In late March, telecommunications firm MCI laid off 4,000 workers and closed three call centers. In doing so, it cited the national do-not-call legislation.
Don't sound the death knell for outbound telemarketing yet, though: More than eight months after the registry went into effect, marketers are finding new ways to use call centers.
Take Influent Inc. In addition to advocating CRM efforts for its clients, the Dublin, OH-based teleservices firm has boosted outbound efforts on behalf of business-to-business clients to between 40% and 45% of its volume, up from around 5% to 10% two years ago, according to Hayley Weinper, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
It also raised its inbound operations, which in April 2003 made up a negligible part of its volume, to 20% by December.
For clients devoted to outbound calls, the biggest opportunity lies with the Hispanic market, Weinper claimed. “Minorities do not sign up for the do-not-call list,” she said. “They don't get calls now.”
In July, Influent will open a bilingual call center in Panama, which will add 500 seats to the 1,075 it already runs in the United States and in Manila, Philippines.
Tim Searcy, executive director of the American Teleservices Association, echoes the sentiment that B-to-B firms are taking up the slack. He also feels the do-not-call list may have created some additional work for independent call centers. Some telemarketers have switched to outsourced centers because they want their campaigns run by professionals conversant with current list management or compliance issues, Searcy said.
For all this, there have been cuts in telemarketing spending. “I have seen numbers related to nonprofit [spending] around 30% to 40%,” observed Mary Ann Falzone, president of Sellersville, PA consultancy Falzone & Associates.
Falzone estimated that a third of the telemarketing budgets for most industries have been shifted to other channels.
What she hasn't seen is a lot of mail going out that touts an inbound telemarketing call. “It's out there, but when we say the budget is moving to mail, the pieces are trying to generate an order [via mail response],” Falzone said.
