Putting tech into telemarketing

Headnote

Better technology is reshaping the way card issuers and third-party telemarketers use the telephone to sell credit cards and card enhancements.

Advances in the science and technology of telemarketing are rewriting the rules for credit card issuers again.

With new and sophisticated technology, telemarketing is increasingly becoming intertwined with high-tech channels such as database marketing and even the Internet as issuers try to match the right card or enhancement with the right customer.

Success in the decade ahead will depend on an issuer's ability to leverage unique knowledge about customers, targeting them through channels customized to each individual's habits and preferences, based on lessons learned through telemarketing.

One-on-ONe

"The age of one-to-one marketing for credit card issuers has come, changing the theory of how marketers communicate with customers," says Patrick LaPointe, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Frequency Marketing Inc., a Milford, Ohio, database marketer. "Instead of giving people onedimensional offers over the phone, the future of telemarketing is about empowering front-line sales people to do more with information and new technology. It's pushing the decision-making out toward the customer, providing more options and customized offers, and will result in more positive outcomes."

Only a handful of card issuers have reached this level of rocketscience credit card marketing, and no one has perfected the system so that only ripe customers are contacted at the ideal moment with a customized offer they can't refuse. But that's the direction issuers and the third-party telemarketing firms they use are headed with the latest new technology that is revolutionizing traditional phone-based selling.

Even so, those on the cutting edge are not giving away their secrets. Top-level telemarketers who are reinventing the field include Capital One Financial Corp., Citibank and MBNA Corp., none of whom will divulge details about their internal think tanks and war rooms devoted to reshaping their telemarketing programs.

Telemarketing industry experts who work for each of these issuers say the future of credit card marketing will be integrated systems based on telemarketing technology, linking everything from direct mail to Internet communications.

As telemarketing technology evolves, outside agencies can expect even more business from card issuers. Several big issuers handle their own telemarketing in-house, but as the cost of new technology rises, outsourcing...