Heather Griffin, CEO of Innovate Advisors, has an extended history of consulting contact centers in the sales and lead generation industry about technology and strategy to drive more results. Heather also has a long-term relationship with Convoso. She understands the software's capabilities and when it’s a good fit for her clients.

During our interview with Heather, she tells us about her introduction to Convoso, the dramatically improved results she saw with a first trial, and why she has continued to recommend the platform to clients with outbound campaigns over the years. She also explains her process when consulting with her clients and shares more on her professional journey. 

Results that made the switch to Convoso undeniable

I was working with a company called MediaMix, and we had been Ytel customers for a very long time. [Ytel is a call center solution built on open-source code from VICIdial.] We were very loyal and satisfied with Ytel.

A designer working with our company said, "Listen, you have to try this other dialer," referring to Convoso. “We trust them, believe in them, and have heard all kinds of great things about them.”  

So Bobby Hakimi, Convoso’s CPO and Co-Founder, came to our business and met with the CEO and me. At the time, I was COO and adamant about not changing. I said, no, we're great. We love Ytel. We love the people. 

But Bobby said there are things that aren't working with that software; they're hiding things, and it's built upon something else, such as VICIdial open-source code. He was persistent, and over a period of time, he eventually convinced us to do a free trial. 

We had about 150 agents, and he asked us to put about 30 of them in his system. And what we did was a clear A–B test. So it was the same data – we split the files with the same reps, skill sets, state, time, and everything. And we put them in both systems, one in Ytel and one in Convoso.

Our connectivity was 33% higher in Convoso than it was on the other system. 

We were able to see a bunch of dispositions going into operator intercept on the Ytel system, that when you dialed on Convoso did not. This was over 10 years ago. And we decided this is compelling enough that we need to do some more testing. So I said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We'll flip the rest of the reps over, we'll run through all of our data, and if the stats hold firm, we'll consider switching to Convoso.

Bobby sat on the couch in my office, and together, we watched the flip-over. He walked down the aisles of the call center with me and looked for any bugs, and things were running smoothly. The rest is kind of history. We obviously flipped the seats over from Ytel to Convoso. 

Bobby was so confident in this product and so knowledgeable about how he spoke about it. We immediately connected, because we both talk fast, we think fast, and both of us can see a lot of complex information visually. In that first week when we launched, we formed a really great friendship inside and outside of Convoso.

It was a very big deal for us to part with that software and move over to Convoso. My CEO and Ytel’s CEO were good friends. But the difference in performance was compelling enough.

At the end of the day, 33% more data is a lot of money.

Consulting with call center clients to boost their sales

When we begin working with a new client, we look at everything they're doing, their tech stack and processes, and give them best practices. And we always increase sales. Every business we’ve worked with has been able to increase their sales.

I start by asking, how do you make money? What are your KPIs? What are your goal sets? And then we build backward. We really build from the goal because each customer has some different needs. You must understand the business strategy and nuances and know their end goal.

For most of my new clients, the first step is to ask, “How do you make money?” I think this is something many people miss when building their tech stack. So we start with, what is the benchmark that makes money? And then build a pipeline from the beginning. How many pieces of data do you need to have? How many contacts do you have? How many appointments, or whatever the marker is, to get how many sales?

People often build in the wrong direction. They start with a CRM, but actually, they need data first. What is your data software? How are you aggregating data? Once you do that, are you achieving industry-standard levels? 

Frequently, when I start with them, their contact rate might be 3% on a shared lead. And it doesn't matter what the vertical is; a 3% contact rate means there’s a problem. They're telling me they’re only getting a hold of 3% of the leads on their lists.

I know the reason will be carrier blockage or spam likely flagging, or it's a shared lead or age data. So, a call center’s contact rate gives me that first industry-standard mark. From there, I can tell you if it's technology or data. And if you keep following the question of “how do you make money,” you'll find where the pipeline is broken and off industry standard. Once you're off industry standard, the answer is really clear: What do you need to do?

When I walk into a new client company, the most common thing is the sales are down. And they're not sure why. Many of my current clients tell me, "June, I was doing this amount with the same thing. And now we're in August or September, and I'm doing 30% less.” They don't know why. But if you built your tech stack right, you should know why. Something should be alerting you that it's off. But most of them haven't built it correctly, and they just know sales are down. 

