Telemarketer Job Description

Series Summary

Telemarketing is a method of soliciting prospective customers to purchase products or services via the telephone. DialAmerica Marketing, Inc. in the 1950s became the first company to dedicate business to telephone sales, but the term "telemarketing" wasn't used until the late 1970s. Either involving a live operator or a recorded message, many businesses rely on telecommunications to diversify their customer base and increase sales. In this free career video series, a telemarketing manager describes his job from his entry level days to his present managerial position. Learn about the telemarketing and telecommunications field, as well as the telemarketer salary and qualifications. Get tips on becoming a telemarketer, and explore the pros and cons of this career. Through an experienced individual, discover a career as a telemarketer.

Video Transcript

"My name is Travis Caldwell and I am currently an Operations Manager at a Company called Dialogue Marketing, Incorporated where we manage various clients in the telecommunications/telemarketing field ranging from sales to inbound customer service. And as a manager there I have advanced from supervisor and from experience in previous positions and previous employers where I was actually a representative in both outbound and inbound programs. A telemarketer or someone in telecommunications is someone who either calls up individuals or their program if they are trying to sell them something or if they are trying to add on to whatever service they have on currently or it is customer service, basically where the customers call in and ask questions about billing and different things like that such as what is my account status, things like that. So that is what a telemarketer is essentially and what their responsibilities consist of are basically they come, they clock in they make themselves available on their phone and they start taking phone calls. Depending on the program they will either call individuals up and either solicit things from them or do surveys and as they go depending on what the program requires and the scripting, because they'll follow a script, the call will prompt and they'll go through and ask the questions and read the specific verbatim points and then they'll get through a sale. And depending on what their shift is like they'll go through anywhere from 20 calls to over 100 calls a day depending on just how quickly they handle the customers and how quickly they get through the scripting. On the inbound customer service side it will be a different experience in that customers are calling them for assistance and basically they'll answer their questions based on the billing. Is my phone working for example if they are in customer service for a cellular service, they'll trouble shoot and help them get their phone working and that is basically a telemarketer's responsibilities in a nutshell."