Singapore's strategic location on major sea lanes and its industrious population have given the country an economic importance in Southeast Asia. Manufacturing and services have become its twin engines and one of its boosting sectors today is IT. The IT industry has caused Singapore to grow its economy. The growth however was a gradual process because the IT industry seemed to be a consistent game of "one step forward and two-steps backward" before. Firms needed first to overcome two or more barriers before they could finally make a successful one step forward.
Speaking about the barriers, the following were the most noteworthy:
Marketing. In most cases, marketing has become a weaker area especially for the starting and small IT Singaporean firms because they lack the necessary infrastructure to thoroughly study their market and effectively promote their goods and services.
Global competition. This was another very common barrier. This kind of competition was not only from medium and large industries, but also from multinational companies which were giants in terms of their size and business volumes. Opening up of trade resulted in cut throat competition for starting and small IT firms. Also, it was difficult to withstand the quality standards, technological skills, financial creditworthiness, managerial and marketing capabilities of the large industries and multinationals that's why many small IT companies have failed to gain new customers and to keep a strong and loyal client base.
To overcome these barriers, Singaporean IT firms have started to invest money on their market research and customer retention programs. And one of the methods they have employed is telemarketing from call centers.
There were many good reasons why they have been using this as an essential technique. It was one of the most cost-effective advertising strategies as they could choose which of the services is most appropriate for their business. Although there could be several telemarketing services, these services could be summarized into 3- (1) market research (2) inbound telemarketing and (3) outbound telemarketing. They have been using any of the three services to help their companies grow.
Telemarketing has become a time-tested tool for their market research. They've been using it to improve their marketing efforts through product review and customer feedback. The latest integrated technology of the call centers have allowed telemarketing interviewers to handle their market research, from small executive level surveying to mass nationwide customer feedback questioning. They have conducted large-scale market research and covered vast geographical locations from a single base. Through this, they were able to get knowledge about their market and to plan better and more effective marketing campaign for their goods and services.
Inbound telemarketing was then a helpful tool to retain customers. It served as their customer support desk for it answers queries of their clients on the IT products or services that they provide. They took the help of inbound telemarketers to handle the incoming calls or process orders and customer payments over the phone – 24X7, without the need to worry about time differences or language capabilities. Whether it's about dealing with calls that are made after the office hours, a prompt answering or voice mail service, taking credit card orders, seminar registration, dealer locator service, general inquiry service, reaching the reservation desk, and immediate response to print ads or any other form of advertisement, inbound teleservices have lend them a helping hand.
Outbound telemarketing was another tool that they have been using to get ahead of their competitions. The professional telemarketers that call centers provide could call potential clients and explain to them why they would be doing themselves a favor by availing of their IT products and/or services. Their skills have caused high response rate of customers that could mean increased productivity and getting ahead of other competitors. Telemarketers have also been using their appointment setting skills to help arrange a meeting between their sales force and their clients. If it's accurate and up-to-date information they are after, they have developed a quantitative and scientific approach in delivering telephone surveys and interpreting its data. Whatever their outbound telemarketing need is (appointment setting or lead generation) telemarketers could definitely provide them.
Today, Singapore has the ninth-most competitive IT industry in the world - and third in Asia. It became a hub for several reputed IT companies like IBM Singapore Pte Ltd, Web Synergies, Quest Software Singapore Pte Ltd, Datacraft and M.Tech. Thanks to call centers for offering a unique telemarketing business model to deliver high quality sales leads for these IT companies. Also, the range of skill sets, from traditional high volume, lower cost telemarketing through to experienced IT sales people have helped these firms to grow and expand largely.
About the Author:
Maegan Anderson works as a professional consultant. She helps businesses in AU and SG increase their revenue by lead generation and appointment setting services through telemarketing. To know more about this visit: http://www.callbox.com.sg/ |