When and why I recommend Convoso

As a consultant, my job is to do whatever is best for the customer. And that's how you keep winning business. So, I do look at a couple of different things before I go straight to Convoso. If you have a robust inbound system, I might say to consider Five9. They have a little bit more robust inbound. 

But if you're outbound dialing for any reason, I'll always recommend Convoso for several reasons. 

When people ask for a competitor, I usually recommend Five9 as a somewhat close competitor – but I’ll also tell you you're flying blind a lot with Five9. There's a lot of things you can't see.

What I see with Convoso is tons of flexibility. Any question you think you should ask can be pulled from that system. And I've worked in tons of technology, and it just doesn't work that way. There's a lot of transparency in the system. Any question you can query, like, how come my operator intercepts went to 14% on Tuesday, but they were 5% the week before? What happened? You can pull the data and get the answer.

And I think that's so valuable because the first question most CEOs ask me is, why are my sales down? 

Convoso is loaded with features that don't exist out-of-the-box in other systems. It allows you to understand your data sources and the conversions and look at those list conversions in real-time on a dashboard. There’s the agent monitor screen that alerts you when there are problems, the ability to self-generate leads, and the reporting, the lead reporting is unbelievable. You can ask any question you want to know about that whole database and query it in a lead report.

The biggest and easiest pitch I usually give about Convoso is that you're going to get a hold of, even at the smallest end, 20% more customers than you're talking to now. And then we do the math: If you had 20% more customers talking to you, and that trickled into your sales, what would that get you? And that number's always so much more money than it’ll cost to have the right tech stack. It's such an easy sell. 

If a client is trying to do debt collections, lead generation, or any volume of outbound calling, and if they're doing any omnichannel marketing, Convoso is a one-stop shop that is highly effective.

I think the Convoso customer success management team is fantastic. They're great. They're customer-friendly. They understand their system. And the tech team is fantastic in answering questions, resolving problems, and giving ideas on what they've seen as a best practice in the past.

Tighter regulatory compliance impacts strategy and technology choices

In terms of the industry, with growing regulations and laws on the state and federal level, the amount of legal data to call is going to reduce dramatically. So there are two things. 

First, if you want to continue to dial as is, you need to find more data sources that are compliant. You may need a new way to generate leads and then still work them through an outbound system. In my space in solar, that can mean door knockers, radio is having really good results, and direct mail's working. You're still generating a lead that has a compliant opt-in and then you're still dialing it. So not much will change if you can replace that missing data with new compliant sources. 

But the second and most relevant action is, you have to work the more expensive leads you have more effectively. And that really is my constant pitch to people: a lead that once cost you $10 and just kind of fell away, you can't do that with a $50 lead. 

What you need is technology that will meet the consumer the way they need and never stop until the customer says, you know, I'm not interested or until they sit for an appointment. That's how technology should work. You take it out of the hands of the humans and you put it back into the technology, and then you present it when it's a real human back to a human.

Convoso is a software that's committed to compliance. 

I had a call with Nima [Convoso CEO] many years ago and I told him, your niche is going to be compliance because as a customer – and I was a customer at that time – we're all so scared about all these compliance rules. And if Convoso can not only get a hold of more people but say, we got you on supporting compliance, then it's going to make a huge difference in decision-making.

There are so many functionalities and features built inside Convoso that guide you to compliant practices. Out of the default, you can't even switch the calling hours based on state laws. There are calling hours that are federal laws, and then there are several states that have their own restrictions on calling hours. There are a number of safeguards that are just built in. And the company sends out continuous education about new laws that are coming out. 

Who I work with and how at a client company

I start with the CEO, who is usually saying, “I know intrinsically something's wrong. I can feel it. My numbers aren't looking right. I have some suspicions, but I don't know.” So almost always the CEO is looking for an expert. 

And it's such a tricky dynamic being a consultant. Some people are going to be threatened by me immediately. Some people are going to think, they don't know our business. So you have to come in and really work your way through the entire company collaboratively. 

If they have a dialer administrator I will ask a lot of questions. I've learned over the 25 years of doing this that I don't know what I don't know and that the people in the day-to-day world know more than me. So I like to ask them questions and understand why. Every tech stack is set up a little differently because they've all tried to solve different problems in different ways. 

