What are live transfers?

Live Transfers are when a marketing company takes on the responsibility for identifying leads that can be legally contacted by telephone, getting those leads on the phone, qualifying them as being interested and qualified for a particular service before connecting the prospect with the client’s salespeople.  This process starts with an online opt-in form or co-registration where the consumer indicates they are interested and gives companies permission to call them about a particular type of service; this is what identifies them as a lead.   

​The organization doing the initial contact will then get the prospect on the phone and conduct a brief qualification designed to make sure they are a valid prospect.   If the lead is qualified and interested in talking to a salesperson at the time, the call will be become a live transfer meaning that the call with the live prospect is then transferred immediately and introduced to the waiting salesperson.  

Why use live transfers?

​Live transfers allow companies to outsource the burden of lead generation, getting prospects on the phone and the initial qualification.  This allows businesses to focus their efforts on recruiting and training their callers and/or agents.  Warm transferring a caller allows those agents to spend their valuable time talking to people who are interested instead of spending time trying to reach people on the phone, then finding out if they are interested, and then finding out if they are qualified before the real substance of the call can begin.  This can dramatically improve the productivity of the agents, so far fewer agents are needed to make a given number of sales.  

How do live transfers work?

The warm transfer phone calls come to the agents after the initial screening and qualification process.  The agent’s phone will ring and when the agent answers the phone, the screening call center introduces the person they are transferring, and the agent takes the call from there.  This is the process for a warm transfer, when cold transferring a call, there is no introduction, the agent just starts immediately by introducing themselves. 

​For both a warm and cold transfer, if the call lasts more than two minutes, then the client is charged a fixed amount per call.  This gives the agent a chance to verify the person is actually interested, as a small percentage of the people will go through the entire screening process and not actually be interested, due to boredom, etc.  In general, if the choice is between a warm and cold transfer, the warm transfers will typically have better results, cold transferring a call puts a little more pressure on the agent to perform immediately when the call begins.

How do I know if it is a good idea to use live transfers?

Fortunately, you don’t have to be overly concerned about the return on the investment, for most types of warm and cold transfer projects, while there are exceptions, the cost per acquisition of a new client tends to be one hundred dollars or less which often makes live transfers not just easier but also more cost effective than other marketing options.  The process is proven over tens of thousands of calls, and your callers and offer can be tested with as few as 50 warm transfer meaning that this isn’t a huge risk to take.

There are a few questions to ask your marketing partner before getting live transfers:

• How many warm or cold transfers can you produce per day?
• What steps do you take to protect me from TCPA lawsuits?
• How are the prospects qualified before you send them to me?
• How long is the buffer on the call before I have to pay for it?

And to be fair, there are a few questions to ask yourself before you ask the marketing partner to start warm transferring a caller: 

• Can you consistently staff at least ten agents?   Depending on your industry, a sale may take up to an hour, and a reasonable expectation would be that you would be able to handle at least 100 warm transfer phone calls per weekday. 
• Are your callers/agents adequately trained?
• Is your offer acceptable for a large enough percentage of the qualified prospects, compared to your competition?

What industries are successful with live transfers?

Industries that are successful with live transfers are selling to consumers not businesses, some warm transfer examples are:

• ACA health insurance
• Unsubsidized health insurance
• Medicare
• Final Expense
• DME or Durable Medical Equipment
• Mortgage refinancing
• Debt settlement
• Payday loans
• Home  security
• And other consumer services so just ask if you don’t see your industry listed.