Vital Home Services gets customer OKs before calling With consumer antipathy and state restrictions of telemarketing seemingly at an all-time high, one company has come up with an interesting concept: asking for permission.
With the financial backing of Fortune 500 utilities company Conectiv and other marketing partners, Vital Home Services (VHS) has generated 20% sales conversion rates by getting permission before making any outbound calls.
New Castle, DE-based VHS generates customer orders for utilities and other firms that provide services to consumers buying houses. For targeting outbound calls it uses prequalified customer leads supplied by real estate brokerage firms such as Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors rather than renting lists for prospecting campaigns.
“We’re establishing rapport up front,” says Roger Kirtley, assistant vice president of operations at VHS. “It’s not like a cold telemarketing call because they already know who we are and why we’re calling.”
Consumers can order cable, telephone and other services that they want during one phone call, instead of having to call each service provider. “Basically we’re offering to make life easier for consumers during their home-buying transaction,” says VHS president Marc Greenberg.
“It’s really an inexpensive way for service providers to increase market share and fix customer acquisition costs,” notes Kirtley. “We’re delivering customers to them on a silver platter.”
Both outbound and incoming calls for VHS are outsourced to ICT Group, a Langhorne, PA-based teleservices agency. The bulk of the 2,000 calls processed monthly are outbound calls.
ICT has been conducting test campaigns on behalf of VHS since last year to solicit new customers for all kinds of utility companies and maintenance services, besides arranging other services such as hiring a moving company, home warranties and insurance.
The company receives fee income from the service providers for establishing new customer accounts and shares it with real estate industry partners.
VHS is different from its competitors, such as AllConnect and HomeLink, because its two-step strategy integrates business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing, according to VHS’s CEO Andrew Jefferson.
The firm is is working with seven real estate brokerage partners in Chicago, Philadelphia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida. In the next few months, it hopes to expand to markets in 25 states.
Outbound calls are placed to homebuyers who then mail or fax back written authorizations allowing VHS to arrange their desired service connections. The real estate firms typically mail the forms to their clients two to three weeks before home purchases are completed. Other authorizations are obtained as part of closing the home sale.
“They receive information from our company and have opportunities at multiple points during the homebuying process to indicate they are interested in receiving services,” says Jefferson.
Phone reps calling the homebuyers explain the services, choices and billing plans available in their new neighborhood, then complete the orders.
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