There have been numerous times where I've been able to say, wait, you're having a rep log out and fill out a form and then email it here? Did you know that in Convoso the form could just API over? There are a lot of little solutions you start seeing as you learn their process. I'm checking in with the CEO, but my day-to-day is with whoever's touching the dialer. 

Something that's shocking to me is, in 75% of the businesses I walk into, there’s no one running the dialer. It is literally - the dialer is on. It's just on and it's doing its own thing. There's a vast lack of knowledge about how powerful the call center software solution is. People think they can set and forget - we'll just write a workflow and we'll turn it on. 

You really have to intelligently look at what's happening with the dialer in real time and you do need a dialer admin or you need someone who's responsible. That’s why I start with the CEO, but spend most of my time with the dialer person.

Consulting services that move the needle

My team and I, my group of advisors, have been in technology for 20-plus years. We offer a number of different services.  We do a lot of tech stack building and a lot of training, quality assurance, monitoring, and scoring.

The most common is an efficiency audit where we come in, we look at everything you're doing and we suggest all the best practices. And we always increase sales. We've not walked into a single business where we have not been able to increase their sales. 

We also offer a compliance audit. If you are one of those companies that want to be ahead of the curve, we can audit you along with a legal service to ensure that you're as compliant as possible, and to give you best practices. If you are buying leads and you want to make sure your vendors are compliant, you can also hire us to do compliance. 

We do have some emergency dialer admin situations. If your dialer admin cancels and you need someone to run your dialer for a couple of days, that's something we can do. 

Those are our current products. Anything you need to build your business that you want help with. 

In terms of vertical industries, I've got a deep, rich experience in solar. I've owned and sold multiple solar companies. So if someone needs help with their solar business on sales, marketing, technology, scripting, or rebuttals, we offer those services as well.

Heather’s professional journey consulting for sales and lead generation companies

My journey in telephony goes back to when I was 18 years old and I had to pay for college by myself. I found a call center rep job at AirTouch, which turned into Verizon Wireless eventually. So I started on the phone. And career-wise, I worked my way up in my roles from rep to senior rep to manager to director to VP, and eventually owner.

And throughout that journey, I've been in telephony. And long before I met the folks at Convoso, I was consulting for inbound and outbound call centers. I had some experience in debt collections. And I really landed in lead gen at MediaMix. And inside there, as a consultant, I had the opportunity to kind of be involved in a lot of different business models and to see their functionality.

I really grounded myself in my experience at Verizon. I had 3,000 call center agents. And I rose to a level there in which I did a lot of high-level projects within their organization. So I've got this deeply rooted big call center and a ton of little small call center positions after them. I left MediaMix when it was sold and started my own call center. And I exited that call center to work with a solar company with a 150-seat virtual call center of agents working at home - long before COVID. Then I moved to Momentum Solar, but got recruited by SunPro, and while I said no, I did consult with them.

I've had over a hundred consultancies in the 25 years that I've been working. And so many of these companies had what I like to call Frankenstack tech stacks. And my team and I have been able to go in and bring automation and technology together to increase sales.

Watching Convoso’s growth over the years

Convoso was co-founded by two brothers. I mentioned Bobby earlier, that I was introduced to Convoso through him. His brother, Nima Hakimi, is the CEO. Nima has networked and built the company, and even himself, into a household name in our industry. He's partnered with really great compliance-minded organizations like Mac Murray and Schuster LLP, a law firm specializing in contact center compliance, and companies ActiveProspect and Contact Center Compliance (DNC.com). And because of those relationships and many more, and the integrations built into the Convoso system, his product has become robust enough that you don't need 17 billion plugins to make it work in a really successful way. 

Nima has also done a lot of personal and professional development which has influenced the culture of the business. And he's grown over the years in his leadership to become the CEO he wants to be. 

Convoso is really the name in the lead generation space, and I credit that a lot to Nima and his leadership, and the team building to make this into a true corporate SaaS company. 

And to reflect back on Bobby - well, Bobby is gold. He's definitely gifted. The way his mind thinks, the way he can understand connections and connectivity has made a system that does things that are really, really hard to do. Bobby is, for lack of a better term, outside the box – he really has a growth mindset. So if I go to him and I say, wouldn't it be cool if…  he never shuts me down. But rather, he’ll say, okay how can we do that? He’s more likely to say, let's build it.