Leads > Leads > My Follow Up Leads
Outbound Calling, when effectively managed, results in Outbound sales that may have previously been lost or not pursued prior to your Revinate partnership. Agents should make all outbound calls directly from a Lead form so that this activity and any booked revenue can be calculated and recorded in your lead and conversion metrics.
Before Making an Outbound Call
1. Before making an Outbound Call, the Agent should:
- Make sure their Agent Status is set to “Project”. This prevents a call being auto-delivered.
- The caller did not book already with another agent or book online.
- Make sure the property is still available. If it is not available then find alternatives. If an exact property was not identified then find one or two properties based on the caller’s needs.
- Give the caller “value” by researching events going on during their stay or information regarding their reason for stay. For example, if they are coming for a wine festival, you may tell them about a special wine dinner going on at the same time.
How to Make an Outbound Call
2. To make an outbound call from a NEW lead form you must first click “Save and Edit” to save the lead and activate the outbound calling feature on the lead form. To make an outbound call from an existing lead in the Reservation Sales Suite, select Leads> Leads> My Follow Up Leads. Open the lead form by clicking on the View/Edit Lead icon as shown below:
3. Once the Lead form is open, you will notice green telephone icons situated to the right of each of the phone numbers associated with this lead. To place an outbound call, simply click on the green phone icon next to the phone number you would like to call, as shown below. This action will activate an outbound call from HUB that will be visible in HUB as an Outbound call.
4. The phone call will then appear on your HUB. The phone will then ring at your desk. Answer it and you will hear, “One moment please.” Our system will then attempt to call the phone number you are trying to reach.
5. At the end of the call, the Call Result screen will appear. Just as you would with an inbound call, select the correct Call Result for that call. Since you are most likely to be calling from a lead in Follow Up status, you will be selecting a lead call result of Booked, Hot Lead or Not Booked. If you leave a message, select the call result “Outbound Calling – No Answer or Left Message.” Set a reminder for Follow Up and make appropriate notes as needed. Once you have clicked on a green phone to make an outbound call, the phones disappears. If the call should drop, or you need to call the customer back right away, you will need to first click “Save and Edit” to refresh the Outbound Calling function. Once the phones are green again, the Outbound Calling function is ready for use.
Outbound Follow Up and Lead Management
6. Every time you attempt to Follow Up with a potential guest you will want to add notes to the Lead form detailing your next Follow Up steps. Add your notes in the New Note section (see below) after each call. Provide as much detail about the call as you can to assist you as you “work” your lead. Great notes will also assist a colleague should they intercept a call from this potential guest, and provide your manager important data as they review and access your Follow Up skills and strategies.
7. Click Save and Close when you are finished.
8.Once you have finished adding your notes, select the appropriate Lead Status. In the example above, we would save this lead with a lead status of Follow Up and a Call Result of Hot Lead.
9. You should continue your follow up efforts based on your conversation with the caller until the lead is either Booked or Not Booked. When potential guests do not respond to Follow Up calls and emails, follow your manager’s guidelines as to how many outbound attempts to make.
Generally, it is recommended that after a Follow Up phone call and email is sent, a reminder should be set on the lead for another Follow Up within 48 hours. Before the next attempt is made, agents should first check their Property Management System to see if that lead customer booked online or with another agent. If not, the lead should receive one more outbound attempt in the form of a brief phone call and email, and then be marked as Not Booked. If you do not hear back from a lead, choose the Not Booked Reason that makes the most sense given your previous notes and what you recall from the conversation. If the caller contacts you again prior to the original Dates of Stay noted on the lead form, all your original notes will be accessible to help you book.
Adjusting the Lead Status
If you reach the customer and receive new information about the customer’s booking timeline, you may need to change your lead status. If the next Follow Up is going to occur within 4 days (may differ depending upon your account configuration), keep the lead in a Follow Up status. If the next contact requested by the customer is more than 4 days away, choose the In Process lead status. Use the Reminder tools within the ELM to set another reminder and note your “next-step action plan” in your notes. Once complete, click Save and you are done.
If an Outbound Call results in a booking, the Booked lead status is selected. If your Property Management System has an Interface with Revinate, the only remaining steps are to enter the Reservation Number, choose your Reason for Stay, and complete the email field by filling in an email, or checking DNA or RTG before saving. The interface will automatically fill in any additional data directly from your Property Management System once you save the lead form.
If you do not have an interface, in addition to the fields noted above, you must also enter the base amount of the reservation – that’s total cost for all reservations minus any taxes or fees. If any additional check-in notes are needed for the reservation you would add these into your Property Management System, rather than your ELM. Outbound Reporting provides many features and reports that enable you to ensure that your agents are making outbound calls in a timely manner, and review the effectiveness of your overall outbound calling strategy. Please see the below articles for more information:
- Outbound Call Tracking
- Outbound Call Conversion
- Booking Method Report
Summary
Outbound Calling offers the opportunity to tap into a new source of revenue through Outbound sales. For maximum benefits, agents should employ a balanced outbound Follow Up approach that includes both outbound phone calls and email. Revinate Best Practices does not recommend incentivizing specifically on Outbound Call Conversion because the call is not recorded, and therefore there is no way to double-check that the agents are coding the call results correctly. However, setting goals for Outbound Revenue is strongly encouraged. For more ideas about how to incorporate outbound strategies into your incentive plan, please consult with your Customer Success Manager .