5 steps to a successful outbound campaign

TRACK Pulse
5 Stages to a Successful Outbound Campaign

Guide to Successful Outbound Campaigns
5 Stages to a Successful Outbound
Campaign
1. Setup lead forms
2. Track all campaigns
3. Capture every lead
4. Follow up & close the sale
5. Measure and display
Bonus: Incentives

1. Setup lead forms
Overview:
It is important to properly configure your system from the beginning to capture the information you want in
the form that you want for for effective follow up. Here are the following features of pulse you will want to
configure to fit your business.
Call Results
Custom Fields
Tags
Lead Statuses
Lost Reasons

Call Results
Call Results are the result of what happened on the call. In order to create effective outbound campaigns, you
have to know what happened and the result of every call. It is a non negotiable.
Pro Tip:
One way that Pulse helps you ensure call disposition compliancy is built into the workflow automation. Once
a reservation agent finishes a call, they cannot move on to the next call until all of the required fields in the
lead form are completed.

Example Call Results:
Won - Reservation
Lead - New
Lead - Existing
Lost - No Sale
Transfer
Hang-Up
Group Booking
Travel Agent
Dining
Pro Tip:
Make the call results relevant to your business. Less is
more, but have all of the necessary results that you
would want to report on or segment at a later date.
Owner
Housekeeping
Internet Issues
Modify Reservation
Vendor
Residential Leasing
Activity Based Golf
Activity Based Spa

1. Create a new call result
2. Name of the result
3. Result type
Call results allow you to categorize the result of a call. These
results will be available to agents within call disposition.
Types
● Won - The call resulted in a conversion. Agent will be
prompted for order id and value.
● Lost - The call did not result in a conversion. Agent will be
prompted for reason for loss.
● Lead - Call resulted in a lead, or update to existing lead.
● Non-Lead - Call was not a conversion or a lead. E.g. call
transferred to housekeeping.
3
2
1
Configuration

Custom Fields
Use custom fields to create data capture points within your lead disposition form. These fields will be
available to the agent when completing wrap up after a call.
Pro Tip:
Once a call is completed, the agent is automatically put
into “Wrap Up” mode. On average, this process should
take 20-30 seconds to complete the disposition accurately
and save the lead or call result. In Pulse, after the form is
saved, you can determine how long to give your agent
before they return to an active state.

1. Create a new custom field
2. Add relevant details
Custom field examples
Pro Tip:
Custom fields can help you
capture relevant data about
your customers for future
remarketing and better
customer service.
We recommend setting up several
custom fields, you may have more.

Tags
Tags are quick ways to identify and group characteristics of leads. We call these “Buyer Personas”. When you
apply a quick tag, you are essentially creating categories of your business. You can add and customize tags in
the setup phase.
(tag examples)

Lead Status
Setting the lead status helps to prioritize your call back strategy. Having customized status fields for your
business will allow your agents to quickly filter to the right follow up at the right time to get the most impact
and highest closing %.
Recommended Best Practice Statuses

2. Track every campaign
Overview:
Utilizing TRACK Pulse campaign tools, you
can and should provide a unique 800 or
local tracking number for all of your
marketing and advertising campaigns.
You should also provide a default number
which is placed on your website for calls that
come direct to your reservations team, but
do not get traced back to a campaign.

Create Campaign
Create your campaign by
clicking into the CRM from the
main navigation.
Here you can view, create
and manage your campaigns.

Purchase number
Toll free numbers are $3 / Month
Local numbers are $1 / Month
Pro Tip:
Local tracking numbers are just as
effective and more cost efficient than
toll free numbers.
3 factors to consider:
1. No long distance charges
2. Click to call via mobile
3. International callers need local
numbers

Add number to campaign
Select call plan
Save & publish
This will help you accurately
route the calls and track the campaign
back to the unique number associated

Dynamic Tracking
You can quickly create a dynamic
tracking URL for online campaigns.
When someone visits your website
from a marketing channel, the number
will transfer with the visitor and set a
cookie. This cookie will help track the
visitor if they come back later on the
same device (unless they clear cookies).
For tips and how to Add Tracking to
Google Watch this video:
Adding Call Tracking to Adwords

Capture every lead
Overview:
Each qualified caller inquiring about availability into your reservations department is a booking opportunity.
What’s more, it’s an opportunity for a sale to be made or lost. By providing a disposition and asking for follow
up on each and every qualified inbound inquiry, you are ensuring your business of the opportunity to
maximize your revenues and ROI.

