Call Center Magazine: When most people think of outbound, they think of telemarketing, that is, agents calling people up to try to sell them stuff. Lately, we've heard that there's much more potential for outbound, especially in the areas of customer loyalty, service, reminders, and call backs. Is this a real trend? Is there real traction in these uses?

Randy Jessee, director product management, Five9: Yes, there is definitely a movement toward going beyond telemarketing. It is interesting that most of the activity is still sales oriented, but in a more customer friendly way. By way of example, auto dealerships now call their customers when they need an oil change. Is this a service to help the customer? Certainly. Does it lead to more revenue for the dealership, and make it more likely the customer will do the oil change at their center? Yes again.

I think telemarketing is making the same shift that web sites did 5 years ago. When the web first went commercial, everyone put up a website that said “here’s what I sell”. Now, marketers have gotten smart, and put up something useful for the consumer to draw them to the site, and then allow the consumer to discover the benefits of their product at the same time. Telemarketing is making the same adjustment. By calling with something of value, they can get the customer on their side, rather than just getting another “don’t bother me at dinner” response.

Call Center: It's been almost three years since the federal "Do Not Call" legislation. Some say that the list merely weeded out the citizens who were unreceptive to telemarketing pitches anyway. Is telemarketing still viable?

Jessee: It has to be, or they wouldn’t do it. That sounds a bit flippant, but it is true. Five9 is not a cheap service compared to a bare phone line, but we have people flocking to us in droves because it pays to dial. One real example is mortgage. Today, you have to call about 150 people to get a refinance (if you have a good list). With a dialer, an agent can do 2-5 loan applications a day, vs. 1-2 by hand. If they get one extra loan application a month they pay for their Five9 usage. The returns are ridiculously good. As the market for refinances goes down (because interest rates are going up), they see this becoming more and more critical to their business.

Your other point about the DNC list is also proving very true. Today, we see much of the dialing going to rural areas. We can interpolate this to mean that telemarketers find that people who don’t have easy access to retail stores are receptive to buying over the phone. Again, it goes back to the point of providing value. If you can save a guy out in Herndon, Nevada a two hour trip to the Apple store, he is probably a happy consumer. Much of this market is turning to the web, but there is still a huge percentage that finds the phone a convenient way to shop.

Call Center: What trends do you see in dialing?

Jessee: There are two related shifts that we have seen. First is the reduction in the size of call centers. Second is offshoring, and now a backlash against offshoring. Both of these shifts are enabled by VoIP. Because the switch can reside in one location, and the agents can be anywhere with an internet connection, businesses have realized they can have smaller teams of users, tap into the best talent available, regardless of their geographic locations. We saw the shift to offshore for cost reasons, and now we see a shift back to U.S. with 'home-shoring' where the agents work out of their homes as telecommuters. This is working out very well, since the business does not incur real estate costs, agents are more loyal, the accent problem goes away. Because of technology like Five9 and other IP based switches, this is no more expensive than putting in a big Avaya type switch in a large call center (in fact, many analysts are saying it is much cheaper when all costs are factored in).