Xoxo, everyone — it’s Reznik, and today we’re going to find out how to pilfer orders from a call center.
Trends rule the world. As a rule, remarkably dumb ones. One of these trends is hiding phone numbers from operators at product call centers. I’ll tell you why this is a completely useless, pointless move that just makes the job harder and gets in the way of life. The conclusion comes at the very end of the article.
Whence It Came…
First, we need to dig into the essence and purpose of this phenomenon, but not overdo it. Let’s dive in — just the tip. Why hide phone numbers from call center operators in the first place?
Maybe you’re a kind, naive citizen who assumes this is done to protect the customer’s personal data from dishonest operators. Oh, sweet naivety! Of course, every call center in the CPA industry couldn’t care less about data privacy. At best, they’ve covered themselves with some wildly loose privacy policy that basically lets them sell the customer’s soul to the devil using whatever personal data they were handed.
But there is a grain of truth buried in your reasoning. Numbers really are hidden from shady operators — so they can’t steal the number and ship the order themselves before the advertiser does.
The operator intercepts the customer’s phone number and passes it to an accomplice. The accomplice buys the same product off the local Avito equivalent, contacts the customer, and ships the order out by courier — maybe even with a prepayment. That way, the customer gets their product before the real order ever arrives from the advertiser. And the advertiser? They pay for the CC’s services and the whole shipping process, and get a returned order for their trouble.
The Depths of Idiocy
Now just stop and think about it. Phone numbers are hidden from operators. Hidden from operators who already have the recipient’s full name, the order contents, the delivery address, and — if they’re working with a courier — the delivery time, all sitting right in front of them. Do you seriously think that with all that order data already in plain view, the operator is going to need a phone number?
? You might object that in your country, you simply can’t ship a parcel without a phone number.
Life hack for the operator, number one: pop any SIM card into your old Siemens and list that number when you ship the parcel. Voilà — you’ve just arranged the delivery on the customer’s behalf. Ideally, nail down the pickup time and place in advance, so it’s easier to send your courier.
? You could also object that once the operator has the phone number, they’ll just cancel the order and immediately hand the number straight to their accomplice.
Life hack for the CC owner: listen to the calls. Oh wow, you could just… do that? Randomly review cancelled calls, catch the usual operator mistakes, and spot the actual fraud. It’ll sharpen up your operators’ call quality and protect you from a whole pile of cancellation headaches.
How to Steal Leads the Right Way
So, you’re a rat. Your tiny brain is only good for stealing orders in the dumbest way possible. To take this process to peak quality and stop depending on whether you’ve got a phone number at all, I’ve put together a few useful tips for you.
When you first burrow into any call center, step one is to case the place. Never start your dirty business in the first few days on the job.
You need to gather the intel that’ll get you the best possible results:
- Study the product lineup. You want specific product models that’ll work well for your own sales. Don’t go for products with the lowest cost price and the highest sale price — those will have a low buyout rate. Simpler products work better.
- You can get familiar with the whole lineup by asking your boss for the sales scripts to study. You can buy the actual product on AliExpress or your country’s Avito equivalent.
- Work out the average order value. Products with a higher average order value bring in more income. Plus, they’ve got a higher buyout rate too.
- Study the delivery regions. Ideally, work out which cities order the most and say yes to a purchase the fastest.
Now that you’ve got the intel on the lineup and the best-selling locations, you can put together the optimal plan. And the best way to kick it off is by hiring agents in the cities where the product sells the most. You can simply station one courier with a small stock of product in every popular city. That gets you delivery within a couple of hours and multiplies your buyout rate many times over. On top of that, you save on product and shipping whenever there’s a refusal or a return.
To be able to deliver the order yourself, you need to confirm the lead as thoroughly as possible. During the call, try to pin down when the customer is home — for example, phrase it like: «You might be interested in courier delivery straight to your home — what time are you usually home, and when’s convenient for you to get the order?» Do this with every single order, so it doesn’t look suspicious if someone’s listening in.
If your country has something like Russia’s national postal service — one that accepts delivery orders from private individuals with no phone number and cash on delivery — you can use it. That’s the perfect delivery option: it’ll land your order at the pickup point right alongside your employer’s competing order. One of the two gets redeemed. Maybe both. And if you manage to ship faster than your employer, your order gets delivered sooner — and redeemed with much better odds.
Whatever you do, don’t steal every single order in a row. Always cherry-pick the most convenient ones — close to your courier, with a customer who’s actually home and actually likes the product. Better to deliver one successful order than get caught on two failed ones.
Which brings up another key point: don’t get greedy. Pull too many orders and you’ll get caught faster. A few random returns might not raise any eyebrows. But a sudden spike in returns tied to one operator will look suspicious instantly.
