The Blueprint for Outsourced Call Center Success with Elite Call
In the virtual Lemonade Stand, Crystal is joined by Travis, Jack, and Lesli from Elite Call! They discuss building an outsourced call center, their methods of lead generation, and developing a guide to filling your dispatch board all year long.
0:09 - Outsourced Call Center Success Strategies
12:23 - Quality Assurance Importance in Business
24:40 - Strategies for Success in Marketing
35:43 - Working With Elite Call Center
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We’ll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Speaker 1: 0:09
what's up, lemon heads, welcome to another episode of from the yellow chair. I am crystal and I am riding solo this week, but today, guys, I have such a treat for you. I have met this team of people. They are so energetic and so fun. We had to get them on the podcast. It took us a minute to get situated.
Speaker 1: 0:29
But we're going to talk today through a big plan for a blueprint for outsourced call center success, which so many of you contractors know that you are worried about outsourcing your call center. You know it. You don't need to be afraid. We're going to chat through all of the good, the bad, the ugly, mostly the good, but I have a great vendor partner here that we've seen do amazing things in the home service industry. Let's sip some lemonade, all right. So I'm really excited for you guys to get to listen to and meet the team from Elite Call. They're joining us today in the lemonade stand and, let's see, let's start off with the three people that we have joining us today Travis Fritch, the Regional Director of Sales, jack Pensell, the CEO of Elite Call, and Leslie Rojas, director of Client Services. They're going to tell us a little bit about just uncovering strategies and innovations that have really made Elite Call a leader in our industry. So like, let's dive in. Travis, travis, my friend, I've talked to you the most, so share with us.
Speaker 2: 1:34
Yes, it's been a great ride of conversation between you and I.
Speaker 1: 1:36
It has. We've had some good calls about clients and strategies and it's been really good. But I know you've had various sales roles Right, and how has that contributed to your current position as the regional director of sales at Elite Call?
Speaker 2: 1:49
Yeah, I think a strong piece with myself is I'm a very extroverted extroverted person. So being in front of people or being able to hop on Zoom calls or podcasts like these just to chat about our opportunity to partner with multiple different companies is kind of my strong suit. I started out doing a lot of door-to-door sales retail, sold lawn care, pest control and then I actually came into Elite Call. This will be my fifth year. I started out as an agent, so I think that kind of adds to my position as a sales one of our regional directors of sales because I've actually been in the role of our CSRs doing the outbound for multiple different HVAC companies. And then I took my steps, got up to the sales position and it's been amazing going to all the trade shows, meeting some of the leaders in the industry, companies like yourself, being able to partner up and, in the end, just help contractors grow their business and do outbound the right way.
Speaker 3: 2:46
Crystal. Can we also add that we love Travis to watch him grow as a young man, to come in this lane and lead the way he leads and makes the impact that he makes. It's been an incredible journey for all of us.
Speaker 1: 2:58
Well, he is super engaging. Like when we the first couple of conversations I was like man, I love talking to any company that has people from the industry. It just changes Right. It just changes your understanding, your ability to communicate, your ability to relate. So, like I'm super glad to have Travis on the call today, and then Jack, as the CEO of Elite Call, give me some insights on as, like, the leading provider of outsourcing call centers and how they work Like what. Do you give me some insight on that? How does that feel? What does that look like?
Speaker 3: 3:29
I think that we all know Alpine's always been a taboo. There's been a lot of bad vibes that go along with it. There's a lot of call centers outside the US that we all experience every day, and so to come in this lane and create the team that we've created for me, it's all about the culture. It's about impacting lives and to see that every day delivered, not just for our clients, but for the team that we have here, it's one of the best blessings that I've experienced in my career to be part of this every day.
Speaker 1: 4:00
Wonderful, Wonderful and then certainly not last, but definitely the cutest one on the team. The cutest one is Leslie. So how does Elite calls wide range of services like, including all the lead generation appointment setting? How do you really feel like that's the best help for contractors and contributing to the success in the industry?
Speaker 4: 4:27
Yeah, so really it's taking the need of our clients, like what they currently need on their dispatch board, right. Our goal is to fill the dispatch board, but with variety of different campaigns that we can run Taking a plumbing customer and introducing HVAC services, so our cross-selling campaigns, boosting memberships we have a whole dedicated team that loves boosting memberships. So it's really getting with our client, getting creative with the type of campaigns that we could run and simply filling their dispatch boards, but all year round.