Required Compliance
You can determine which
pieces of information are most
important for your vacation planners
to capture.
Before they are able to move on to the
next call, the agent fills in the required
information and saves the call result.
This leads to accurate data and more
efficient follow up.
(Enterprise customers save on average 47%
of non booked calls as leads)

Script- Capturing the email address
Traveler: “I’m not ready to book yet, I need to speak with the group and get back to you.”
Vacation Planner: “Ok, no problem, that’s totally understandable. What I can do for your convenience is send
you a quick email with a link to our website, the particular home or room type you were interested in, as well as
some of our specials, deals and packages for your stay. Does that work for you? Great, go ahead with your
email address”
Once you’ve captured the address, move to the next phase:

Script - confirming a follow up call
The Availability Follow Up Close:
“Now Mr. Smith, we do typically book up fairly quickly around this time of year. I am seeing we have limited
availability over this time period. I’m going to make a note to provide a courtesy follow up call to you in a few
days. Does that sound good?
The Special Offer:
“Thank you Mr. Smith. It looks like this stay and play package runs through (mention date) I’m going to make a
note to provide a courtesy follow up call to ensure you receive these special discounted rates. Does that sound
good?”
After confirming, finalize the lead form and save the disposition to move on to the next call

4. Follow up and close the sale

Follow up and close the sale
Overview:
Offering to follow up and following up with each qualified lead in a timely fashion increases the likelihood of
closing the sale and making the reservation. Sometimes, it may take 3, 4 or 5 tries to get a hold of a qualified
lead, even one that has requested follow up. Here are a few best practices to follow.
1. Use the agent dashboard and lead stream to filter leads by priority
2. It may take multiple attempts to reach the traveler
3. Be polite and follow a script with context to the opportunity
4. Ask for the business

Unified lead stream
95% of your vacation planners time will be
spent in the agent dashboard working from
the unified lead stream.
In this place, your agents will start by
clicking on “follow up today” then they can
filter their list of leads further with other
options:
Arrival date
Lead status
Est. Lead value
Quality Rating
Open leads
High priority leads

Follow up on time
Click into the lead to view more details.
Within the lead details is a click to call
button. Once your agent clicks on this
button, their phone will ring in a few
seconds. When they pick up the phone, it
will be calling the primary number
associated with the contact.
Timely follow up is important, it increases
your chances of converting the lead into a
reservation. However, not all prospects will
always answer on the first call, which leads
to the next best practice.
click to call
email w/templates

Try again
It may take multiple attempts to reach a
prospective guest. It is ok to try a few
times before closing out the opportunity.
We recommend at least 3-5 attempts
before ceasing communication by phone.
In addition you will be able to use the
email tools within Pulse to follow up with
the prospective guest via Email.
You will be able to run a report to see how
many dials into each lead it takes to get a
sale. This data will help you understand
what works for your business.
130 Room Resort / Hotel Stats (30 days)
81 Outbound Calls
38 Leads
12 Conversions
31.58% Closing Rate
2.13 Calls Per Lead
6.75 Calls Per Conversion

Follow up with context
When following up on a hot lead, you’ll
want your vacation planners to use
context in their call.
Using context can help to personalize the
call back and can increase the likelihood
of converting the lead into a sale.
Things you’ll need to communicate:
- Original reason for their inquiry
- Any notes taken to build value
- Original dates requested
- Any deal or offer if time sensitive
- Availability if it still available or not
- Offer a different accommodation if
not available

Script - follow up call
Lead Follow Up
Intro:
“Hello Mr. Smith, this is Becky with property A, B and C, did I catch you at a bad time? No? Ok great. So I was
looking here and it looks like you were planning on paying us a visits for (say the vacation type (general, family,
wedding, group, etc).
Create Value:
“The weather has been amazing, it’s the perfect time to come for (the vacation type).
“The home you are looking at renting is in an amazing location, you’re really going to love it!”
“These are the best rates of the year, your family is going to have a great time”
Close:
“It looks like the date you were interested in arriving was (say date and number of nights). I can go ahead and
get you the best rate guaranteed by booking direct, would you like me to go ahead and reserve this for you
now?”

