Call Verification Coordinator, HiP
Welcome to part 5 of our series, “Inside the Demand Generation Agency”! Today, we’ll hear from Jimmy Dorato, HiP’s Call Verification (CV) Coordinator. Jimmy is currently an MBA student at the College of Saint Rose and was the earliest member of the CV team. He’s been part of CV from its original deployment and has helped it to evolve to where it is today. Call Verification has become an important part of HiP’s lead delivery process, providing clients with the most accurate and up-to-date contact data possible.
Let’s hear what Jimmy has to say about the ‘nuts and bolts’ of this process as well as its strategic value for HiP as an agency.
Tell us what Call Verification entails at HiP. What technologies are used?
The Call Verification team at HiP focuses on one thing: data validation. We take the data from campaigns and confirm the title, company name, and phone number, thus ensuring the top-quality records are delivered to our clients. Most of our verification comes from speaking with an operator or a front desk receptionist at the companies that we call. This works out well because these people are often more than willing to help us – friendliness and politeness is key for us. Friendliness tends to produce more friendliness. There really is nothing better than a friendly exchange that gets the information we need for our clients.
As far as technology, we use a combination of Salesforce and an add-on called InsideSales to sift through the data quickly and efficiently. This combination allows us to make anywhere from 200-300 calls per day, without ever once dialing a phone number. We also use LinkedIn for the information that is not available through the phone, that is, when we get someone’s voicemail or an unsure operator. These three pieces of technology are what allows us to do our jobs with such efficiency. Furthermore, InsideSales custom-built a button for us in their system, which allows us to search names LinkedIn and return matched values without leaving the interface. This saves both time and effort for all of us.
How is call verification different that lead verification? What are its goals?
Well, lead verification is a lot more hands-on and (usually) requires the lead verifier to actually converse with a potential lead to gather the required information and interest. Call verification is more basic data collection; more often than not, the verifier never talks to the actual lead. In simple terms, call verification would be done before lead verification because we would want to ensure the phone number, title, and company name of the potential lead qualifies, before we take the time to get to know them better for our clients.
When you aren’t able to make contact by phone, do you have an alternate method to enhance call verification?
As I mentioned before, LinkedIn is a great tool for such a situation; however, there is really no substitute for getting someone on the phone and validating the information that way. It is no secret that information gathered online is not always accurate or up to date. With LinkedIn, we have to trust that the information is right, which requires the lead to keep it updated. This really lowers our confidence level in the information. We strive to be 100% sure of all of our data before we deliver it back to the Data Department. If there is any doubt we are sure to let everybody know.
How has your expanded role in data changed how you view CV/Research?
My expanded role has really given me a better view into the HiP process as a whole. Outside of just call verification, there is a ton of work that is put in by our Data Department in broadcasting our clients’ messages to the right target groups, collecting that data from those broadcasts, and then checking (and double checking and triple checking) that everything is right before Call Verification even sees the data. As a result, I am even more careful when I am doing Call Verification and research because attention to detail and validity is so important throughout the process. In all, it has shown me just how many moving pieces there are in creating and delivering a lead to our clients. At the same time, it has cemented the validity and importance of call verification in the lead generation process. Without the Call Verification team, we would have a much lower confidence level in the records that go to our clients – and, as we all know, if the clients are unhappy, nobody is happy.
Let us know what you think:
- Do you have any questions for Jimmy?
- How do you verify your lead data?
- In your view, what is an acceptable threshold for lead accuracy?
