BUSN20016 Research In Business

Introduction

Reports have indicated that business entities have continued to face competition from their counterparts. This is evidenced by the growing number of businesses being set up. It has empirically been shown that for the last two decades, there have been establishment of new businesses, twice as it was twenty years ago. In other words, the growth of business activities have grown to 200% as compared to 20 years ago. Due to such trends, business organizations have been induced into exploring all possible ways of marketing so as to improve their total sales, improve on revenue, ensure long term survival in the market and gain a high customer reputability/ better brand image. Among the many marketing strategies being adopted by business entities, telemarketing has been registered as one of the most used by businesses (Pettegrew, & Midili, 2013, p.42). Telemarketing is a type of marketing where an organization or a business entity uses telephone calls to directly contact a potential client/ customer to convince them by clearly using persuasive language, highlighting the company products, its advantages, and other fringe benefits that a client gets as a result of using the company’s products or services. Telecommunication has been seen as one of the most reliable and dependable ways of securing clients for a business firm. This is because it provides a one on one interaction between the customer and the company salesmanship. The potential client is able to raise all questions as a way of clearing doubts, which in most circumstance, the clients gets convinced/ lured into buying the product in question (Moro, Cortez, & Rita, 2014, p.25).

It is however anticipated that the use of telemarketing is considerably falling in its usage due to the continuous invention of new technology an innovation of the existing ones. This raises question of the advantages and disadvantages of telemarketing (Moro, Cortez, & Rita, 2015, p. 139). Researcher speculate that it could be for the reason that the disadvantages are outweighing the advantages. Still on the same, some business organizations are recommending it as the most effective due to its real time customer interaction with the company representatives/ sales support. The continuous debate of adopting telemarketing technique as a marketing strategy brings unclarity of whether it is an optimistic marketing technique or not (Vajiramedhin, & Suebsing, 2014, p.5672).

The study therefore intends to critically evaluate and analyse the advantages and disadvantages of employing telemarketing in marketing. This will be done by comparing the advantages and disadvantages as collected from the research study. The outweigh of the advantages will imply an optimistic marketing technique and the reverse will also be true (Policastro, & Payne, 2015, p.638).

Problem Statement

Based on the growing level of competition among commercial organizations, it is imperative for businesses to have a clear understanding of the best marketing techniques in order to ensure their long-term survival in the industry. Folks are consistently and persistently coming up with new marketing ideas and if firms do not integrate the best change management by continuously conducting research an adopting the most recommendable techniques, they will definitely be pushed out of business (Conway, et al., 2015).

Taking a critical review of telemarketing, people have significantly bought phones which makes it easy to reach almost everyone once the contacts are availed. Even though there are significant numbers of potential clients with phones, it has not been obvious that all the attempted calls will be through and the conversation deemed productive (Marland, & Giasson, 2013, p.402). There are tendencies of inconsistency in the effectiveness of phone calls and thus, analysis directed towards understanding the causes of inconsistencies and ineffectiveness of the marketing techniques will help in pointing out remedies for the domain of inconsistencies and ineffectiveness. Even though there are a series of anticipated issues among which include poor communication from the business end, threats from scammers, it is not justifiable and palatable enough to establish a conclusion (Walker, et al., 2014). Consequently, telemarketing will improve on its viability and effectiveness if a critical study is conducted to the real facts and best remedies applied to the identified issues

Research Objectives/ Research Questions

Research aimsAs it was noted in the introductory section, there is an increasing trend of competition in the businesses, which calls for the evaluation of different marketing techniques to ascertain their level of success. Therefore, the empirical aim of the research study to specifically evaluate the effectiveness, advantages and disadvantages of using telemarketing as a marketing technique when persuading customers (Lavi, Dimenstein, & Campo, 2017). The study also aims at identifying other best alternative marketing techniques apart from telemarketing. Additionally, the research study also aims at clearly identifying the core issues relating technology and telemarketing (Radu, 2013, p.602)

Research questionsWith the primary aim of producing a highly reliable and dependable research findings, the research study will make use of well formulated research questions as listed subsequently;

• What are the main causes of the fall in attention to telemarketing by the potential clients?
• In what ways can the fall in customer attention towards telemarketing calls be reduced?
• What are the levels of satisfaction of potential clients when using telemarketing
• What are the success rates of making use of telemarketing as compared t other marketing tools?
• What are the other best alternative marketing techniques apart from telemarketing?

