What are you trying to prove? The value of a proof of concept

Telemarketing is a channel well known for its ability to generate high-quality, sales-ready leads. Speaking directly to your prospects, understanding their needs, and crafting a tailored, compelling proposition can really accelerate your lead generation efforts.

However, beyond demand generation, a telemarketing programme involving hundreds of one-to-one conversations with customers and prospects is also the perfect opportunity to perform a thorough proof of concept (POC). A POC allows you to test different approaches, validate assumptions, make iterative improvements, and ensure your strategy is robust from the start.

Telemarketing is particularly well suited to this sort of pilot because it enables you to learn quickly and validate your approach in a systematic, transparent way, so you set off on a better track. It is:

• Data-led and highly measurable: giving full transparency of what does and doesn’t work.

• Agile: allowing you to test different approaches and make incremental refinements as your programme matures.

• Highly personal: allowing you to connect with your target audience and hear the true ‘Voice of your Customer.’

• Insightful: capturing up-to-date, accurate customer, market, and competitor intelligence.

• Targetable: enabling you to reach and engage with a well-qualified and defined audience.

• Scalable: allowing you to quickly ramp up once you have validated your approach.

What can you learn from a Proof of Concept?

A proof of concept can address the specific questions each business wants or needs to answer. It can help you test your approach and gather customer feedback and insights as it performs core functions such as lead generation, appointment setting, or full telesales. With a structured calling schedule incorporating key profiling questions it can flush out nuggets of valuable information, probing areas such as:

Your proposition

• Does your proposition address the needs of your target audience?

• Which features/benefits are most/least attractive and why?

• Do your competitors offer additional features that you don’t?

• Are there future customer needs that you can anticipate and address?

Your target audience/market

• Which audience is most receptive to your offer?

• Where are they active – which channels or media?

• What are the key customer personas?

• Where is demand highest and which market segments offer the best opportunity?

Your brand reputation

• How is your brand perceived?

• What values are you associated with?

• How satisfied are your customers?

• How do customers connect emotionally with your brand?

Your message and content

• Is your message clear and fully understood?

• Does it chime with your target audience?

• Does it address the right needs and pain points?

• Is your content easily digestible?

Delivering a proof of concept

An external agency is often better placed to deliver a proof of concept than an internal team, particularly in the case of a large, less agile business.

An agency can flex and experiment with multiple approaches. It has dedicated systems and analytics in place to track and report performance, for example, to gauge response across different segments or provide real-time visibility of results and campaign status. A specialist is also set up to capture valuable insight through call recordings, lead notes and defined call outcomes in a systematic way that makes it meaningful and actionable.

We recommend a proof of concept at the start of every engagement as it allows clients to test, iterate, and launch products quickly and effectively, providing insight to feed strategy and deliver faster growth.

Our clients really value the additional layers of learning a POC brings:

“Their technology and set up including management information and call recording enabled a fast start and good tracking. The pilot quickly proved that the right approach to telemarketing can work for our market with a vastly reduced, time, cost and risk than if we had trialled this ourselves.”

Co-Founder and COO, Exizent

"It’s been excellent working collaboratively with TTMC. Having access to call recordings – especially in the pilot stage – was essential, as it allowed us to adjust the telemarketer’s approach and language.

We were also happy with the CRM tool that TTMC use, meaning we could see the calls happening, read the notes, and listen to the calls themselves, all without suffering hundreds of emails and noise."

Customer Strategy Director, Smartdesc

“I was impressed with the efficiency and flexibility of the TTMC team. We have changed our tactic on several occasions, which they embraced and applied wonderfully. Very approachable and easy to work with. Due to their high productivity, proactiveness and constantly growing knowledge, they have provided us with great results and insights of the market.”

Internal Sales Team Manager, Person Centred Software

“Speed of delivery was rapid and the TTMC dashboard easy to use. Both the quantitative reporting and verbatim feedback has proved invaluable. Finally, the account team were excellent, responsive and keen to find solutions.”

Managing Director, Book Tokens Ltd

Whilst success is often measured by primary objectives such as leads generated, appointments booked, the depth and quality of insight provided by a telemarketing POC can offer value way beyond individual outcomes.