Photo Courtesy: Josh Dubya, Flickr

At Inktel Direct Corp., we take pride in being our clients’ most valued and trusted business partner through unrivaled service.  Our clients choose us for the unique customer experience we provide them.  Follow the 5 steps below and you too can guarantee your customers an amazing experience!

1. Know your client.

Sure, it sounds basic, but how many companies actually take the time to get to know their clients?  At Inktel Direct, we build relationships with our clients – we dig deep.  Our sales and Client Services teams make it their job get to know our clients past the basics and use that information to customize each client’s experience.  Don’t be afraid to get personal.  Your clients are people too – people with stories.  We find they are more than willing to share a bit of themselves with you if you show genuine interest.  Continue reading...

Glee is definitely one of my favorite TV shows – it’s full of teen angst, song, dance and direct marketing take-aways.  Yes, you read that correctly, the musical, dramatic comedy on FOX can teach direct marketers and their nay-sayers the importance and continued relevance of the direct marketing industry.

1. Bring back the old and make it new

For those of you that are either new to Glee or have never heard of it, the show deals with the repositioning of the old Glee Club into a new musical group and the trials and resistance the members face along the way.  They created something new and relevant that people wanted to join out of an old idea.

Direct marketers need to take the well-established tools and ideas of our industry and reinvent them to fit into modern society.  The original concept behind direct marketing was to directly reach out to customers – that has not changed.  We just need to redefine how we directly communicate and engage customers.  Continue reading...

Source: Flickr, Alex E Proimos

In 2009, the economy shaped the trends that dominated the direct marketing industry.  Many companies found themselves challenged by an unprecedented recession.

People were asked to do more with less.  Companies took a look at their programs – especially marketing programs – in an effort to cut costs.  Customer service and retention became a top priority with a major focus on analyzing ROI.  Take a look at the top trends of 2009 and their impact on the direct marketing industry:

Top 5 Trends of 2009

1. Focus on metrics and ROI

With limited funds and looming threats of budget cuts, many marketing managers depended on marketing campaigns with easily obtainable metrics to showcase the ROI of their campaigns.  Due to the pressure from company executives, marketing managers cut any programs that could not demonstrate a positive ROI in favor of ones that could.  Continue reading...

Our corporate recruiter, Carlos Morgan, wrote a great article this week on how to look for the most common lies applicants put in their resumes.  Not only does he identify the top 5 lies, but he shows you how to avoid falling in those traps saving you from a bad hire.

Head over to his blog, America’s Next Top Recruiter, to read the full article.

As October – Breast Cancer Awareness Month – draws to a close, I am once again reminded how important it is for corporations to give back and serve their community. Breast cancer affects millions of men and women each year. Coming together to show support and fundraising to find a cure brings hope to those affected.

This year, Inktel raised $2000 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation to help find a cure and bring hope to patients, families and survivors. Our Miami location participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K in downtown Miami on Saturday, October 17th. We had over 30 people sign up for the race – each person had a different story of how breast cancer had touched their lives either through family or friends.  Continue reading...

Photo Source: Flickr, Irargrich

Marketers now more than ever are being pressured to provide a definite ROI.  Everyone knows that direct marketing campaigns allow marketers to easily track their ROI.  But, do marketers know how to use the numbers generated by their direct marketing campaigns to actually calculate their ROI?

Today, while browsing my RSS feeds, I came across this article from the 60 Second Marketer Blog explaining how to determine various metrics such as total-cost-per-sale and response rate.  Go play the numbers game!

This afternoon, the United States Postal Service announced it would not increase the price of its market dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals and single-piece parcel in 2010.

This announcement demonstrates the commitment the USPS has to their direct mail partners.  While they are concerned about their dwindling finances, they recognize “the value of mail and encouraging its continued use is essential for jobs, the economy and the future of both the Postal Service and the mailing industry.”

While I’m happy the Postal Service recognizes the importance of direct mail to their bottom line, you have to wonder what strategy they will use to stop their financial bleeding.  If they aren’t going to increase prices, how will they decrease their deficit?

The full announcement is below:

October 15, 2009

DMM Advisory

Pricing — keeping you informed about the prices and mailing standards of the United States Postal Service  Continue reading...