Speaker 3: 5:01
The creativity that our clients depend on Leslie and her team, especially in the private equity world that has so many different labels and brands. They really lean hard on our understanding of what campaigns work and what doesn't, and sometimes that's transitioned throughout what part of the season we're in. But an incredible job understanding the current chapter that we're in today and what campaigns work best for those times.
Speaker 1: 5:25
Well, you know and I reach this all the time for marketing cannot be set it and forget it. Right, it's got to be pivotal, it's got to be flexible, fluid, and so a lot of times, just knowing that a company understands that flexibility and can pivot easily is pretty important. Because right now, when there's not a high demand season so, like for those of us in East Texas, right now, weather is not our friend, it's raining, we're going to be down, we're going to struggle to get call counts, struggle to get leads, and because of that we need a strong outbound strategy. And so just knowing that you guys understand that portion, can keep it on brand and can pivot easily is a super big I mean.
Speaker 1: 6:10
The first thing I wrote down was cross-selling that Leslie said. Because, you know, a lot of times I'm like, hey, have you ever thought about, like, if you're going to add electrical, why don't we go ahead and release it to your existing customers first? Like you already trust us on your HVAC and your plumbing, what about electrical? You know, now we're offering this services. If your clients already trust you, it's easier to upsell them and help fill your dispatch board then, and cheaper than the cost of new customer acquisition.
Speaker 3: 6:37
And to compliment Crystal on that, you said it perfectly. When we do consulting, you still got to do your six, seven, eight, nine different touches. But people sometimes forget the value that's sitting in their own customer base while they try so aggressively to draw new business, as they should. But there's a pulse of revenue, even if it's aged customers, when we can go back and let them know that we have an opportunity to come back out. It's been a couple of years and we can revive a pulse of revenue from that introduction. It's like setting a new customer. So there's so many opportunities to get creative when you onset your different campaigns from an outbound strategy.
Speaker 1: 7:13
Yeah. So you know we call a customer, someone that's done business with me in the last 24 months, you know, and a lot of times that's close 18 months, 36 months. People tend to get in the same, in the same vicinity there, and so I tell clients all the time like I will look at their marketing scorecard and I'll say, uh, all of your revenue is coming from existing clients. But then I'll go look at them like, yeah, this client called you off of a direct mail piece, or this client was the result of an outbound strategy. Like they would have never called you had you have not marketed to them. This customer did not book services with you just because they love you.
Speaker 2: 7:46
And it's funny too, crystal, because we hear it all the time Our agents will speak to customers and they'll say, oh my gosh, thank you so much for giving me a call, because I just got a mailer and I thought it might've been you. So, giving that personal touch, reaching out to those customers that have done a financial transaction with you up to 18 or 24 months, it's a big strong suit to have within your marketing arsenal.
Speaker 1: 8:07
Yeah, and just understanding like you were not going to get that revenue they were existing client is the biggest misrepresentation of expectations that I see with clients all the time. Like well, this is all from my existing database and I'm like, let me give me five minutes, I'll tell you that it was not just because you went out five summers ago and added one pound of refrigerant that was not your customer and they also booked through a way that was not. They went wild. They went free agent like on the internet looking for services. So that is one of my biggest. I think it's a big thing that contractors misread a lot of.
Speaker 1: 8:40
So allowing an outbound strategy that reaches out to the people outside of that frame, so allowing an outbound strategy that reaches out to the people outside of that frame, outside of those 18 to 24 months, is really like untapped revenue, Like you are not going to get it any other way than reaching out. So that does kind of lead me into my next question about just kind of like technology and infrastructure. So, Travis, like how does Elite Call leverage? I know you guys have some state of the art predictive-art predictive dialing technology, digital recording and things like that how does that really enhance, maybe, the customer service and the performance that you guys provide?
Speaker 2: 9:10
I'm going to let Leslie touch on a little bit more after I go through it. But we utilize multiple different dialers just for redundancy, making sure that we're on track with all of our campaigns. We do run predictive and we run preview dial Normally on the larger campaigns that we do run. We do run predictive and we run preview dial Normally on the larger campaigns that we do run. We do predictive and we have less than half a percentage of dropped calls. But when you look at a little campaign or a smaller campaign of smaller records, that's when we go into the preview dial and we have no dropped calls on that. But it's strong because all of our dialers do record our calls and it's a strong suit for not only our quality assurance team but being able to pull agents daily and weekly into our conference center, our conference room, just to kind of listen to those right and work off of the recordings that we've saved off of the calls.
