Conversely, if your schedule conflicts with their existing business, stay away. You shouldn't have to spend hours in-house translating the numbers you get from the telemarketer into a coherent performance report on how they're doing. Those numbers should be the first thing to be discussed when you start interviewing possible vendors. It may, however, be worth everybody's time and money if you're doing a series of six such seminars, or all you want is a telemarketing consultant to set up your in-house staff with an effective script and a short telemarketing training session. Standard billing - Telemarketers typically bill by the service and by the hour, with fixed setup fees for the script and CSR training.
Outbound telemarketing is more expensive than inbound.
You need to carefully coordinate budgeting with your other marketing specialists. CSRs are usually trained like agents. They need to focus blocks of time on one project, rather than simply taking customer requests as they come in. Do Not Call lists. The first is particularly important if you're buying potential customer lists from several sources, and you don't want to hit the same customer more than once.