Telesales People - Acceptable Amount Of Call Time?

[Simon-M]

What do professional telesales people get targeted regarding the actual amount of time they spend on the phone in a working day? I'm talking about the amount of time the phone is at the ear and a connection to someone or something is made. Not the number of actual calls made.

Are there any industry figures for this?

What is a reasonable expectation here?

 

[GreatSEO]

When I worked at Thomson Directories we were targetted for 3 hours daily connecting calls made. This was as a Business Development Manager and meant that we also processed orders and any adhoc admin that was needed. Emails etc etc

If it is just purely a cold calling role I would schedule a number of breaks throughout the day for them to refresh but if it involves admin etc we found 3 to 3.5 hours was fairly achievable and acceptable to generate the business. We were selling at around £400 average order value and were targetted around 12k per month.

I hope this helps

Regards

Dave

 

[Simon-M]

Thanks Dave that is very useful information. Looking to hear from others too.

Simon

 

[Gratis Guidance]

In my time of working the phones there are two figures that seem to do the rounds.

3-3.5 hours talk time a day and up to 100 calls.

Neither were particularly good indicators of what was going on because it can influence what your operators do to hit the target.

Number of calls meant people were hanging up too easily and talk time meant that either auntie Mable got a call, or they phoned each other on outside lines!

The main one for me has always been margin. Make the money and you stay in the chair!

KPI's should only ever be used as a guide to what is happening and not as a plan of action!

Hope this helps!

 

[telemax]

Hi Simon

I'm afraid its quality rather than quantity that needs to be looked at. Some days like yesterday I was on the phone for a lot longer than 3.5 hours. Other days it's just a few targetted calls. I'd also be wary of any industry figures as different products and services require different approaches.

Jonathan

 

[GreatSEO]

I do agree with Jonathen. When employed by someone I had rules and guidance to adhere to so some days after I had hit my targets for the week etc I would become less likely to make as many calls as I could to generate even more revenue why I don't know.

It is about quality not quantity especially if it is a consultancy based type sale.

what is it they will be promoting and where and what are your ambitions this may help in giving you the best advice possible.

Regards

Dave

 

Hi Simon

I'm afraid its quality rather than quantity that needs to be looked at. Some days like yesterday I was on the phone for a lot longer than 3.5 hours. Other days it's just a few targetted calls. I'd also be wary of any industry figures as different products and services require different approaches.

Jonathan

Yeah it all depends what kind of telesales people we are talking about. I have worked in telesales before and i would say it is definately about quantity over quality anyday. We have a telesales team here, we use sourced data and everyone researches a company prior to calling - this takes time but definately brings in more leads.

 

[Simon-M]

Thanks guys. I've done my fair bit of selling so have an idea of what is reasonable and so am looking to hear stories just like these mentioned above.

KPI's can be a great indicator but should never be taken in isolation. Telesales in my experience is a pure numbers game. The more you have the phone at your ear talking to prospects, the more business you get.

When you look over a month and see your top sales person has been on the blower for longer than everyone else and has made more calls than anyone else. And the average sale value was slightly better than everyone elses it is easy to see where the extra has come from. Average call time, average calls per day, revenue per call made all tell a story.

Keep it coming as this is very interesting to me.

Simon

 

[Gratis Guidance]

That I disagree with!

I guess it depends what you are selling - I was in the IT solutions area - my talk time was not the highest, and my customer numbers were low - and I still turned over £3m a year by myself - I was the most profitable!

Unfortunately, its hard to create profitability through the likes of KPI or PPM or whatever management system you use - because it relishes on skills and intelligence, not just mechanics.

It actually just comes down to people.

 

Yeah it all depends what kind of telesales people we are talking about. I have worked in telesales before and i would say it is definately about quantity over quality anyday. We have a telesales team here, we use sourced data and everyone researches a company prior to calling - this takes time but definately brings in more leads.

Just read my post and it was meant to say "quality over quantity"

 

[Simon-M]

That I disagree with!

I guess it depends what you are selling - I was in the IT solutions area - my talk time was not the highest, and my customer numbers were low - and I still turned over £3m a year by myself - I was the most profitable!

Unfortunately, its hard to create profitability through the likes of KPI or PPM or whatever management system you use - because it relishes on skills and intelligence, not just mechanics.

It actually just comes down to people.

That is why I said it should not be taken in isolation. Good points.

Simon

 

[salesladder]

There are many figures and measures bandied about by people. Some telesales people can attain the same results from half the calls of others. Or double the results with the same amount of calls!!!

If average calling time was the only measure you were looking at (which it should never be) then 150 to 210 minutes per day is accepted as the "norm".

As others have said there are many other factors to take into account.