Speaker 1: 10:00
I love it. A lot of power in listening to things that have been recorded.
Speaker 3: 10:04
Yes, very Crystal. I come from athletics, coaching football and hockey and that same mindset of huddles, we do them throughout the day. It's not once a week or once a day, it could be nine, ten times a day and we utilize those recordings every day to make that experience for their customers and our performance as maximized as we could.
Speaker 1: 10:27
I love it and I'm telling you like knowing that you guys are training internally on real life simulations like that is a game changer. So you know I say this all the time Theory is only so good, right, I was using this example the other day. So my husband was a police officer for a while and I'm like you know you go through police academy, learn the laws. You don't learn how to apply those laws until you actually have to do it. So when you can actually listen and your CSRs are actually listening to real life instances and good examples and bad examples, like it is, it's a game changer. Like contractors should apply that same process for a lot of other things. So I love to hear that. So well, jack, how do you guys keep that technology play? Like? How does that keep you guys competitive in the industry?
Speaker 3: 11:13
Yes, I think there's a piece, as we're talking about technology and the big topic of today's.
Speaker 3: 11:18
You know, you look at social media and everything's about AI and if you're not part of AI, you're going to be left behind. I'm not an advocate that from an outbound interaction my customers at least, and the large service experts and private equities in the world they want that live interaction. But we use AI within our quality assurance team, so from the dialogue that they're having and you can dictate exactly what you're looking for that AI to be able to deliver. But we'll be able to implement in the next coming weeks an opportunity that we have you know five different people in our QA side of things and we'll take away a third of their um timeframe that gets so bogged down with listening to recordings and with a push of a button with AI we'll have those same results and more thorough right. So to be able to use AI technology to look at different trends and the monotone that you're using or not using within a conversation and the theme of the call. We're super excited for that new technology being introduced to our platform here.
Speaker 4: 12:23
And to take a few steps back with like quality assurance. So most companies we talk to don't feel like there's like a need for it or don't have it in, you know, at the beginning. But we use our quality assurance team to be able to check those calls, to review. You know how our agents are doing, improving their performance, improving their delivery, and we've been taking a step further and we make sure that our quality assurance team jumps into all the entries that our agents are putting within. You know that client CRM. So it's an important piece to a business to have those second pair of eyes to make sure those are quality appointments going in. You know feeding those technicians.
Speaker 3: 13:00
So, crystal, even if they partner with us, our clients are great, but even for CSRs on your internal teams, have a quality assurance part of your equation and how you run that room. It's not just from listening to the phone calls, but it's accuracy that's being inputted into your CRM. There's mistakes that happen every day, that you might put a Tuesday and it was supposed to be a Wednesday and now your customer took off work and no one's there. You need that second set of eyes or technology that's going to be able to protect the integrity of the lead.
Speaker 1: 13:30
You know, and the cost of new customer acquisition, the cost of customer acquisition in general and reactivating your clients. You know if you're going to spend. If you understood the impact of that, you would understand why you should invest in things that that increase your efficiency. You know, and I think a lot of that, making sure that you're deploying we all can get starry-eyed right, like when you hear talk of AI, like, oh, this is going to be great. But I want to lean back into that point that you talked about the true customer, live person interaction, and it's about learning that balance you know of. You know people say, oh, I'm just going to move everything to AI and I'm like, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: 14:07
So, like answering reviews right now has been a big topic of conversation amongst several marketing friends of mine and, yes, like AI can answer, great, it is wonderful. But there is just something about a human set of eyes with human empathy that can actually process everything. And so, again, it's about efficiency, not necessarily replacement. So I love what you said there about we were able to do this with it but still keep the live interaction. I just think there's a lot of value there.
Speaker 3: 14:34
Because you know if you want it to be real, you know things like empathy for inbound gratitude. When you're calling up on to thank them for being a loyal customer. No one's going to deliver that like a live representative from your company.
Speaker 1: 14:47
Correct. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. Ok, and so, leslie, how does a leak call really maintain, like their quality assurance to ensure that, like you're consistent? So how do I know that I'm getting which? I feel like I know the answer to this based off some of our earlier conversations. But you know, like what, if I'm a contractor and I have a really good experience, and then how do I ensure that, because I can't always have the same call answering people, and then how do I ensure that, because I can't always have the same call answering people, how do you ensure that my company is getting the same level of support and interaction as other companies are and the quality is still there?
