Does The Human Touch Still Matter In Specialist Marketing?

Communication is king, and the human element is essential in any part of your business that relies on complex problem-solving, discussions with clients and fixing pain points.

This is why, whilst harnessing data is very important in life sciences telemarketing, there is no substitute for the expertise, skill and empathy that come naturally to a marketing and customer relations expert.

In recent years, there has been a trend towards extensive automation of customer and client-facing platforms in fields such as marketing, sales, client relations, and customer service. Most of the time, this involves some form of artificial intelligence.

Is this a mistake? Why is an expert touch so important? And how can you most effectively integrate telemarketing experts into your marketing process to boost conversions?

Is Automation A Mistake In Marketing, Sales And Client Relations?

Many businesses assume that because a job appears on the surface to be relatively simple, it is ideally suited to automation, using AI chatbots and voice synthesis tools to automate the bulk of enquiries made by customers or clients.

Given that many call centres rely on relatively rigid structures for some of their marketing calls, there is a surface-level logic to this, but beyond the statistics and the potential financial savings are countless stories of automated systems going badly wrong.

Ignoring situations where AI agents flat-out make mistakes, there are countless stories of people who get so frustrated attempting to ask a simple question or get a resolution to a basic problem that they not only hang up but refuse to work with the company involved again.

There are stories of startups who adopted automation in their marketing, sales and customer relations pipelines, only to lose over half of their customer base as customers who bought into a dream at the earliest opportunity failed to find any empathy when it turned into a nightmare.

Ultimately, humanity wins hearts and minds, and surrendering your few opportunities to communicate with your customers directly to automation is an extremely costly mistake.

Why Do Human Operators And Callers Matter In Telemarketing?

On a basic level, having human operators means that you are talking to someone who cares, and as your points of contact are the de facto voices of your business, they need to be knowledgeable, insightful and empathetic.

The major problem with automation is that most caller enquiries, both in marketing and consumer relations, are actually more complicated than they are perhaps given credit for.

Something as simple as setting up an account often has multiple steps, a customer will almost always have questions during the process, may need a bespoke plan to fit the needs of their organisation or may get frustrated and need a human connection.

These adjustments and adaptations are second nature to skilled operators but are difficult, if not impossible, for an automated system. 

Automated call menus have been used for decades, and online chat agents were touted as a solution to simplify and make customer enquiries faster, more streamlined and more affordable.

They failed dramatically for the same reasons AI call centres are failing now; it does not matter how quick an answer is if it is wrong or unhelpful. A poor experience will ultimately cost you a customer.

How Can You Best Use Telemarketing Experts To Convert Prospects?

Ultimately, the best approach when it comes to telemarketing is always going to be to focus on providing a personal touch to every single caller. Every single potential customer will be in a different situation, but the one commonality is that they want to talk to someone human.

As early as 1985, offering a human being to talk to was a major selling point for businesses and banks, and every call and every piece of correspondence should be personalised to focus specifically on the problems of the potential customer.

Successfully identifying pain points, targeting marketing materials towards particular needs and getting important market insights requires more empathy, quick thinking and adaptability than many marketing experts are given credit for.

With specialist sectors, there will be a greater need for expert knowledge that cannot be left to the vagaries of chance, unusual use cases, and incisive lines of questioning that can only be answered by people with a deep knowledge of the subject matter.

As well as this, the goal of marketing is qualitative rather than quantitative; it does not matter if you call thousands or tens of thousands of people if the opening value proposition is poor and unappealing to customers.

Ultimately, humanity will win, and treating your customers with respect and empathy is the best way to ensure they remain customers.