Call centers are just what the doctor ordered for today's economy.

In 1982, we launched this publication as Telemarketing[R] magazine as the first pioneering act to introduce, develop and promote what is now the multi-billion dollar contact center/CRM industry. Back then we called it "the magazine of electronic marketing and. communications." Needless to say that I was ridiculed at first by even mentioning that marketing someday would be done--or should be done--electronically. Today, of course, we know better and we are extremely humbled that our vision was 100% true 27 years ago.

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Along the way, we encountered many problems in the early days of developing this wonderful, job creating and job protecting industry. Among them, the fact that the industry really did not exist at that time and we had great difficulty developing articles about a non-existent industry. As I have mentioned before, our editor of Telemarketing[R] magazine came to me after the second issue and she asked, "are you sure this is an industry?" And I said, "Why?" and she said "I cannot find anything to write about." That's how difficult it was to get the contact center/CRM industry started. But, we had the vision and conviction and I was fully convinced that we were doing the right thing and that this industry someday would become the vital marketing tool globally. And today of course, we are at that point.

One of the things that separates the call center/contact center industry from other industries is that call centers are basically labor intensive businesses. In spite of many technological developments in the industry, the contact center industry has remained labor intensive because all of the technologies are about increasing agent productivity. And with all due respect to the automation for the inbound side of the business, the outbound side is still labor intensive. In spite of the development of technologies like IVR, the fact remains that even today, when it comes to purchasing a significant product or getting full information about hardware or software that one might use, the preferred choice is to have a person-to-person interactive communication, which was one of the early definitions of telemarketing industry. Having said that, even at the present time, the preferred choice, with all due respect to e-mail and IVR, etc., is peop!e-to-people connection.

In spite of the recent economic slowdown, I am happy to share with you that well-managed contact centers are still growing at 20--25% per year. Having said that, it is incredible to even understand that a 27 year old industry continues to grow at such a vigorous pace. And, of course, the 20-25% increase in growth means an equal number of employees added to the call center. And, therefore, one can call a well-managed contact center as a practically automatic job producing and job protecting industry.

Business Needs in a Slowing Economy

Common sense and practical experience tell us that in a normal economy, each company may lose 25-30% of customers annually due to consolidation, companies going out of business, and the like. In a recessionary economy, experience teaches us that a company can lose as much as 50-60% of its customers. Having said that, it becomes vitally important for any company to replace the lost business with new business. In other words, new business is vital to the survival of any company at any time particularly in a slowing economy.

Why Lead Generation is Vital

As I have stated in many of these editorials, all sales begin with sales leads. Accordingly, all new businesses begin with new sales leads. If one can understand that, it becomes abundantly clear that quality sales leads ate the most vital part for survival of any company.

The Digital Evolution Has Changed the Paradigm of Producing Quality Sales Leads

In the old direct mail system of marketing, factors such as demography, psychography and segmentation were the main ingredients of a productive marketing program. However, in today's digital age, this paradigm has changed. In other words, one must develop a new strategy of generating sales leads digitally and figuring out how to develop the demographic, psychographic and segmentation factors. It goes without saying that the traditional direct mail techniques for effective lead generation simply do not apply to today's digital marketing because the nature of the business is 180 degrees different from the traditional direct marketing.

Digital Lead Generation

In traditional direct mail marketing lead generation, one had to select appropriate lists to be rented and then after several testing and spending tons of money, one would come up with a potential mailing list to market to. In all honesty, I have never been in favor of that kind of marketing simply because here at TMC, we hardly even got 1% response from the best lists ever used to generate subscribers for our many publications. I never liked that kind of system because 99% of every marketing piece ended up in the waste basket, which means money down the drain. As a sports fan, I always like to compare business performance with sports performance. Think of it this way, if you have a football coach that lost 99% of his games, how long do you think he would keep his job? I think the answer is obvious, and that is why I didn't like direct mail.

Fortunately, along came telemarketing and eventually, online marketing, I am happy to share with you that TMC has played a vital role in developing both methods. We all know that the development of the telemarketing/contact center industry has been legendary in terms of growth and we always were at the forefront of that industry.

Once again, we are at the forefront of online marketing, namely, that TMC's Web site www.tmcnet.com actually is receiving as many as 3 million unique visitors and 35 million page views per month. As such, TMCnet.com is in a class by itself. No other technology-focused B-to-B Web site even comes close. And, as the leaders and pioneers of contact center/online marketing in B-to-B/technology areas, I continue to believe that the new process of effectively generating sales leads must be done digitally.

A properly strategized digital lead generation strategy combined with the contributions of a teleservices company is the only effective way to generate qualified sales leads, period, end of story.

Lead Generations Golden Triangle 

As Figure 1 indicates, it takes three elements to develop a quality lead generation strategy. The three elements, depicted in the triangle include:

* Digital lead generation;

* An effective call center;

* Teleservices agencies know how

It's fair to say that by leveraging teleservices know-how, and applying it to digital lead generation, companies can achieve high levels of success. Furthermore, if you think about it, there is no shortcut to the above golden triangle formula.

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Contact Centers Play a Vital Role in the Slowing Economy

The old sales philosophy stated that, "nothing happens until somebody sells something." That is where call centers become a uniquely vital ingredient of any sales organization. Even if one produces digital lead generation, you still need a teleservices company's know-how and a call center to qualify the leads. That is how businesses grow--by having new qualified sales leads to generate new business to replace the lost business.

Having said all of that, I think that we have demonstrated that sales leads are created in the most effective way when contact centers and teleservices companies and digital lead generations are combined. However, the fact still remains that while one needs to depend heavily on digital marketing and sales lead generation, by the same token, we still need to heavily depend on the use of contact centers and teleservices companies in order to make everything happen the right way. In that manner, call centers will continue to grow at an unprecedented rate of 20-25% per year which means they are creating 20-25% more jobs on a regular basis. I hope by now we have clearly demonstrated that call centers are not only a main ingredient of lead generation and qualification, but also they are vitally important in job creation and job protection. Furthermore, call centers are just as valuable in keeping customers through CRM and customer satisfaction, customer care and associated technologies.

In plain English, call centers are just what the doctor ordered for today's economy.

As always, 1 welcome your comments. Please e-mail them to me at [e-mail].

Nadji Tehrani, CEO,

Technology Marketing Corp.