Speaker 4: 15:21
Right. So initially, with the lead call first, right, we start with scheduling like an onboarding call and truly understanding and breaking down the type of campaign that we're going to be running. We then take all the information that we capture on the campaign and create like a training class. We assign a team, a designated team, that's going to go on that campaign from start to finish. But this is where we also involve our quality assurance team to make sure they are checking for everything that we've talked about. We are meeting that campaign's goals, we are exceeding expectations. So basically what we do is we train that assigned team of agents and then we break down each dial that they jump on this campaign.
Speaker 3: 15:59
So first dial we review calls Second dial.
Speaker 4: 16:02
We're reviewing entries, so we basically break it down again, like with that assigned team of agents. We don't go and mix it up here and there it's a dedicated team on that designated campaign. But that's how we assure you know the quality is there.
Speaker 1: 16:17
Perfect, perfect, okay. I mean, let me tell you, like, when you again, I like know it's really hard to trust vendors, so as a contractor, you have really good vendor interactions and really weak vendor interactions, lots of communication and a little bit of communication. So just knowing that you guys have placed any importance on that consistent delivery means a lot to contractors and I think we can really make sure that when we're changing campaigns and needing levers pulled and things happening quickly, that that level of assurance doesn't drop, that you guys are responsive, and so I appreciate the links that you guys have gone to for that. So, travis, how do you guys train? Tell me about your training programs. Like, how do you ensure that you guys are top notch? You know, I know that's a good promise, but like, how do you guys ensure that?
Speaker 2: 17:08
Everybody wants a championship team, right, and that's what we're building. So hiring process we're looking for eight, nines and tens somebody to come in. We want all of our agents to kind of run by care. So it's confidence, assertiveness, report and energy right.
Speaker 2: 17:23
Went on a call with somebody's customers, so we do sit down training with one of our coaches that's on the floor. They'll pull our new agents into the conference room, go through specific campaigns that are going ongoing and different procedures to train them through that, whether it's test accounts with different CRMs to learn how to schedule these appointments into their CRMs. We do role-playing, so taking those agents and role-play through made-up scripts that we come up with. They'll do side-by-sides with our agents actually on the floor listening to a live call. They can listen to the rebuttals and then, once we feel that they're ready, to hop on a call. Like you said, all contractors are spending a lot of money on new customers and retaining the customers within their database. So we want to make sure that our agents are ready for that and ready to take on any rebuttal or interaction that they have with their customers.
Speaker 4: 18:18
And to put more emphasis on our quality assurance team as well. This is where they jump in and provide that feedback to our floor coaches so that they're able to coach any situation that they're put in.
Speaker 1: 18:29
I love it. I love it because you know customers can be nasty. I tell everybody, like when we get ready to launch like any sort of campaign, whether it be like outbound texting or ringless voicemails I'm like now, listen, everybody has to put their big boy pants on because clients are going to come back and be like y'all suck, y'all stole all of our money. Y'all robbed my grandma, y'all stole, y'all hit my mailbox. Y'all robbed my grandma, y'all stole, y'all hit my mailbox. You killed my dog. Y'all are, you know, y'all just are terrible people and like you got to get through the the poop there you know to get, and then you're going to get into like the real thing. So like some people are just miserable people, so you have to prepare yourself for that right. So I can only imagine like outbound call centers are like hey, you know, we're gonna like have a restroom like where you can go to and like decompress.
Speaker 2: 19:17
That's funny you brought that up, crystal, because inbound and outbound is not the same thing at all and we feel like some contractors might utilize their internal CSRs that take inbound calls to do outbound. And, like you said, outbound is totally different than taking an inbound call. So being able to take no's and put that in the past when just looking forward to schedule appointments with customers who are interested, then it's a strong suit.
Speaker 3: 19:43
But you also, crystal, it all starts with the culture right. If you don't have that right team in place, if they don't feel that they're appreciated, if they don't know that your expectations is to deliver a world-class experience you said it to start out. This call so many companies that have the reservation. You have a second, third generation company and they're going to hand over their customer base to a vendor that they don't really know. We always talk about that in our huddles, that the opportunity they give us to represent them is a blessing for this team, and we want to exceed expectations. So even something as simple, when I thank you for being a loyal customer, I don't want it to be empty words. I don't want it to be thank you for being a loyal customer reading off a script. I want it to be Travis, you know. Thank you for so much for being a loyal customer, because of that we have this great opportunity.