 

[DRFC]

are u looking for the average call time or the total amount during the day?

 

[Midas Creative]

Hi Simon,

I have also worked in telesales for many years from selling double glazing (last three hours) to national student website adverting to running telesales department for newspapers.

Most of them wasnt bothered about the amount of time in total on the phone, but the average call time, which I suppose makes more sense.

I once went to an outsource sales company for them to sell advertising for the company I was working for at the time. I felt so sorry for the telesales. They were all hooked up to automatic dialers, as soon as they disconnected a call, their pc dialed the next number and opened the account on screen without even time to breath. Talk about battery hens

 

[maxine]

Agree with others on it being the end result that counts not the effort.

However, the "norm" for us is

12-18 call attempts per hour
6-7 conversations per hour (ie; successful decision makers spoken with)

This varies by industry quite a lot ie; calling public sectors or industries that use call queues can lengthen a call time a lot.

As others have said the preparation time can be key. At the highest end of the scale campaign with little or no preparation could mean around 200 calls a day and a low conversion %. On the other hand for technology/specialist industries where preparation is more important than bashing out a lot of calls and wasting opportunities it might be only around 70 calls a day but with a higher conversion %.

I agree with Salesladder than different people can achieve the same results with different levels of effort.

 

[Simon-M]

I know it's like how long is a piece of string because each campaign as stated can focus in different industry sectors which have different approaches etc but I really like the numbers I am hearing.

It's interesting to see what metrics get plugged in for the boys up stairs to chew over and make pretty graphs with.

Number of call attempts
Number of calls connected
Average call time per call
Total call time
Number of sales
Average value of sale per call made
Quality scores (Introduction, fact finding, objection handling, close attempt)

What else gets measured.

Simon

 

[telemax]

I know it's like how long is a piece of string because each campaign as stated can focus in different industry sectors which have different approaches etc but I really like the numbers I am hearing.

It's interesting to see what metrics get plugged in for the boys up stairs to chew over and make pretty graphs with.

Number of call attempts
Number of calls connected
Average call time per call
Total call time
Number of sales
Average value of sale per call made
Quality scores (Introduction, fact finding, objection handling, close attempt)

What else gets measured.

Simon

It's incredibly dependent on the industry. Earlier this year we were telemarketing for a very specialised team of consultants who dealt with an Ops system that is so niche there are probably no more than 2000 companies in the UK using it. I was finding 5 good leads out of every 10 calls. The difficulty was finding people who actually used this system. We had a company techie working on that.

At the other extreme, we have sold IT support, try 1 good lead for every 90 calls!! Another issue is how persistant are your telemarketers. Just thinking about the biggest customers I have gained in the last 10 years. All of them needed 30 or 40 calls and several meetings in order to bring them on board. Most people I know would have given up long before and would therefore have missed out on that business.

 

[Simon-M]

It's incredibly dependent on the industry. Earlier this year we were telemarketing for a very specialised team of consultants who dealt with an Ops system that is so niche there are probably no more than 2000 companies in the UK using it. I was finding 5 good leads out of every 10 calls. The difficulty was finding people who actually used this system. We had a company techie working on that.

At the other extreme, we have sold IT support, try 1 good lead for every 90 calls!! Another issue is how persistant are your telemarketers. Just thinking about the biggest customers I have gained in the last 10 years. All of them needed 30 or 40 calls and several meetings in order to bring them on board. Most people I know would have given up long before and would therefore have missed out on that business.

That throws up an interesting point doesn't it.

The metrics remain the same but the values change. This then provides a blueprint for your customer that is based on their specific campaign. I presume that you provide your clients with meaningful data that they can assess the success with. I would also presume that the metrics as stated remain constant so that you have a trusted framework of reporting.

Simon

 

[salesladder]

Its also worth remembering that the measurable stats will also change as the course of the project changes. If the project is in the initial satage and it is more cold calling and contact aquisition, there will be more dial outs with less average call time.

Moving through the project as the pipeline builds and more meaningful conversations are held, the average call time will go up as the caller is dealing with objections and closing the deal.

Hate to reiterate the point but I think you can gather from the other posts that there is no set standards and so much depends on the proposition and the deliverables to the client.

Ive worked with clients that have a simple proposition requiring 80 to 100 dials a day with a short call to sale cycle and conversely clients requiring half that amount of dial outs as each call that reaches a decision maker is an engagement, requiring lots of fact finding and targeted conversation.

 

[Simon-M]

I see that every job has stages and I see that the numbers will change per stage. I don't understand why the metrics themselves change.

Can you explain that. Maybe I'm being a bit thick

 

[salesladder]

I see that every job has stages and I see that the numbers will change per stage. I don't understand why the metrics themselves change.

