When the hassle of managing phone calls for an inside sales team becomes severe enough, independent sales organizations and other businesses often seek the help of a third party.
One such company, Dallas-based VanillaSoft Inc., has been providing software that manages databases and outbound calling since 2005 and has been working with ISOs since 2008, says Ken Murray, company president.
Most larger ISOs use call centers for telemarketing, especially for contact with smaller merchants, says analyst Eric Grover, a principal at Minden, Nev.-based Intrepid Ventures.
“It’s a demand product,” Murray says of VanillaSoft’s offerings. “Customers have to reach a point where they are saying, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’”
The product works for companies that use inside salespeople only for prospecting and for those that conduct the entire sales process over the phone, Murray says.
For example, if an inside salesperson makes a call that generates a lead, the software sets up an appointment for an outside salesperson. If the outside salesperson makes the sale, he uses a smartphone, laptop or tablet to notify the departments that handle the details of shipping a terminal and keeping records, Murray says
“It ties everyone together with a 360-degree view of the enterprise,” he says.
The company uses business logic to predict a call’s effectiveness, providing businesses a 20% boost over random calling, Murray says. That feature, combined with automatic dialing, can increase productivity by 30% to 50%, he says.
The system gives higher priority to better leads, Murray says. For example, a potential customer who visits the user’s website moves almost immediately to the top of the queue of prospects. That way, the call center often contacts the potential customers while they are still perusing the site.
Companies have been cutting back on outside-sales activity during tough economic times and have turned to third-party firms to help manage inside sales, Murray says, noting VanillaSoft’s revenues have grown by 60% since the economic downturn.
In response to the meltdown, the company has introduced two lower-priced versions of its initial product.
One of the new products, VanillaSoft Lite, manages a single project database of up to 10,000 contacts. It comes with a management dashboard, email templates, up to 10 custom fields and sales scripts. The product costs $25 a month per user or $16 per month per user with annual billing, according to the company website.
VanillaSoft Lite Plus, another new product, offers the same features as Lite but adds automatic dialing. It costs $40 per month for each user, or $25 per month for each user if billed annually.
The original product’s big advantage comes with capacity to handle multiple projects simultaneously, Murray says. The cost comes to $65 per user per month, but custom quotes are available, the website says.
Some ISOs use the products, but VanillaSoft has not tapped ISOs and agents to introduce its wares to merchants. However, Murray says he is open to having ISOs offer the service.
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