Speaker 3: 20:32
You know, thank you for so much for being a loyal customer. Because of that, we have this great opportunity, and so it's the delivery that they know that you truly care about them that will allow you to have the success that you thrive for.
Speaker 1: 20:39
Oh, I love it, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I just believe that you guys are the type of people to like. You know, communication helps us with correction, helps us with making things better, and so, like I always tell all of my clients, it's setting clear expectations at the beginning of the relationship that we can be open and we can be honest with one another. That will get us somewhere a lot faster than just not not clearly communicating what your expectations are, you know. So that's, that's a really good thing. So, hey, jack, so can you elaborate a little bit on elite calls approach to just like how these dedicated client service teams can really commit to the goals? Do you guys get to know the goals, the objectives? What does that look like from a contractor conversation? How do I clearly communicate to you guys what my end goal is?
Speaker 3: 21:28
Sure. So I'm going to let Leslie compliment this a little bit. But one of the different ways that we strategically define our teams a lot of call centers make the mistake of day to day it's a different audience dialing that same campaign, whereas we're going to assign a team to that individual customer and now they're just a reflection of their own CSRs. But at our facility they get to know our agents. Our agents get to know their language, their customer base, and to be able to have that interaction between our clients and to be able to engage with the customers or agents on our end that are calling for them is incredible. So you can do probably a little bit more to add to that piece.
Speaker 4: 22:05
Yeah, so, and then all starts with the training as well. So when we're getting to know our client or the company we're dialing for it's understanding the type of services that they offer, but also communicating with that client, like, yes, we have these goals, yes, we're going to run this campaign, but what is happening throughout the campaign so that we can truly understand and continue educating our agents on what we can continue improving on?
Speaker 3: 22:28
So, crystal, sometimes people get really creative with the different type of campaigns, which we always encourage. What we'll also do is we'll have really strong communication to be able to, if you got to take a time out and kind of reevaluate how that is being accepted by that audience, then you have to be able to adapt quickly and it's one of our strong points to be able to take a challenging campaign and find a solution, how to win it.
Speaker 1: 22:54
Are you guys in your call center right now? Oh, okay, okay. So if you're not, you're only listening and not watching behind them, or like looks like their team just rocking and rolling back there. Yep, I love to see that, I love to see that, and so I'm sorry, no, no, no, go ahead.
Speaker 3: 23:10
so it's awesome. So we not only have this call center here, but there's a building right behind us, so we're neighbors with our other office, and about 20 minutes away from here we have another office. So it's incredible to see the dynamics of that teamwork between the three locations. We're opening up Florida in six weeks. We're actually about four weeks down, so we're going to get a little bit more interesting on how we communicate long distance.
Speaker 1: 23:34
Oh, my OK. Well, you know, more than half of my team is remote and I love the remote life. I was not a big fan of it. I'm a millennial Like I love to. I love water, cooler conversations, you know. But really nowadays, like everything is so easy to work remotely and so thanks to great, great tools, so I think you guys will do great things with that. So can you share, leslie, this is a little off, maybe not on our prep, but what are some campaigns or unique things that you've seen some contractors doing that maybe people don't think of, or that really created a strong ROI that was kind of surprising to you guys? Or the opposite, like some that you thought might have been a really good idea, that just didn't deliver?
Speaker 4: 24:19
So that's actually a really great, great question. So we get on these Zoom calls all the time, like 20, 30 calls a week sometimes, and it's always the same question like what's working right now? What are other clients doing? So it's really it's understanding what you're looking for out of this campaign or any campaign. What are the needs? So we can get as creative as they want really.
Speaker 4: 24:40
But one of the most creative ones we recently have done that has proven, you know, great success is like a repair buyback program. So this has been. You know their boards are full with maintenance and tune-ups but they're looking to get more sales opportunities. So it's taking aged equipment who have also received a repair, you know, over a year ago, and then matching the amount they've spent towards repair towards a new unit. So now you're pushing the sales opportunity. But if they're not going to go, if they're not ready or they don't want to talk about it on the call regarding like a sales opportunity, we're at least going to go ahead and lock them in a tune-up offer. That way your technician still has a second chance, you know, when they're in the home, to educate them on the similar, you know, points that we have been giving them on the phone that at least like psychologically you know, gets them thinking before that technician goes to that door.
