Although many factors contribute to a successful outbound calling campaign, none are more critical than your lead list. A quality lead list will help ensure you run an efficient and profitable campaign. A poor one can easily doom the efforts of your agents, leading to a significant loss of revenue.
Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) for your call lists helps you evaluate their quality and the quality of your agents’ performance. Even the best agents cannot overcome a bad list, but a quality list should lead to excellent campaign results.
The following are key KPIs to apply to your lead lists.
1. Contact Rate
Your contact rate is perhaps the most important of the list KPI metrics and can quickly indicate the integrity of your list. This rate comes from establishing the ratio between total leads and reached leads. For instance, if one agent tries 100 leads from your list and has 10 people answer, their contact rate is 10%.
Depending on your product and past campaign performances, that rate may or may not be acceptable. A low contact rate obviously means that you are not selling as many products or services as you wish. However, this metric can also indicate other problems with your campaign.
Some factors that may affect contact rates are:
- The time your agents are dialing. Dialing at the right time of day is key to having a strong contact rate. For instance, 1 p.m. on a weekday is considered a poor time to reach a lead. Calls placed during the 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. time slot are more likely to connect with decision-makers.
- Dialing software effectiveness. For maximum results, your system should be dialing fewer lead numbers while still giving your agents the same number of qualified leads. You will make more sales while paying less per lead.
Improving your contact rates will automatically up the effectiveness of your campaign. You will reduce costs and limit agent downtime.
2. Average Talk Time
Another critical list KPI metric is average talk time, which refers to how long an agent spends talking to a lead. Although some calls take longer than others to close the deal, higher average talk times may indicate that your agents are dialing the wrong leads or contacting people during the wrong time of day.
To keep your outbound call campaigns effective, you should analyze average talk time with conversion rates throughout the day. How long does it take for your agents to close the deal?
Remember, opportunity costs are often the most expensive in contact centers. As a result, minimizing the time your agents use to close a sale should improve revenue and productivity. Of course, the worst outcome is a long average talk time with few sales conversions. The key is to have more sales with less talk.
3. Total Revenue
You cannot afford to overlook total revenue as a primary indicator of your lists’ effectiveness. You must consider how much your lead list cost and compare that figure to the total revenue the list generated. A lead list may seem great, but if it doesn’t produce enough revenue to be profitable, it’s a waste of your company’s time and resources.
You should also look at the number of leads each list provides to calculate the cost of each contact opportunity. If you are paying a significant amount for lists with limited leads, you will have to have a sky-high sales conversion rate to make your campaign profitable. A list can generate high total revenue and still be a failure.
4. List Conversion Rate
Your list conversion rate is the list KPI metric that demonstrates overall profit and loss. Some factors that should be included in your conversion rate analysis are:
- Revenue per hour: Revenue/Estimated billable hour
- Cost per agent: Billable hours x Cost of agent per hour
- Total cost: Cost of agent + Cost of lead + Cost per minute
- Profit: Revenue – Total cost
Making these calculations will indicate how sound your list actually is. Without an in-depth analysis of these KPIs, you will be guessing at the effectiveness of your lead list.
Why Your Lists Matter
When it comes to waging a successful outbound calling campaign, you must consider multiple factors, but acquiring a quality list is imperative. Even the best agents will have trouble selling outstanding products if your list is bad.
Some purchased lists can lead to poor conversion rates because they contain unqualified leads and outdated information. For those reasons, lists you acquire through organic means such as website traffic, CRM systems, social media, and other outreach methods can prove more profitable. A good lead list will improve contact rates, reduce talk time, and increase total revenue.
Ultimately, comparing the effort and cost of acquiring lists versus the total revenue produced by campaigns will reveal key areas that need improvement in your outbound calling efforts.
