B-to-B Cataloging: ACCM Panel Explores Ways to Maximize Housefile Customers
4. Deploy low-cost telemarketing. “There were always campaigns we wanted to test,” Giroux said, “but it was always cost prohibitive. So we sought out a low-cost telemarketing center, and 13 months ago, we launched one in the Philippines. Manilla is booming. You have airline call centers there, Dell, others. [The call center industry] is about 10 percent of the Philippines’ GDP now.”
Giroux said that he recommends the Philippines over other foreign call center hubs, such as India, because of the Westernization of its culture, and American companies’ “easier ability to have accent neutralization.” Government subsidies are also enhancing the call center scene there.
Personnel Concepts and four other Brady brands started call centers in the Philippines, first outsourcing to local call center firms. “Now,” Giroux said, “we’re three months into our own Brady-owned call center.”
5. Use low-cost, foreign call centers carefully. Giroux noted that you can’t entrust foreign call center reps with your best customers. Instead, he recommended the following uses for them:
* reactivation of reaquisition campaigns,
* test campaigns around niche products and markets
* welcome calls for new buyers and thank you calls for recent buyers
* take some normal leads from higher-wage reps
* data collection
* follow-up calls on shipments
* reorder reminder calls
* lead generation and follow-up
Finding Customers Who Want to Spend More
6. “I guarantee you there are people on your database now who want to spend more money with you,” Conney Safety’s Harney said. “But they don’t, because all you do is send them a catalog or some e-mail in some fashion or another.”
So…be willing to provide a more personal or relationship-based approach. In his previous position with Lands’ End’s B-to-B unit, Harney discovered pockets of car dealerships, cell phone dealerships and banks, all of which he noticed had contractual relationships with the cataloger. “I asked them,” he said, “‘why buy from us?’”