Speaker 1: 25:32
Honestly, but that's one of the things I love about it.
Speaker 1: 25:35
So the repair buyback idea I love, like I'm totally here for it, because what it does is it makes it first of all. I think the home homeowner is going to feel like, man, I've already paid, that I'll go ahead and take that credit on this new system, or man, I'm so tired of limping everything along and this company maybe you have financing options and things like that. So really cool marketing way. Again, these are just unique ways. Especially you don't have to offer this. Maybe during the summer, right, these are shoulder season support pieces to really help drive installs when installs are down, and so just the ability for your. How long would it take your team to get this up? So like if I called and said, hey, leslie, can we get this up? How soon could your team probably be dialing out?
Speaker 4: 26:19
So we'd start with initially finding out what they would like to run, or we can jump on a call and figure it out. Right now that process is about a week, but if their need is now, we'll get them up and running in like two, three we had a large equity reach out just earlier last week and they're like listen, our capacity boards suck, we need some help.
Speaker 3: 26:39
I think we went live two days later, crystal well, there you go.
Speaker 1: 26:43
I'm saying you know, and again it's, it's setting the expectations. The expectation is we do our very, very best tip-top work if we can have a week, but if you have everything together, contractors, that's not a one-way street. So contractor has to know what they want to do and they have to have their expectations set. Um, but hey, we can work faster when we all work faster together, like that's just clear expectations. And you know, a lot of times contractors, we get like right now, right now, right now, and really like there's a lot of prep work that goes into making sure everybody's ready to rock and roll. So I appreciate, I appreciate the honesty there. So, travis, I know that Elite Call has a commitment to being a hundred percent owned and operated in the United States, and how does that really contribute to their success? Which I know where this is going, because this is the biggest complaint that I hear all the time is like this just doesn't sound like it's native language, right, okay, I figured I was going the right way, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: 27:40
So, touching on what jack said, three offices here out of illinois, fourth open up in florida. We feel that being in person is the strong suit of running a call center. Um, like you said, virtual, there are ways to get around it, but, like I was telling earlier, like I was saying earlier is behind Leslie, as you look like there's a quality assurance team, right, our coaches are actually able to go over there, talk with them, bring it back to the floor and talk with the agents and we all get them inbound or outbound to an answering service and it's overseas and there's just a language barrier and a lot of times when speaking to your customer, you want to get everything across in the right way. So, like Jack said earlier, there's kind of a nasty taste in some people's mouths with call centers because of all the spam calls and the telemarketing that goes on. But being here strictly in the States, we feel is our biggest strong suit when being able to partner with companies.
Speaker 3: 28:35
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: 28:36
Well, and I think more than anything. So you have to be realistic about again, about what that means. So you know, this is a comfort for a lot of people, especially people that are like in more rural areas, where the conversation it just matters, that we can all speak the same language. I use this example all the time Speak the same conversational language, like in East Texas. We're going to say hot water heater, right. So I can't help it. I don't know why we're trying to heat water that's already hot. I don't know, but that's just a little little redneck thing that we got going on over here. But you know just the vernacular like that's hard, you know. So I really appreciate, appreciate that being a concern that you guys have. And so, jack, you know what do you think it takes to maintain the competitive edge by avoiding outsourcing to third parties?
Speaker 3: 29:28
I mean it almost complements what Travis just said. But from an owner position a lot of people get trapped into thinking they can make a little bit more money by outsourcing overseas. Our commitment always has been keep it in the States.
Speaker 3: 29:42
You can't deliver that world class experience that you promised to your customers. If I'm going to add in that language barrier, you know there's a lot of centers, might be in Oklahoma or might be in Texas Crystal but they just forget to mention that they outsource to different countries. And it's been 24 years of the United States and we're never going anywhere else.
Speaker 1: 30:06
I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: 30:09
And it's good, right, it's. It's kind of a theme of most of the, especially in the contractor world. You know about being American based and to be able to back that up with a marketing company. We've all done it. We've seen postcards or other marketing partners and they deliver something and you know that it wasn't created here in the States. You know just maybe the car that they're using in the background and, as Travis said, it's the phone calls that we all get and it gets so frustrating at times when there's that language barrier. So we've been blessed and we'll continue to stay here awesome, awesome, okay.
