More Voices on the Party Line
Nearly 100 corporate resellers and systems integrators are the latest links in a “closed loop” marketing chain being built by Symbol Technologies.
The core link in that chain is unusual: a database shared by Symbol – whose core products include barcode equipment, mobile computer systems, and wireless voice and data networks – and a vendor, Effective Telemarketing Inc. (ETI), which has 50 business-to-business call center stations and answers Symbol’s inbound calls and handles their lead generation and qualification programs.
Symbol does nearly one-third of its $1 billion in annual sales by phone. Inbound calls are generated by DR space ads, online advertising and 1 million direct mail pieces sent annually. Trade publication lists are rented for mailings and outbound telemarketing. Its major markets include the transportation and retail industries, as well as emerging sectors such as hospitality, gaming and healthcare.
Holtsville, NY-based Symbol’s resellers and systems integrators have recently gained access to the same teleservices database records ETI and Symbol already share. By accessing those files via the Web, they can then organize their own telemarketing campaigns, says Michael Munzer, director of channel business development for Symbol.
Resellers and systems integrators make personal sales visits or phone calls to follow up leads received from ETI or Symbol. If the sale isn’t closed they enter additional information in the database and bounce unsold leads back to Symbol, which schedules a call-back in the future.
Symbol maintains eight in-house call stations and estimates phone sales exceed $30 million annually. “And that’s just what we can track and attribute to telesales,” notes Munzer.
ETI, which manages Symbol’s database, serves as an initial pipeline for sending qualified leads to Symbol. After developing prospects, qualifying leads and profiling customers, ETI electronically passes the data along to Symbol’s in-house phone reps, says Michael Falkson, president of ETI sales support.
Pleasantville, NY-based ETI’s phone reps do the first layer of customer profiling by asking prospects probing questions, such as the size of companies, role of the person contacted in the decision-making process and product lines. The calls are followed up with targeted mailings, designed to set up a reason for a phone rep from Symbol to make another sales call.
Overall, the call volume at Symbol equals about 40% of the call volume handled by ETI, says Munzer. Last year it took ETI approximately 200,000 dial attempts to generate 75,000 teleservices contacts and determine which ones Symbol’s phone reps would follow up, Munzer says. Phone reps from Symbol call prospects again to gather more specific information and pitch products as solutions to problems identified by prospects. Any additional gathered information is entered in the database.
Calls handled by ETI tend to be shorter, three-to-five minute conversations, while calls at Symbol average five to nine minutes in length, Munzer says.
Profiles of resellers and systems integrators are stored in the database to determine who receives which qualified leads. All information entered in the database by resellers and systems integrators is coded and tracked by Symbol and ETI, “so we know if they sell our product or not,” Munzer notes, adding that successful use of a database for teleservices comes down to analyzing customers on the basis of money, authority, needs and desires.
“When you can smell these things like a hound dog,” he says, “that’s when it’s time to come in and make a sale.”