Research objectives;The research questions were restructured to form research objectives as a way of creating direction, attainability measurability and time boundedness of the research achievement as follows;

• To ascertain the main causes of the fall in the attention to telemarketing by the potential clients
• To establish ways in which fall in customer attention towards telemarketing calls be reduced
• To understand the levels of satisfaction of potential clients when using telemarketing
• To establish the success rates of making use of telemarketing as compared to other marketing tools?
• To point out other best alternative marketing techniques apart from telemarketing

Justification Of The Research Project

Previously, it was noted that there are increasing trends of competition which have triggered business entities into exploring all possible marketing strategies as a way of improving performance and market share in their respective industries. In regard to this, it is anticipated that the dynamism in technology is even worsening the issue of marketing. In other words, technology is consistently driving the marketing trends to a diversely different direction. With this it requires firms to adopt to the most effective methods else, they are prone to the market exit (Amini, Rezaeenour,, & Hadavandi, 2015, p. 1550022.). It is therefore becoming substantial to understand the ways in which telemarketing can be best applicable by conducting a thorough research study to establish the advantages, and disadvantages (Trioano, Grindeland, Hewes, Priyadarshan, & Snyder, 2014). The insights from the reported finding will provide a base of weighing the method for future use by businesses. Additionally, the research study is important in creating a core understanding of the level of effectiveness of the method as compared to other marketing techniques.

Expected Research Outcomes

by conducting a careful study topic, it is expected that their report will help in addressing series of marketing issues including the initially identified telemarketing weaknesses. Telemarketing is one of the most prominent and user-friendly method of marketing. The marketing technique provides a promising prospect as a marketing method based on the evidenced of increased ownership of personal cell phones. However, it has been identified that there are a series of problems and gaps that exist in the method. Some of the identified problems included a high level of call rejection by potential customers, poor communication among the involved parties in telemarketing, a reduced level of trust due to frauds and a general fall in popularity of the method among the many (Russel, Shahan, & Relyea, 2014).

The research study will therefore be expected to critically analyse all the possible issues leading to the identified issues, which in turn will help in bettering the method. Having identified that this method gives a one on one interaction with the customer, an integration of technology is expected to make it even more effective. Through the research study, it is also expected that alternative methods to the telecommunication method will be pointed through a critical evaluation and analysis of other methods. To put it different, the study will provide the opportunity cost for foregoing telemarketing for another marketing method/ techniques (Trzaskalik, & Jarek, 2016, p.96).

Conceptual Framework

Telemarketing has been defined as the practice of vetting, approaching and contacting potential customers through the use of telephony. This method is only limited to telephone calling and does to involve the use of direct mailing or messaging. Literature reports indicate that the study started gaining its popularity in the early 1970s after the invention of in-bound toll-free services and cheap class out of bounds long-distance telephony services (Jena, Ojha, & Pani, 2015, p.2). The exercise of telemarketing may take place from offices, business premises, an office or even at home. Telemarketing usually seeks to attain suitability and/ or interests of the customer towards a commodity or service and later on followed by persuasion and arousal of interest. It involves a continuous process of narrowing down a large data base of names/ contacts to a few potential and highly prospectus clients. The use of telemarketing has dominantly been used by charity organization, political groups and candidates, surveyors, non-for-profit organizations, and market researchers among others.

Factors Associated With Telemarketing Effectiveness

As a point of reference to the initially identified issues, research has highlighted three important determinants/ factors that influence the effectiveness of a telemarketing method when luring and persuading customers (FAN, & LAI, 2017, p.16). The use of the determinants directly influences if the telemarketing process conducted by a sales person will be successful of not. These include the following