Photo Source: Flickr, Contact Center Compliance

Since 2003, emphasis on contact center compliance has risen. The interest in regulation divided the industry into two distinct factions: one seeking to avoid the expense and fly under the radar to escape detection and the other complying to safeguard their image and client relationships. Professional contact centers have been forced to comply with an increase in regulation or face stiff fines and penalties from the government.

State and federal legislators assigned steep fines to the compliance laws to force call centers into compliance. For example, states prohibiting caller id blocks will enforce fines of $1,000 up to $25, 000 per incident. Craftmatic and its subsidiaries paid $4.4 million to settle sundry FTC telemarketing compliance charges. ADT agreed to pay more than $2 million for allowing non-compliant calls to consumers on the federal Do Not Call (DNC) list.  Continue reading...

Photo Source: Flickr

Most contacts centers provide multilingual customer service, but are they providing multilingual quality assurance? A high-quality customer experience depends on the training and coaching agents receive – if they don’t receive feedback on their foreign-language calls, they can’t be expected to deliver excellent customer service.

In his article “Assure Quality in the Language E-Commerce Customers Speak,” Chris Cole correctly states “the first step in delivering excellence in customer service in any e-commerce environment is to ensure that essential information such as order-tracking, contact numbers and shipping dates are delivered in the customer’s preferred language.” That sounds easy enough in itself – that’s why you hire a multilingual call center in the first place, right?

Being able to take the call and giving a world-class customer experience are two very different things. You need to go beyond just speaking in the customer’s preferred language – you need to assign dedicated QA’s to listen and review foreign-language calls and provide coaching to the multilingual agents for those calls.

Photo Source: Casey Serin, Flickr

Ever wonder why your direct mail campaigns just don’t meet up to your expectations?  If you are like many marketers, you are probably ready to throw in the towel when it comes to direct mail.  You have a hard time justifying direct mail campaigns with so many cheaper options like e-mail marketing that produce a similar ROI for less.

Don’t discredit your direct mail campaigns yet!  Direct mail is still a valuable resource in your marketing arsenal – it’s relatively cheap, easy to test and customizable.  So what’s the problem?  Well, most marketers are just plain doing it wrong.  I see marketers make the same 5 mistakes over and over again:

1. Inefficient Market Research  Continue reading...

This month Inktel Direct celebrates its 12th birthday!

We have been celebrating nationwide with luncheons, raffles and other fun events. Congratulations to the entire Inktel family – we wouldn’t be here without you.

Ricky Arriola, President and CEO, congratulates employees, friends and clients on their 12 year accomplishment.

See photos of our birthday events on our Inktel Direct Facebook Page.

For companies looking to diversify their direct marketing efforts, mobile marketing can provide a targeted and high ROI-yielding solution. Yet, many companies keep pushing mobile marketing into the background for no other reason than fear of the unknown.

Mobile marketing can be very daunting – if you are not using the best practices, you run the risk of upsetting your current and potential customers. The Mobile Marketing Association recently put out their most recent best practices guide that you can use as a baseline in your mobile marketing programs. Below I discuss summarize a few of the key points:

1. Make sure your customers have opted in.

Probably the most important aspect of the success of every mobile marketing campaign! Don’t ever send a customer a message without their permission. Not only is it illegal (CAN-SPAM Act), but most customers have to pay a service fee for receiving a message. If you are sending out unsolicited messages, you will lose those people as customers and will have succeeded in only tarnishing your brand.  Continue reading...

by Randy Johns

When you outsource to a contact center, you expect a combination of cost savings and value-adding expertise in the call center industry. However, you shouldn’t expect (or accept) that the savings comes from poor hiring practices, poor training or poor quality. This is where most call centers fail. The savings should come from efficient management of labor, technology, expertise, facilities, etc across multiple projects.

Most contact centers fill seats as quickly and cheaply as possible – without screening for the appropriate skill sets, behaviors, education, attitude and CULTURE that clients pay for. Many decision makers in outsourcing selections have grown so accustomed to these practices that they have begun to accept them as standard practices.  Continue reading...

While researching current market trends in the B2B industry, I stumbled upon a recurring theme: Companies are turning to outsourcing to ease the stress of the recession. In fact, the B2B outsourcing market is expected to grow 18-20 percent this year.