Speaker 1: 30:40
And then, like Leslie, I know, like how does the company values of a link call really shape you guys day to day operations and decision making process?
Speaker 4: 30:50
Definitely so. It starts from the very beginning. It's impacting lives, right, the agents that walk through these doors. It's it's truly caring about them and the performance that that they put on the phones. It's training them. It's continuously letting them know that we do want them to get better, and whatever they deliver on the phone stems from all of that. So truly putting emphasis on our agents will deliver. You know that world-class experience that we're looking for our clients to have. So that's where it starts from.
Speaker 3: 31:22
And being able to. We literally Crystal. We just had a call. You know when you call someone a loyal customer, you want to back that up and usually that offer, I don't care if it's $5 less, you want it to be the most competitive offer. I don't want to call Leslie a loyal customer and come in with a price. That's on my website and so you know a lot of these offers. You know they're $59, $69, $99. We had a customer right before this call that has a tune-up for $499. And at first you want to get a little defensive, saying that's not going to work. But it's what the customer wanted and they had a more mature audience. That was in a fluent area. And so we meet as a team and we say this is the team that's assigned to the account and we're going to find a solution to win. And so to be able to have that mindset that, no matter what campaign is given to, you find a solution to be able to not only deliver the world-class experience but drive success with that campaign as well.
Speaker 1: 32:13
Yeah, driving success. You know again, I know I've said this a million times, people are going to be tired of listening to it, but it all comes back to those expectations. It all comes back to expectations. And so you know, a little like as we're getting towards the end here of our conversation, you know, one of the things I always like to remind everybody is Limit Seed recommends three strategies of a good layered approach to marketing. One of them is memorable, with your brand. The second one is be discoverable, with call to action. And the third one is be fosterableable, making sure that you are fostering your existing client relationships. And so you know, when you have those three things that are all pumping together, it really has exponential success.
Speaker 1: 32:56
I mean so, like I just want to remind listeners, you know, don't underestimate the power of a strategy behind your outbounding team and get creative. And like that $4.99, like, what are you afraid of, sir? Like, this is what I want to say. So what are you afraid of? Because right now you have very little calls on the board. So, yes, it's going to cost you money to roll the truck. So, are your team? Is your team trained or is your team not trained? You've got to have the operational piece of the puzzle so that we can get leads booked, but you've got to be able to get them done correctly and flip them over into true revenue generating opportunities. And so a lot of contractors I say are lazy on the side of like we really just want to pay somebody to generate new customer acquisition for us all the time. It's just not reality.
Speaker 1: 33:42
You've got to have this threefold approach to how you're building long-term success and this outbound strategy of using a company that understands the importance of a customer journey, the importance of the interaction, the gratitude, the empathy all of the words that were said on today's call and then, along with having the expectation and the I'm going to use the word auditing of how things are going for you is really imperative and a missing piece.
Speaker 1: 34:10
So it is. Of course your services are not free. You're going to pay for them, but I bet you anything most of you if you really look back at the overall ROI on your investment with an outsource team like Elite Call, you will see it relieves the burden of your existing team. It also is smoother and quicker, because this is what you guys do right, like trust the experts. We don't do 50 things. We're not trying to be an expert at a lot of things. We're an expert at one good thing, and it's outbound dialing. So, or what you guys deem as like your solid pieces, and so you know, we've learned that a strong foundation in sales, innovative strategy and the dedication to customer satisfaction are really what you guys are made from Right.
Speaker 1: 34:58
Crystal, you're great, that was great.
Speaker 3: 35:02
With what you said as well, and to all you contractors out there if you need help and CSRs aren't very fond of outbound we'd love to play a role In your leadership team. Though, if you're going to be committed to building that inbound team that's going to be complementing outbound, we'd love to help. I got a robust team here, from coaches to quality assurance. Even if it's a phone call, we'd love to help. Crystal, you're going to give our information out after this, but even if it's a quick 20, 30 minute phone call, we're here for you. So anything that we can do, don't be shy or reach out.
Speaker 1: 35:35
Well, so jump into this really quick. Let me give you all a second. And Travis, any of you, travis, jack, leslie, any of you, could take this. But give us just a quick little. Like what does it look like to work with a leap call? Like like if I were to hit the ground running, like what is the process? Do I? Do I do an onboarding call? Like how do I know pricing? And then how do I even reach out to you guys?