Language; this is by far the most important factor to consider when conducting a telemarketing activity. Holding the fact that individuals and societies have different cultural backgrounds, communication approaches and accent difference, the success of telemarketing is highly dependent on how the client perceives the customer agent from the business end. Firstly, if calls are made internationally, it is of high relevance to ensure that the language used is a popular and easily spoken language by the respective country of the client. Additionally, the use of slung save been identified among the core causes of communication disparity and breakage (Nath, & Gupta, 2013, p.41). A slung that is used in a different country is perceived in another way when used in another country. Studies have therefore emphasized a high sense of vigilance in language include he tone of communication when using telemarketing technique of marketing or seeking clients (Wang, Wang, Chang, Yan, & Lin, 2014, p.2)

Hofstede’s Dimension; as a strategy of evaluating the cultural dimensions affecting telemarketing, the use of Hofstede’s   framework offers an incredible platform. The dimensions highlighted by Hofstede include power distance, the long-term vs short-term orientation, masculinity vs feminity, and individualism vs collectism. Power distance assists in evaluating the level of ranking or hierarchy with in an organization of a nation, for example, the number of barriers that has to be passed in order to reach the target client. This is evident in the US and California where individuals have the right to sue unnecessary calls from telemarketing agents and sanctions are paused on the business.

Telecommunication; holding the fact that telemarketing solely relies on direct calling, the chances of customer acceptance is influenced by the clarity of the calls made. It the communication is distorted, it is highly probable that the potential client will be disgusted and definitely hang-up the call. Additionally, the use of identical consistent and reputable lines is yet another determinant. There are different numbers used by organizations, government officials, business entities and private numbers. It is important that recognizable numbers with high reputability are used (Felicia, 2015, p.158)

Studies have also reported that telemarketing agents should be well-versed with different skills of handling different types of customers. To put it in another way, the support given to a returning customer is identically different from that offered to new and prospectus clients. Some scholars have however, criticized the use of telemarketing as it tends to be costly in terms of airtime and time consuming. Recommendations have been made in favour of online marketing where it is even cheaper to contact the client and there is an additional advantage of the client visually viewing the product being sold (Rekha, Abdulla & Asharaf, 2016, p.691)

Hypothesis

In refence to the research objectives, different hypothesises were formulated to aid in the research study. The hypothesis reflects an anticipation of the study results. It is as follows;

H₀: telemarketing is one of the best, effective and applicable marketing technique

H₁: telemarketing is among the worst marketing techniques

H₀: potential customers contacted using telemarketing gain a considerable level of satisfaction

H₁: potential customers contacted using telemarketing techniques gain a considerable level of dissatisfaction and is highly discouraged

H₀: telemarketing is significantly improving in popularity due to its effectiveness

H₁: telemarketing is considerably falling popularity due to its ineffectiveness

H₀: telemarketing is cheap, reliable and real-time response id got

H₁: telemarketing is costly, unreliable and has uncertain response from clients

H₀: frauds and threats are the main reasons for call rejection by customers from the marketing and support urgent

H₁: frauds and threats are not the main causes of customer rejection of calls from telemarketing agents of a company

H₀: telemarketing can be improved by integrating in latest advanced technology

H₁: telemarketing cannot be improved by adopting advanced and latest technology

Methodology

As a strategy of ensuring effective analysis, assessment, and evaluation of the research study, the research study will make use a careful and a well formulated methodological approach. The research methodology will involve both secondary and primary methods. The primary method is intended to provide first-hand information which will in turn act as a base of comparison with the secondary reports from earlier researcher. The primary approach will engage different data collection methods such as interview and questionnaire methods while the secondary approach will basically review different research reports by other scholars. this will be done as follows;

Literature review; the study will refer to other reports related to the research topic as the secondary research. A series of reports will be compiled and reviewed to establish the level of correlation among the many different studies (Neysiani, Soltani, & Ghezelbash, 2015, p.738). It is however important to note that the study will only emphasize in the most recent reports from reliable sources like google scholar, statistical websites, reputable company reports from firms that making use of telemarketing as a tool to for maximizing their sales and peer reviewed literatures (Karami, Naghibi, & Dehmourdi, 2014, p.104)

The population of study; for the primary methodological approach, the study will select reputable companies that are currently using telemarketing strategy. In addition, a series of potential clients will be selected for interviews and research survey.