Close the sale
Asking for the sale is the most important
part of the follow up. Once you’ve built
value and determined the prospective
guest is still interested, it is critical to ask
to make the reservation.
Ask for the sale “Would you like me to go
ahead and reserve this for you now?”
Or “would you like me to secure these
dates for you? This room / home / condo
is likely to taken soon.”
After you’ve converted the sale into a win or a
loss, update the opportunity in Pulse to
accurately reflect the reservation ID number and
the correct amount.

Measure and display
Overview:
Measuring and displaying performance metrics is the best way to keep your team informed and motivated to
perform at a high level. There are 3 best practices we recommend to keep these performance metrics in front
of your team.
1. Dashboards / Wallboards
2. Weekly team meetings
3. 1 on 1 performance reviews
4. Call Scoring

Dashboards
Display these dashboards on TVs or
monitors in your reservations department.
Your reservation agents can also open
these as separate tabs to keep track and
view their performance vs their team
members.
Treating your team members as sales
people is key. They are in charge of
converting sometimes as much as 50% or
more of your company’s revenue. Give
them good visual data to compete amongst
each other in a healthy competitive
environment.

Weekly team meetings
If people are split into odd shifts or
depending on how many vacation planners
you have, you might need to break this up
into a few meetings.
Individual and group metrics to highlight in
the meetings:
1. Most outbound follow ups
2. Highest conversion rate
3. Most conversions
4. Avg. conversion value
5. Total conversion value
6. Team conversion rates
Track and review these numbers in
addition to your inbound conversion

1 on 1 performance reviews
Reviewing the performance of your vacation planners in a 1 on 1 setting is the most critical component to the
measure and display. This time gives you the opportunity to drill in and focus on key improvement areas in a
customized fashion.
Some ideas for your meeting:
Weekly: Review performance metrics
Monthly: Review performance metrics and specific live calls
1. Review inbound conversion data
a. Listen to and score 1 to 2 converted inbound calls
b. Listen to and score 1 to 2 non converting calls
2. Give the calls a score. Did they follow your criteria for inbound / outbound?
a. We recommend using Doug Kennedy Training Criteria for your call scoring (provided to all Pulse
customers)

Call Scoring
Create a template
Score the Calls
Review with your Agents

Incentives
The use of incentives is a powerful way to increase productivity and outbound conversion opportunities. Here
are a few incentive ideas. It is important to keep baseline performance standards on inbound conversions when
implementing outbound incentives. This way you assure you are pulling the right levers and not just moving
inbound to outbound and paying more. Once you implement a system, stick with it, making too many changes
and creating too complex of incentive plans can be detrimental and diminish the value and effectiveness.
1. Pay a % or flat rate commission of each outbound conversion
a. ex: 1-2% of each outbound booking ( $100-$200 per $10,000 converted)
b. ex: $10 / booking x 10 outbound conversions = $100
2. Pay a tiered model
a. ex: 1-10 conversions = $10 per 11-20 conversions = $12 per 21 - 30 conversions = $15 per
3. Pay a team bonus for outbound performance as a whole.
a. Team bonuses can be as effective or more effective than individual bonus plans because it makes
the teammates hold each other accountable to everyone’s performance.

Incentives
Things to consider with incentives
● Payout incentive commissions 1 time per month, keep this date consistent
● Payout incentives only for reservations that have stayed and paid
● Cross reference the Reservation ID numbers on in Pulse with your PMS to confirm the actual stay value
● Team incentives help key team leadership keep other team members accountable to performance
standards

5 steps to a successful outbound campaign

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