TELUS Streamlines Sales Processes and Improves Marketing Efficiency with the Help of eCoast. Download PDF

TELUS is a Canadian-based telecommunications company that offers a wide range of communications and networking products and services to businesses throughout North America. Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia, TELUS has nearly 12 million customers and is known around the world for their charitable donations and philanthropic efforts.

Challenge

Although TELUS was successfully executing all current marketing initiatives, the company was looking to streamline marketing and sales programs by implementing a unified contact strategy and a marketing automation platform. As of September, 2009, TELUS was executing eight marketing and sales campaigns segregated into four vertical and four horizontal markets.

“These eight campaigns were doing well, but at the end of the day, everyone was doing their own marketing initiatives,” said Glenn Peters, Senior Marketing Manager at TELUS. “There was a lot of costly duplication. We really needed to streamline and track our efforts.”

Although the processes were the company’s primary concern, TELUS was also planning to implement benchmarking strategies and performance metrics that would allow the company to more closely monitor and evaluate their marketing activities.

Selection Criteria

In looking to streamline their contact strategy and sales processes, TELUS was seeking an outside sales vendor that had
the ideal combination of organization, experience, communication, and flexibility.

“We needed a vendor that understood TELUS inside and out and could handle our frequently changing processes and rigorous company goals,” said Peters.

In September, 2009, RFIs (formal Requests for Information) were sent to 30 different vendors, and within three months, TELUS had narrowed their search down to two candidates. To determine who would ultimately win the deal, the two vendors competed in a head-to-head bake off, dividing the contact list and executing identical pilot programs. Once the bake off was complete, TELUS chose to work with eCoast, a New England-based telemarketing vendor that deals exclusively with clients in the technology industry.

“In the end, it all came down to cost, project management, and the customer experience,” said Peters. “We are very protective of our brand, and we wanted to ensure that whoever was calling on behalf of TELUS had great co-marketing efforts and met the standards we wanted to portray to our clients. eCoast exceeded our expectations.”

Solution

eCoast provided TELUS with a customized lead generation program and a standardized contact strategy that was aimed to unify processes and remove duplicate prospecting efforts.

The calling was executed by a team of 15-25 highly trained sales representatives, and was priced based on list size, rather than hours worked, thus guaranteeing quantitative and measurable program results.

Outbound calling was conducted in accordance with three key objectives: to obtain marketing qualified leads, to obtain email opt-ins, and to capture the marketing intelligence data points needed for lead nurturing purposes. Records were touched a maximum of three times, and all information was entered into a centralized marketing automation program.

The team at eCoast was responsible for ongoing management of the eight TELUS campaigns, and regularly provided Peters and his colleagues with detailed reports and ongoing campaign feedback.

Results

The eCoast lead generation program exceeded TELUS’ expectations and left TELUS with a more streamlined and efficient lead generation/lead tracking system.

“eCoast exceeded our expectations, not just in actual campaign results, but in the areas of campaign management, support, and analysis as well,” said Peters. “They took a very collaborative and proactive approach to program management, worked hard to identify trends, and provided ongoing recommendations for continuous improvement.”

Calling Results
eCoast was successful in meeting the goals set by TELUS for all outbound calling initiatives. Prior to the campaign launch, eCoast was expected to capture 20% of missing data and prospect information, achieve a 7% email opt-in ratio, and generate marketing qualified leads from 3% of the calling list. eCoast exceeded goals set by TELUS with a 23% data capture, 11% email opt-in rate, and converted 3% of the calling list into qualified leads.

Improved Efficiency
eCoast worked closely with TELUS to reorganize and streamline sales processes, and utilize their marketing automation platform.

“Before working with eCoast, each campaign delivered an entirely different end-user experience,” said Peters. “We wanted to ensure that all eight marketing teams were using the same tools and providing the same end-user customer experience.” Now, after implementing the contact strategy and linking activities to the marketing automation platform, the TELUS sales teams can actively track which records have been touched and gauge how “sales-ready” a prospect is.

With the automated lead nurturing platform, TELUS has the ability to move a prospect through the funnel at a more efficient pace. With the help of a custom lead-scoring strategy, prospects are categorized into different nurturing flows based on the information the eCoast calling team gathers. These categories then dictate the manner in which TELUS furthers communication with potential customers.

Responsiveness
“eCoast is great in that they are very adaptive and work with us as our processes change. They were accommodating and very flexible,” said Peters. With each individual program launch, eCoast conducted a debrief session with TELUS, bringing in the eCoast outbound calling and quality control teams to discuss all upcoming initiatives.

Peters was very pleased with the analysis eCoast provided in addition to traditional reporting. “eCoast was always thinking proactively, and regularly took the time to identify trends and provide recommendations for improvement. And if something wasn’t going right or needed some reworking, eCoast would call us right away, giving us the chance to react sooner rather than later,” said Peters.

Future Plans

TELUS was impressed with the results of the ongoing lead generation initiatives from eCoast, and has seen great improvements in their outbound calling and marketing processes. eCoast continues to act as TELUS’ vendor of choice for outbound lead generation efforts, and is working closely with Peters and his team to further improve their sales process.