Telemarketing

If you are planning to use telemarketing for your business, you should determine whether you are operating in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. The skills and expertise required to deal with each group are different.

You can either choose to conduct your telemarketing campaigns or use a provider that offers B2B or B2C telemarketing services. When operating your telemarketing operation, you need to be aware of the different characteristics and issues each group poses, and how this may affect your approach.

Considerations when running your telemarketing operation

B2C companies usually:

• run their business to sell a product
• focus on sales turnovers rather than building customer relationships
• look to get as much value from sales as possible
• have a large target market
• aim to create a brand identity to appeal to customers
• use merchandising and point of purchase activities to increase sales
• use 'emotional buying techniques' to sell to customers - based on status, desire, or price

When dealing with B2B companies, you need to consider that they:

• are usually relationship driven
• aim to generate profits through repeated sales through returning customers
• have a small and focused target market
• create a 'brand identity' by building on personal relationships
• use educational and awareness-building activities