Now take stock of what you’ve built. You’ve got operators who know how to confirm orders and handle them. You’ve got your own product. You understand order values and buyout rates. You’ve got working, organized logistics. Quit dicking around — just go work as a full-fledged advertiser already!
How to Protect Yourself
My dear directors and call center owners! Now I’m going to teach you how to run your business the right way. If you’ve got it stuck in your head that phone numbers absolutely must be hidden for the good of the business, then your business isn’t headed for good — it’s headed straight for disaster.
You want to hide numbers from your own staff because you’re afraid of theft. Which leads to a simple, and eerily accurate, conclusion: you have a hiring and compensation problem. That’s exactly where you need to start.
First of all, let me remind you: a call center operator isn’t some dumb monkey who can only rattle off a call script. First and foremost, they’re a top-tier salesperson — at least in spirit, or in their dreams. And how good that salesperson is directly decides how successful your whole operation turns out to be. Don’t hire dim-witted temps straight off the street — look for people with real sales experience. Train your staff. Raise them right.
Work out your operators’ pay properly, including a solid base rate per shift plus bonuses for order value, confirmed orders, and redeemed orders. Make sure all three go into the bonus structure, no exceptions. Trust me — a well-motivated operator who pushes the average order value a third higher than the competition and even nudges the buyout rate up a little is worth every cent you spend.
Don’t be cheap. If an operator has racked up a solid sum in a month, don’t you dare cut their pay! Only utter bastards think a specialist doesn’t deserve what they earned. Better to design your financial incentive scheme up front so the operator makes more money on every order that actually gets paid for. That covers any costs on its own.
Once your operators are whipped into shape, motivated, and happy to work for you, it’s time to split your call center in two. You need two independent departments: one handles the flow of incoming orders, the other is responsible for logistics.
Equip your call center with the technical means it needs. First, that means computers that actually run reliably and solid telephony. Second, it means recording every single one of your operators’ calls, no exceptions — every call gets recorded, saved, and attached to its matching order with no way to delete it.
You need a separate, fully isolated call center responsible for calls about orders that are already out for delivery. That isolation is a critical requirement — it rules out any collusion between operators. Sometimes it’s worth spinning your logistics service off into its own separate business, one that serves not just your own needs but outside clients too. An independent logistics service also comes across as more trustworthy in the customer’s eyes.
The logistics CC needs to process every return and every parcel that’s gone stale in the system — all of them, no exceptions, regardless of what the delivery service marked them as. For every single one of those parcels, someone needs to call and find out the reason for the refusal. On one hand, that’ll boost your buyout rate for the cases where the customer simply forgot. On the other, it’ll surface the cases that sound like: «You’ve made a mistake, I think I already picked everything up, thanks!» — which are a lot more likely to actually sound like: «What the hell is this shit you sent me? I’m suing you!»
Set up an operator monitoring unit. It shouldn’t interact directly with the main call center or know anything about the operators as people. This unit’s job covers both the periodic monitoring of random calls from every operator and scheduled checks. The moment you spot even one suspicious order, send every single one of that operator’s calls to this unit for review — returns first, then cancellations, then redeemed orders if it comes to that. If you find any suspicious activity, throw the operator out without a shred of guilt and without severance pay.
Analyze your buyout rate broken down by operator and by offer. If you spot any anomaly in one operator’s buyout rate compared to the rest, send their calls for a spot check. And don’t forget to first check those orders’ buyout rate within the traffic source itself — it might just turn out you’ve got a dishonest affiliate on your hands, not a dishonest operator.
Technical Problems
Now, a few words on what’s wrong with hiding numbers from a technical standpoint. First of all, keep in mind that this technology only works well under ideal conditions. Those conditions include solid software, a stable connection, and a correct customer phone number.
A classic call center running outbound calls works dead simple and reliable. The operator has some device they can use to dial the customer’s number — could be a softphone, could be a hardware SIP phone. Either way, it needs the actual number to call. To keep that number out of reach, you have to build custom software that handles calling customers on its own and connects them to operators. That software is always shaky, because the SIP protocol itself is inherently unstable. And with a less-than-competent dev team behind it, it turns into an honest-to-god kludge.
Working under the real-world conditions of an actual CC, you run into another problem too. Sometimes you need to call someone back — say, the connection dropped, or something like that. Or you need to tweak a customer’s number slightly before dialing. A live operator pulls off these basic moves without a second thought. Automation has a much harder time with it.
Conclusion
TL;DR: hiding phone numbers is a waste of time. If you feel like you need to hide numbers, it just means your CC staff sucks, or you’re broke as hell.
That’s it from Reznik — xoxo, everyone!