# Outbound call center

Running an outbound call center? Looking for an intuitive contact center platform that’s easy to set up? Book a product tour of Dialpad's AI-powered sales outreach platform to see how it can help your outbound team close more deals and book more meetings!

To many people, the phrase “outbound call center” brings to mind rows of desk phones and the chatter of dozens of agents sitting in the same room.

While this image might not be entirely wrong—contact centers can be busy places filled with the buzz of telemarketing agents in conversation—the stereotype doesn’t _quite_ cover the nuances of the different types of outbound call centers that exist today.

For one, contact centers today don’t have to all be in the same room. They can be staffed with fully remote agents working from their home computers or even mobile phones.

Whether you manage an [outbound sales](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/outbound-sales/), telemarketing, or any other outbound team of callers, having the right [call center software](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/contact-center-software/) can be crucial in helping you hit your numbers. Learn more about what to look for below.

## What is an outbound call center?

An outbound call center is essentially a business or department that employs call center agents whose job is to make outgoing calls. Even though most people think this means cold calls to potential customers and lead generation, it also includes things like market research calls and [follow-up calls](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/mastering-the-art-of-the-flawless-follow-up/) to existing customers (for example, to tell them about promos or reminders).

Some contact centers are exclusively outbound-focused call centers, while others handle incoming calls too, and combine both outbound and inbound call center responsibilities like help desk and customer support.

## Outbound contact center vs. inbound contact center

Essentially, "outbound contact center" and "inbound contact center" are different in that the first one focuses on outbound communications (like a sales team making cold calls), while the latter refers to contact centers that receive communications from customers (like a customer support team that takes phone calls and responds to social media messages).

Not all call center solutions are equipped to let agents communicate across different channels, so if you know that you need to communicate with your customers or audience through different avenues, this is something to keep in mind.

Dialpad, for example, has a [power dialer](https://www.dialpad.com/features/power-dialer/) that lets sales reps and agents do high volume outreach / [high velocity sales](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/high-velocity-sales/), and it also [integrates with Outreach](https://www.dialpad.com/app-marketplace/outreach/) to let sales teams plan email + phone sequences:

## A few examples of outbound call centers

Many different types of organizations use outbound call center services for different purposes. Here are a few common examples (that you’ve probably come across).

### Collections

Collections agents are maybe the most notorious type of outbound call center agents. Their job: to call people who owe a company money and, well, get that money.

### Telesales

Telesales is, as the name suggests, the selling of products or services over the phone. Outbound sales teams make calls to prospective customers, usually by cold calling or by working from a list of contacts who may have already indicated an interest in their products or services.

### Telemarketing

While telesales involves selling directly to customers by telephone, telemarketing has a bit of a broader scope. Telemarketers often use phone calls to gauge interest, do market research, and maybe even appointment setting for later sales calls. (Although you could argue this last one is part of telesales. The line can be a bit blurry depending on your business or organizations are set up.)

## The benefits of using outbound call centers for sales

### It gives sales reps more at-bats

For a sales team, using time effectively is essential. That means minimizing time spent on tasks that could be automated. Automated [outbound call center software](https://www.dialpad.com/products/outbound-call-center-software/) and sales engagement tools solves a major problem in this area—namely, having to manually dial customer phone numbers.

While manually dialing a single number once might not take too long, dialing a lot of them over the course of a day or week can really add up. Especially if you're an outbound sales professional, since your whole job is about reaching as many people as possible. Eliminating this manual part of the job can empower these sellers to massively increase their at-bats.

(Pair this with the [voicemail drop](https://www.dialpad.com/features/voicemail-drop/) feature we mentioned earlier, and this can save even more time for sales teams.)

### Less data entry and time spent on low-value work (with integrations)

Data entry and similar tasks are another time-suck for sales professionals. Not only do they take time away from calling leads—the most important part of the job—but they’re also dull and repetitive.

Outbound calling software that [integrates with your existing CRM](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/crm-integration/) can save sales reps a lot of time during the workday. That's because these integrations can do things like automatically create contacts and log calls and activities. Dialpad's sales engagement platform can do this with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, for instance:

As an example, [evident](https://www.dialpad.com/customers/evident/), a business that aims to make legal services more accessible, needed a robust phone system that could help their outbound sales activities and had toll-free inbound calling. Not only that, they needed it to [integrate with their Outreach](https://www.dialpad.com/app-marketplace/outreach/) sales email campaign + engagement platform. They went with Dialpad, which let them make calls right from Outreach’s dashboard with toggling back and forth.

## Key performance indicators (KPIs) for outbound call centers

[Key performance indicators (KPIs)](https://www.dialpad.com/blog/call-center-kpis/) are just the metrics that you use to measure the success of your contact center as a whole, contact center agents, and specific campaigns. Some outbound contact center platforms can even give you insights on customer needs, common objections from prospects, and more. Here are a few ideas for what you can track:

### 1. Cost per acquisition (CPA)

To measure the cost-efficiency of outbound sales and marketing campaigns, contact centers measure cost per acquisition (CPA). In this case, acquisition refers to the acquisition of each new customer, lead, or prospect.

### 2. Lead conversion rate

Leads are people who have been identified as potential customers of your business. Most outbound call centers operate a multistage business development framework consisting of a lead generation and a lead conversion stage. Lead generation is typically the work of telemarketing agents whose job is to compile a list of prospective clients.

### 3. Total revenue

If this is the case for you, keeping track of your contact center’s total revenue is key to making sure it’s offering a good return on investment (ROI).

### 4. List profit-loss

This metric adds detail to basic revenue information by measuring total revenue against outgoing expenses. A positive profit-loss indicates a profitable contact center. A negative profit-loss suggests a contact center that is costing you more money than it brings in.

## 3 outbound call center best practices

### 1. Have clear campaign plans

A good campaign plan defines your campaign's objectives, methods, and KPIs. It should outline who needs to do what and set a timeframe for meeting campaign milestones. And having this plan empowers _all_ of your agents (not just the good ones) to hit their goals.

### 2. Use a good dialer tool

Any good outbound call center software solution should include a [power dialer](https://www.dialpad.com/features/power-dialer/?experiment=3022&variant=original). This is a feature that basically automates the process of making phone calls. Dialpad’s power dialer feature, for example, automatically dials the next phone number on an outreach list as soon as the rep hangs up the previous call.

### 3. Give agents _regular_ training

Whether your organization works in [healthcare](https://www.dialpad.com/industry/healthcare/), financial services, or [real estate](https://www.dialpad.com/industry/real-estate/), you should be providing your agents with training and development—on an ongoing basis. This will help them proactively learn about topics that your leads and prospects will likely be asking them.

## Running an outbound contact center?

If you're managing an outbound contact center or any team that does high-volume outbound communications, having the right technology or tools can help your reps punch above their weight—and more importantly, get way more done in less time (and with less effort).