With so many companies turning to outsourcing, how do you know if it’s right for you?

When you should outsource:

1. Not part of your core competency

An economic recession is the time to take a good look at your business and redefine your focus. Delegate what is not core to your business model. You will have more time to focus and refine what actually creates value and revenue for your business.

2. Some else can do it better  Continue reading...

Trying to find some sort of financial relief, the US Post Office suggests cutting back on its mail delivery days going from a 6 day mail week to a 5 day mail week. After losing over $2.8 billion last year, the post office estimates it will lose up to $6 million or more this year. With rising costs in a recession and dwindling mail volume, Postmaster General John E. Potter doesn’t think a 6 day mail week is economically feasible.

Studies have shown that decreasing mail delivery days from six to five could save the post office between $1.9 billion to $3.5 billion per year. It doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Saturday mail delivery – other days like Tuesday are being considered.

Other options being considered:  Continue reading...
• Relief from $5.8 billion obligation to pre-fund retirement health insurance
• Closing rural and small offices
• Reduce routes

The Direct Marketing Association just released its latest report,
Hispanic Direct Marketing: Techniques and Best Practices. The study provides the most current benchmarking practices for direct marketing methods with expert analysis and in-depth topic including segmentation, channel use, and Spanish-language promotions. I would recommend it to anyone looking to really penetrate the Hispanic market.

If you don’t want to spend the $240 for nonmembers or the $135 for members, Direct of the Chief Marketer network has a great article summarizing some of the more interesting finds.

One of the major keys to cracking the Hispanic market is to segment data based on the number of generations that have lived in the United States to increase the response rate. Ninety-two percent of marketers use non-catalog direct mail. Specifically, 77% of companies tailor non-catalog direct mail messages while almost half use both Spanish and English promotions. Also, 52% of companies use telemarketing services to reach their Hispanic markets.  Continue reading...

The well known battle between domestic and offshore call centers rages on as more companies have started focusing on customer satisfaction instead of just reducing costs. Are they finally starting to “get it?”

While companies can save 50 to 75 percent a year using offshore outsourcing providers, many don’t realize the potential risk to customer satisfaction and to their bottom line. A bad customer service experience may decrease repurchase rates and brand loyalty and dilute the company image leading to missed revenue. Everyone knows it costs less to retain customers than it is to attract new ones. Therefore, companies can’t afford to drop the ball on customer service especially during a recession.  Continue reading...

Recently, Dan Arriola, our Vice President of Sales, wrote a great article for Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Chicago’s December edition about weighing the decision to establish an in-house human resources department or outsource to employment service companies. Below is a copy of his article. You can also find it on the EO Chicago website along with other great articles by various authors.

To HR, or Not to HR?
Dan Arriola
EO Chicago

As entrepreneurs, we are routinely faced with important questions that could impact the inner workings of our businesses. I have found that one, in particular, is common and relevant in today’s competitive business world: Does it pay to invest in a human resources (HR) department?

In my experience, it’s worth it. I have found that investing in an HR department to handle compliance and talent needs helps when it comes time to execute a human capital management strategy. As a service provider, talent is my company’s primary competitive edge, and human capital management is a vital component of our strategy.  Continue reading...

I came across an interesting article, “Go Figure: Unlikely Methods for Direct Marketing Success,” from Direct a few days ago. Apparently, marketers and direct marketers think very differently and live by different rules – direct marketing sometimes just doesn’t make logical sense. Below is a summary of the major differences between marketers and direct marketers from Stevens’ article.

On Monday, December 8th, our Chicago branch celebrated their Annual Holiday Office Party and Bowling Extravaganza. Many families joined the celebration for an almost complete turnout!

After everyone picked names out of hats to determine teams, they had fun bowling and watching fellow Inktel team members get strikes and of course, a lot of gutterballs! Scott Becker and Ruby Castro received trophies for the Best and Worst Bowlers respectively.
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Scott Becker proudly displays his Best Bowler Award

Everyone agreed the highlight of the night – besides seeing Dan Arriola bowl a gutterball – was watching the children open their presents. Santa gave every child present a gift individually selected by him. Seeing their smiling faces as they unwrapped their presents, reminded everyone what the holiday season represents at Inktel: Family, Fun, and Memories that will last forever.