The people who want to reach companies call a special 800 number. In brief, toll-free service led to centralized nationwide call facilities which led to increased call volumes at single locations, which increased the incentive to maximize revenue and cut costs. Airlines, hotels, and virtually every catalog company rely on inbound Telemarketing to take reservations and merchandise orders. Inbound calls can also focus on customer service or consumer information. For example, at the General Electric's GE Answer Center, a force of 250 answer 250,000 questions a month about how to get the most from GE products, they rely on a centralized consumer product database that allows them to call up information on just about anything that has to do with GE products.
Many companies now have consumer information lines to serve customers.
Successful inbound Telemarketing programs are created by paying careful attention to such factors as the type of telephone service chosen, the carrier picked to provide the service, the planning to meet fluctuating call volumes, and the design of the advertising that carries the phone number. The objective of most outbound Telemarketing calls is to sell a product or a service to a new or existing customer. It is through telephone calls that lure customers to buy products or query the condition of customers using a product in order to improve selling and hold customer's demand. Cold calls can generate leads to sell products. A good example of a lead-generating call would be one placed by an insurance agent to a new community resident about home insurance.