Telemarketing Manager cheat sheet

Compliance gate: outbound calls to consumers require an established business relationship, prior express written consent where TCPA applies, or a documented exemption; scrub against the national Do Not Call registry (and applicable state lists) no more than 31 days before each campaign and retain the scrub record.

Calling-window rule: consumer calls permitted only 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the called party's local time zone; a lead sourced from a different time zone must be time-zone matched before dialing, and abandoned-call rates must stay within the 3% per-calling-campaign threshold measured over a 30-day period.

Abandonment math: abandon rate = (calls abandoned / calls answered by a live person) x 100. Abandoned means the call connects to a person but no agent is available within 2 seconds of the person's completed greeting; the 2-second rule defines the measurement.

Right metrics hierarchy: dials -> contacts (live answers) -> qualified conversations -> appointments/transfers -> closed sales. Contact rate = contacts / dials; conversion rate = sales / qualified conversations; cost per acquisition = total campaign cost / closed sales.

Productivity formula: calls per agent-hour = total live contacts / total logged agent hours. Use it, not raw dials, to compare agents because auto-dialer connect rates vary by list quality.

Forecast staffing: required agents = (target contacts x average handle time in minutes) / (paid minutes per agent per shift x occupancy target). Occupancy above roughly 85% raises abandon rate and agent attrition.

Quality monitoring standard: score a defined sample of calls per agent per week (commonly 3-5) against a weighted scorecard covering compliance disclosure, needs discovery, accuracy of claims, and close/next-step; calibrate scorers so variance between raters stays within one point.

Coaching cadence: use a documented plan of one-on-one feedback at least weekly, tied to scorecard dimensions, with a written action item and a re-check on the next sampled call; track improvement per dimension rather than overall score alone.

List strategy: separate cold, opt-in, and customer lists; suppress opt-outs immediately and permanently within the required 10-business-day internal do-not-call window; track source, consent date, and consent scope for every record.

Incentive design: commission per closed sale with a quality gate (minimum scorecard score and zero compliance violations) prevents volume gaming; clawbacks for cancelled sales should be stated in the compensation plan before the period starts.

Script governance: scripts must include caller identification, the purpose of the call, and an opt-out path; any claim about price, savings, or results requires documented substantiation retained with the approved script version.

Attrition signal: monitor average tenure, first-30-day turnover, and calls per hour decline; a rising abandon rate combined with falling contacts per hour usually indicates understaffing or list fatigue, not agent laziness.

Test design: run A/B tests on one variable at a time (opening line, offer framing, call time) with equal list segments and enough volume for a stable contact rate before declaring a winner; predefine the success metric.

Recordkeeping: retain call recordings, consent records, scrub logs, and scorecards for the period required by applicable regulation and internal policy; recordings are the primary evidence in a complaint investigation.

Objection handling framework: acknowledge, clarify, answer with evidence, confirm, then advance to the next step; log the objection category so scripts and training target the most frequent blockers.

Escalation rule: any request to stop calling, any complaint, or any threat of legal action is transferred to a supervisor and the record is flagged and suppressed the same day.

Performance review cycle: set targets from the prior period's median plus a stretch band, review at least monthly, and separate controllable metrics (talk time, quality score) from outcome metrics (sales) when assigning accountability.

Data hygiene: deduplicate records before each campaign, validate phone numbers, and cap repeat attempts (commonly 3 attempts per record per campaign) to reduce complaints and wasted dials.

Vendor oversight: for outsourced dialing, require written compliance attestations, audit a sample of recorded calls monthly, and hold payment tied to both sales and quality/compliance thresholds.