Can you explain that. Maybe I'm being a bit thick


Im sure it was my reply that was a "bit thick" and not you.

The metrics wont change in themselves as in their title and what action they measure but the values and their importance will change, therefore their use as a measurable stat will change.

 

[Simon-M]

therefore their use as a measurable stat will change.

Do you mean the stats meaning will change. The measurability of it won't surely. The measurement will still have a valid meaning but it will be specific to the stage of the project you are on.

Simon

 

[salesladder]

Do you mean the stats meaning will change. The measurability of it won't surely. The measurement will still have a valid meaning but it will be specific to the stage of the project you are on.

Simon

Maybe i didnt say it correctly but yes thats exactly what i mean

 

[Simon-M]

Apart from these metrics:

Number of call attempts
Number of calls connected
Average call time per call
Total call time
Number of sales
Average value of sale per call made
Quality scores (Introduction, fact finding, objection handling, close attempt)

Are there any others that you would monitor? If there are what are they and what do they tell you.

Simon

 

[eventdomain]

Worked in the Travel sector in a Call Centre doing in-bound calls. Our targets were maximum of 5 mins per call, after that we had to actually get rid of the callers bcos we were paid for the number of calls achieved for the client. Eg: anything from enquiries to a bit of sales work, but mainly Customer services stuff.

If we took too long on each call, then Management would appear and have a go at us. The company was Cruise Control, and the pressure on us was crazy and the atmosphere was thick with stress - crazy.

 

[Simon-M]

Worked in the Travel sector in a Call Centre doing in-bound calls. Our targets were maximum of 5 mins per call, after that we had to actually get rid of the callers bcos we were paid for the number of calls achieved for the client. Eg: anything from enquiries to a bit of sales work, but mainly Customer services stuff.

If we took too long on each call, then Management would appear and have a go at us. The company was Cruise Control, and the pressure on us was crazy and the atmosphere was thick with stress - crazy.

Sounds like a great place Customer service like this never works. In the grand scheme of things the numbers get well massaged and on paper it looks like everything is great. Except the customers don't get what they deserve. I expect if they do customer surveys that the call metrics would disagree with the reality by a considerable margin.

Simon

 

[eventdomain]

Yup, I'd say 1 in every 10 calls was a complaint, some customer bought Cruise ship tickets and CC double charged her. I tried to help her and find out what went wrong, but everyone I requested help from didn't want to know and I got bounced from colleague to colleague trying to find some answers and get the problem solved - it was a nightmare.

I'm amazed the company had the turnover it did (170 million) - company eventually went bust in 2005.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Artic...-control-collapse-still-felt-one-year-on.html

 

[Gratis Guidance]

Half the problem with issues like that travel agency is that the managers are generally not sales people - they do stats, but don't understand people skills - as such, they only measure what they understand.

You need to have a plan based on the whole sales cycle. If you have a 6 month cycle, its no use measuring the talk time - and punishing on a daily basis. You'll end up with frustrated sales people who leave - extending your sales cycle even longer as they try to rebuild any relationship that can be developed.

If the sales cycle is one call then your stats are everything - more calls, more sales.

 

[maxine]

Apart from these metrics:

Number of call attempts
Number of calls connected
Average call time per call
Total call time
Number of sales
Average value of sale per call made
Quality scores (Introduction, fact finding, objection handling, close attempt)

Are there any others that you would monitor? If there are what are they and what do they tell you.

Simon

There is an important one missing from this list and that is "Number of Decision Maker Contacts" This sits between the Number of Calls Connected and the Call Time so that you can see how much of the talk time is spent talking to the right person and is also indicative of whether someone is skillful at getting through to the right person or talking a lot to receptionists and colleagues.

It is worth looking at conversion rates between stages too

Number of call attempts
Number of DM contacts
Number of DM contacts as % of call attempts

Number of requests for info
Requests for info as % of call attempts

Number of appointments
Appointments as % of DM contacts

Number of qualified leads
Qualified leads as % of DM Contacts
Qualified leads as % of Call Attempts (overall conversion)

Number of call backs
Call backs as % of Call Attempts

Number of Not Interested
Not Interested as % of DM Contacts
Not Interested as % of Call Attempts

.... and so it goes on... and on... and on

Looking at the relationship between each measure can be revealing too and typically there will be a low volume / high conversion pattern or high volume / low conversion. Ideally it is good to have high volume / high conversion %

As Salesladder says it will vary by campaign stage.

Now... who wants to explain the "fiddles" advisors use for massaging their stats or is that a whole new thread ?

 

[Camille-I]

Usually they spend on the phone talk about half a working day or sometimes a little more. That is about 3-4 hours or 5-6hours at most.