The Outbound Dialing Market Is Expected to Expand

With mandates like the Do Not Call legislation that allow customers to dodge unwelcome telemarketing calls, organizations are paying closer attention to communicating with consumers how and when they want. According to research released today by Frost & Sullivan, however, the outbound dialing market is showing no signs of slowing down. "World Outbound Dialing Markets," which examines industry challenges, market drivers, and restraints (and provides market forecasts and strategic growth recommendations), reports that the market generated $170.8 million in revenue in 2004, and is expected to reach $204.9 million in 2011. Contact center vendors that already have incorporated outbound dialing tools into their product offerings include Avaya, Concerto Software, and Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. The market's significant growth prospects are abroad, says Seema Lall, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "If you look at the North American market it's fairly saturated for contact centers in general and for outbound dialing products," but if you look at other regional markets like Europe and Asia, "those represent major growth opportunities for these products." The main propeller of the sector's growth, according to Lall, is the ability of outbound dialing systems to equip organizations with a way to take a more proactive role in delivering first-rate customer service. Organizations can use outbound dialing systems to provide welcome messages to customers and notify customers on the status of services. For instance, an airline can call customers about flight delays and a utility company can alert customers of power outages. "Essentially, the outbound dialing products will afford a means for providing superb customer care, which becomes a competitive differentiator for the service-oriented culture," she says. Linking outbound dialing products to comprehensive CRM solutions is also helping spur the market's growth, primarily because mass marketing is giving way to personalized and individually targeted messages, Lall says. "Outbound dialing products, when you link them to CRM systems, allows you to do that. You can send out very effectively targeted, personalized messages, whereas if you don't link it to a CRM system you are sending a mass marketing message, which is the same for every customer." Integrating CRM solutions with contact center systems is certainly not new. For example, Echopass in April 2004 announced its hosted call center suite, Telecenter 2.0--a reflection of its partnership with Salesforce.com and Genesys. The partnership furthers Salesforce.com's ability to provide preintegrated workflows and on-screen features to streamline inbound and outbound activities, including placing and answering calls and scheduling callbacks. Additionally, outbound dialing systems can support multiple customer touch points (including email and text messaging); can blend inbound and outbound calls within one customer interaction platform; and can support distributed contact centers. The report maintains these three capacities are boosting deployments. "For the outbound dialing market there's a growing demand for unified solutions...which could lead to declining sales for standalone outbound dialing products in the long run," Lall says. "Vendors need to provide unified solutions that enable blended environments and support multiple interaction channels." Related articles: Is Inbound Calling the Next Legislative Target? Privacy and DNC Regulations Boost Call for Marketing Automation What Are the Issues to Be Aware of When Implementing Proactive Customer Service?