nolaydowns

SAE

Starting a Business

Hey Killers, I'm looking for some advice...

I'm in the process of starting a physical call-centre type business useful for outsourcing customer service departments, and other things like running entry-level campaigns for companies etc.

For anyone who has experience in an entry-level call centre environment, I'd like to know a few things:

-What is the best CRM for this type of work?

-What industry should I target initially?

If anyone with experience in this has any other advice, please don't hesitate to write or inbox !!

🦄 Entrepreneurship

🔎 Prospecting

🔥 Revenue

41 comment

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braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Figure this out before you sign the lease!

RandyLahey

Politicker

Account Executive

I think for SMBs like yours, I would always recommend HubSpot. Smoother onboarding and significantly less costly.

Good luck,

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

You sound like @poweredbycaffeine ☕

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

+1 for HubSpot

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Thanks for the suggestion. Does hubspot work as an autodialler too?

RandyLahey

Politicker

Account Executive

Not that I’m aware of…but it should integrate well with things like aircall, or others…

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

Best of luck! I would try to speak with as many people that fit your intended ICP so that you can learn about the issues they face before figuring out product. Don't want to get too ahead of yourself with a product, as that typically leads to poor PMF

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Zendesk Sell is a really good, cost-effective solution for a high volume call center. Dialer built in. Decent VOIP. Intuitive. Scalable. I really liked it.

As for the other question? How can you start a business without knowing who to target. Might want to slow your role till you've got this part wired. Cart currently in front of horse.

Good luck!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

What, you haven’t heard of a push cart?

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Well, actually, that's how they get me around the grocery store. So, yeah.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I thought for sure you’d be one of those motorized scooter dudes. Shows what I know.

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

20 more pounds - I'm a lock

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Did you earn the Traeger yet? Because that's one way to get there in a War Room-approved fashion.

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Still grinding... but i'm all over it.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

I’ll look into Zendesk. You’re assuming there’s no target in mind? lol Lead Gen, appointment setting are going to be the start, but it wouldn’t hurt for an old man to give a suggestion 😆

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Don’t know why everyone thinks I’m an old man, not a woman. Must be the beard

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Where are you located?

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Toronto Canada

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Does the market need a physical call center?

Have you built one?

Without clients, how will you decide how to scale your team?

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Yes a physical call centre with native English speakers is necessary for many businesses. Once you go digital, you’re competing with India and the Philippines. So digital is a no go for me because it’s too suspiciously outsourced. Potential valuable clients will also like to visit the office and see the call environment etc.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

You must plan to pay your employees a high and livable wage, which means you also must expect to charge your clients a considerably higher rate for your services as compared to outsourced or nearshore competitors. Have you validated that there are enough companies that will find value in your product?

If you don’t have 3-5 prospects already showing interest, how are you certain there is a need? Second, why are you the right person to create such a business?

Oh, and are you offering customer service or is this outsourced BDR work? If the latter, tons of them already exist across the US and they are all bad in their own ways.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Have you ran a call centre before? I have had brief convos with people who operate this business model. Don’t take this hard, but your comment is not a useful reply.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I managed a team of 6 people in a call center that worked on my company’s behalf. I spent a ton of money with them and evaluated 8 different providers. I’ve got tons of context and I’m testing your idea because it’s worked well in some applications, but needed the right ICP.

If you don’t want to play the game, fine. HubSpot is the right CRM, RingCentral or Aircall for dialers with proper integrations.

Best of luck.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

-1

SAE

I get it, you think I’m trying to create a side hustle here but no, it won’t be. Managing a team employed by another company means they’re more like yes men to you than employees. There are lots of outsource BDR companies that get the cake, situations where no one loses (ideal) - Such as on retargeting previous customer bases.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I never mentioned it as a side hustle, but I think your reluctance to engage in this discussion in an anonymous forum shows me you aren’t confident in your own idea. I’m not even located in the same country so I’m not remotely a competitors stealing your idea.

Go do it. Crush it. Or fail. Either way I don’t think you want help.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

I didn’t mean to come off rude my man, but thanks for trying to assist here. For real 🫡

Cordray

Opinionated

Account Executive

So I work in CCaaS. Hubspot or Zoho are good starting points, but they don’t scale well. Integrations can be iffy, but good starting point if you need a CRM.

More likely though, once you get a client, they’ll want you to send them info or use their CRM, so you may not need anything robust. Id focus on finding a niche in the BPO space. I’ve seen ones for general appointment setting, HVAC, lending and pretty much anything you can think of. The goal should be to find a single industry or it will get too complicated for agents. Also, target B2C, because that’s where the volume is.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Ouuuuf great response- Thanks! Yeah I’m going with hubspot. It was mentioned too many times to ignore. General appointment setting and remarketing services is my main starting focus, that would be B2C.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I know Utility companies are always looking to reduce the cost per call into their CS Dept. That's one area.

Hubspot would be worth looking at for CRM.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Sweet thanks for the suggestion!

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

President/CRO

Worked as an agent in a call center back in the day (how I paid for college). We sold telco services for one of the big guys B2C. We also had a customer service team on site for that same company. There are specific CRM's for this sort of setup and volume that also link to your dialer.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Awesome. Looking to do the same 🤟🏽

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

You would need more than 1 tool for sure. I have heard about Zoho and Hubspot being cost effective. Do you already have clients? I would run this same question by them to see if they have any preference.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

I don’t have clients yet, but that won’t be a problem to acquire. I would need to have some things in place before speaking with a client. Hubspot is so much more popular here I don’t know why.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

because of simple UI so ofcourse less learning curve + affordable :)

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Would prefer Zoho CRM.
To me, it's either Telecommunication or Food Industry as a start!

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

Telecommunications such as selling phone plans for service providers? What do you mean by food industry?

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Yup.
Taking Food orders by your reps for delivery on a hotline no. just like for MAC or KFC or any other Restaurants Chain.

nolaydowns

Good Citizen

SAE

I get it, and yeah, I’ve already created a list of 200+ restaurants to cold call. Majority of em are pizza shops. Thanks Max, you’re a gem 💎

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

🙏🌹

AnchorPoint

Politicker

-1

Business Coach

Umm... sounds like you still have a LOT of research to do!

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nolaydowns

Starting a Business

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