So you wanna start a business where calling people is the crux of your existence? Want to get hired where you will be competing for recognition in a call center full of talkers? Here are the metrics you are going to need to adhere to. They are simple. This post isn’t long. If you are making phone calls to business where someone picks up the phone. You should be shooting for at least one minute in connected time. This is the time measured from when the phone starts ringing to the time they say no. I say to the time they say no because you are more likely to hear dozens if not hundreds of no’s before you hear a yes. So even if you make ten phone calls and 9 only last 30 seconds.
You will also have that one connect who gives you an email address and a phone number and a contact name and some information about the business. A call like that can last about four and a half minutes. So at the end of the day, if your time per connect is over one minute you are doing a great job. If you are calling a business with an automated system. Your average call time will be about 3 minutes to make up for the Covid19 announcements. And speaking of, some tricks of the trade when dealing with automated systems go like this.
- Always choose the Spanish option. You will get to a person faster. And guess what? They also speak English.
- Think about the type of business your are calling and use that to come up with a common stereotypical name like Smith or Garcia or White or Rodgers. Now, when the system asks you to enter a name into the directory. Just try one of these last names. Try a few different names and you are likely to get transferred to a real person. They probably aren’t the person you need to talk to, but they just might transfer you or give you the information you are looking for.
So how does that break out over the course of the day? Simple. I say someone is entitled to a 10-minute break for every solid hour of work. Now, the time in between calls is usually spent sending emails or augmenting the CRM. The better you get at typing while you talk and learning how to type in between the times you are trying to learn something from the prospect, the more calls you are able to make per hour. On average in a 50 minute work hour, you should be making 15-20 phone calls.
So, if you are working an 8 hour day. Let’s go with a personal expectation of 120 phone calls to 160 calls. Again, depending on the conversation length these should be your top KPI, some days are better than others. Wednesdays and Thursdays, for example, are the best for outbound phone work.
Your secondary KPI for a phone job is total “talk time”. Talk time is defined as the total connect time your phone system measured for the day. So… If you made 120 phone calls at an average of one minute per call. Then you are looking at 2 hours of phone time. This is not good. This is a minimum and will likely trigger a trip to your bullpen’s manager office. I have worked in places where if you were not getting three and a half hours of daily call time, you were toast. Personally and Professionally.
So there it is. Minimum of 120 calls with 3 hours of call time. Your numbers might fluctuate by industry.