Speaker 3: 35:56
Like is there a free consultation? What does that look like? And this, uh and that piece. But just know this that um, the opportunity to get creative. If you go back, Crystal, three years ago, 90% of our clients were just shoulder season. That was the norm. If you look at today's audience, 90% of my clients are year-round. It complements a lot of the stuff that you taught on today, Crystal, about getting creative based on what your current needs are. If it's to keep capacity boards full, that's easy. You need sales, you need to boost memberships, you have someone that you just acquired and you've got to get that introductory call out. All the above. I'm going to let Travis, I'm going to let you hit the piece about how to reach out to us and how all that works. But, Crystal, great question. Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2: 36:37
Yeah, so you can get an inquiry on wwwelitecallnet. That'll get over to our team. One of our sales guys will reach out to you. Again what Jack said we'll figure out what your needs are, kind of where that slow gap is within your scheduling boards, and we'll do an onboarding call with Leslie and we'll get this kicked off.
Speaker 3: 36:58
And it's not only outbound, Christo. We do partner with companies like Chirp. You know, after we're done with those initial calls, we'll use SMS technology for the people that we don't reach. But we can talk more about that whenever you call in. But anytime, reach out 24-7 and someone will get back to you.
Speaker 1: 37:15
Yeah, I love the collaboration there. Like I'm telling you, it's all about thinking through the complete customer journey.
Speaker 2: 37:22
Yep, really is, and a big piece. We don't want all the pressure to be on you, right Like the contractor themselves. We're the experts in what we do. We know what works, so you don't have to come to us and be overwhelmed with trying to figure out what campaigns to do this and that we're going to help you with that. So just reach out and we'll exceed all your expectations.
Speaker 3: 37:44
And it's deeper than that. So just reach out and we'll exceed all your expectations, and it's deeper than that. One more thing, chris those CSRs, they're really good at inbound. They're really good at talking to members. They don't necessarily like talking to non-members, they're not necessarily driven to do outbound cold telemarketing. It's what we do and so when we can complement the talents and gifts of those current CSRs and play that on the outbound side to non-members, it's such a winning combination and we'd love to be part of it.
Speaker 1: 38:11
Wonderful, Wonderful. We just love it. So, Leslie, any last words from you like lasting impressions you want to leave with our listeners.
Speaker 4: 38:22
So I mean, when running campaigns with us, often what I hear is you know, like, how do we know this is working? Are you going to communicate with us? You know our last experience with a different call center. You know they let it fail. They did the things that they shouldn't have. We always hear those things and I do want to reassure that, like running a campaign, we want it to be as successful as you want it to be Right. We want to build a long, lasting relationship with you, which is why we're going to communicate every single piece that happens throughout your campaign. We're going to communicate the feedback. If we need to make those adjustments with your campaign, we're going to do those as we continue. But that's what I do want to just guarantee right, right from the get go.
Speaker 3: 39:00
And you do a great job Her team does such a phenomenal job, krista, at that communication. We and you do a great job Her team does such a phenomenal job, krista, at that communication. We do input in all the different CRMs. So, whether it's ServiceTitan or anything else, we'll work directly in their platform and Leslie has a robust team behind her to help them with that piece as well.
Speaker 4: 39:15
Reporting. We'll set up metrics in whichever CRM that you are working off of, so that you're able to track a lead call's performance. We'll make sure to report, of course, back to you what we're performing on our end, but we'll make sure you know where your ROI stands within your own CRM.
Speaker 1: 39:30
I love it, I love it, I love it. Okay, guys, well, any other last thoughts, because I think that was wonderful. I think you guys did a great job, it was incredible.
Speaker 3: 39:40
I think, the opportunity that we get to partner with like-minded people and that we get to do this journey together. And, at the end of the day, it's about helping people and so, whether we're helping their customers or we're helping their team grow and meet all the different milestones that they're thriving for, it's an adventure and there's so much ample opportunity for everyone out there, and let's get in the game and do it.
Speaker 1: 40:01
Let's do it and guys start thinking about first call centers. Like, let's really move the needle for you guys heading into summer, so don't keep waiting. Well, guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode of from the yellow chair. If you enjoyed this episode, consider writing us a review, giving us a follow. Um, sharing our podcast with others is our biggest compliment. We appreciate that so much. Thanks for sipping some lemonade with me today. We will see you.