The sampling method of the research study; keeping in mind that the study intends to create clarity in regard to the effectiveness of using telemarketing as a marketing tools, purposeful sampling method will be used to select specific individuals with the knowledge of telemarketing (Lu, & Boutilier, 2014). This will be centred to the company support personnel and some clients who have ever purchased goods as a result of telemarketing. The sample will include potential clients who have never had any experience using it.

Data collection method of the research study; as indicated earlier, the research will engage in he use of interview method. The support team member who have enve engaged in telemarketing will be interviewed to find out their experience, the main causes of customer dissatisfaction, how they always respond when they get bitter responses from the clients and how/ they plan to do as a strategy of the identified problem.

Data analysis; the research study will use a mixed research method, which employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods.  The raw data collected will be analysed using both methods

Justification for the use of a mixed method; firstly, it is important to note that mixed research methodology makes use of both descriptive and numerical analysis. It is typically true that qualitative research analysis (thematic method) has been strongly recommended by social scholars (Sowier-Kasprzyk, 2014, p.123). this is anchored on the fact that it makes use of subjectivity. On the other hand, the scientific researchers prefer the numerical method that makes use statistical manipulation. For the numerical analysists, objectivity is highly recommended. The use of mixed research analysis will therefore be assisting in covering all the weaknesses of respective research method. Additionally, it was noted that the study will make use of survey and interview. The two methods require both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) methods for their effective reports (Qu, & Chen, 2014, p.57)

Organization Of The Study

The research study will make use of a professional report format organized with chapters as shown below;

Chapter one; section one of the study will primary constitute the details of the research proposal as instructed in the assessment instruction. Additionally, it will also include a detail introductory section of the study. The research aims, objectives and research questions will also be included in chapter one.

Chapter two; a detailed explanation of the many different case studies related to the topic of research will be put in this section

Chapter three; this section will constitute an in-depth analysis of the conceptual framework of the study. This will evaluate other reports in relation to the topic of discussion

Project Budget And Budget Justification

Task Name	Amount to be spent
identifying and submitting the research topic to the responsible authorly to lobby funds for study	$600
submitting of the identified research topic for ethical approval	$ 400
identifying, selecting shortlisting and training of the identified competent research team	$ 1500
submitting of the pre-research surveys to the responsible and potential stakeholders of the research study to highlight research agenda	$ 1000
identifying of the relevant data sources for the research study	$ 500
procuring, renting, and	$ 4000
conducting a primary research study by interviewing and supplying questionnaires to the selected respondents	$ 3000
data compilation from the many different research reported	$ 2000
critically analysing, evaluating, and making of the research reports	$ 2000
a comprehensive and unbiased discussion of the research reports	$ 1500
identification of the research pitfalls, pointing remedies and citing gaps for future research	$ 1500
Others	$ 2000
Total	$ 23000

Project Timeline

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
identifying and submitting the research topic to the responsible authorly to lobby funds for study	9 days	Sun 7 /1 /18	Wed 7 /11/ 18
submitting of the identified research topic for ethical approval	4 days	Wed 7 /11 /18	Mon 7 /16 /18	1
identifying, selecting shortlisting and training of the identified competent research team	11 days	Fri 7 /20 /18	Fri 8 /3 /18	2
submitting of the pre-research surveys to the responsible and potential stakeholders of the research study to highlight research agenda	5 days	Thu 8 /2 /18	Wed 8 /8 /18	3
identifying of the relevant data sources for the research study	6 days	Fri 8 /10 /18	Fri 8 /17 /18	4
procuring, renting, and	4 days	Thu 8 /16 /18	Tue 8 /21 /18	5
conducting a primary research study by interviewing and supplying questionnaires to the selected respondents	6 days	Fri 8 /24 /18	Fri 8 /31 /18	6
data compilation from the many different research reported	8 days	Thu 8 /30 /18	Mon 9 /10 /18	7
critically analysing, evaluating, and making of the research reports	7 days	Thu 9 /13 /18	Fri 9 /21 /18	8
a comprehensive and unbiased discussion of the research reports	9 days	Wed 9 /26 /18	Mon 10/8 /18	9
identification of the research pitfalls, pointing remedies and citing gaps for future research	11 days	Sun 10 /7 /18	Fri 10 /19 /18	1,10

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