and at least 10% of good voice mail messages will get a call-back. That could easily double your performance.

After testing thousands of candidates, we found that less than 5% of them actually knew the basic skills of professional B2B telemarketing. Most simply don't know how to make an effective sales call, regardless of what they're selling. (Most only knew how to read a script, and script reading is a big "no-no" in B2B telemarketing.) Add in factors like availability, fit and experience, and staffing a call center with qualified professionals becomes a statistical impossibility- for anyone.

If you've already tried using a call center and failed, now you know why. If you're thinking about using one, think again.