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Below you will find 10 helpful tips to assist you with your outbound telemarketing:
1. Warm up your prospects
Before engaging in a telemarketing campaign, businesses should consider contacting prospects via a mail campaign first. You will probably find that the telemarketing follow up calls will work more effectively when contacting them via a different channel before hand.
2. Quality of your data
Businesses need to ensure the accuracy of the data they are working with. Details are pivotal to the success of the calls. Thing such as age, sex, geography, occupation, interests etc, will determine whether your company is actually talking to the right prospects for the campaign.
3. Do Not Call Register
The DNCR allows consumers to list their number if they do not wish to be contacted by telemarketers. It is the responsibility of all companies to ensure that any prospecting list used is washed up against the DNCR. Failure to do so will see companies hit with penalties. Most data owners wash their lists internally but the onus is on you to follow protocol as the end user of the list. Go to www.donotcall.gov.au to find out more details about the DNCR.
4. Training of operators
Training your operators to deliver telemarketing calls with an outcome is essential. The toughest part about telemarketing is dealing with the rejections and objections to the calls, your operators need to be well prepared for this reaction.
Some calls will be turned down quickly where as other people will become a little more disgruntled. On these occasions, the operators need to answer their questions, tell them how their details were obtained and point them in the right direction to enquire further if they wish.
5. Train your operators with knowledge of prospect history
Train telemarketing operators to engage with prospects, and not just rely on the telemarketing script in front of them. The operators should know the history of the person they are about to phone. This includes knowing what product or service they have had in the past, what’s worked for them, what didn’t etc. This offers the best opportunity to interact with the person on the other line.
6. Aim to get a ‘YES’ response, whether there is a sale or not
While the main aim of telemarketing is to get a sale, you should also aim to receive a ‘YES’ response even if the prospect doesn’t go for the offer. A ‘YES’ response would be having them say ‘yes i am happy for you to keep in touch’ so at least there is a window of opportunity for follow up down the track.
7. B2B Gatekeepers
In B2B telemarketing the hard part is getting past the gatekeepers, to the person you really want to be talking to. The gatekeepers will be receptionists, assistants and PA’s who are savvy to telemarketing calls and often direct the calls away from the intended recipient. Be prepared for this and how this is going to be handled. A way around this may be again, to mail the prospect first and then follow up with a telephone call.
8. Telemarketing script
An outbound telemarketing script will be the foundation to all sales and appointments. Without a well structured and well written script, the telemarketing process will be a waste. As a guideline outbound scripts should contain the following.
- Introduction: introducing the operator, the company and why they are calling the prospects.
- Ask questions that immediately identify the person you are intending to speak with.
- How you propose to offer them a solution to their problems and what tool/product they will be utilising to achieve this.
- General questions you could ask, i.e Did you see the football game last night? What a game!
- What contact details you need to collect / confirm.
9. Targets
Like any major campaign, set a deadline for the telemarketing campaign. Within this deadline you should stipulate how many prospects you want to touch and how may sales you aim to achieve so all operators are aware of company targets.
10. Courtesy, respect and care
Bear in mind that the people you are contacting are not just a number, they are a real person. Take care of what is said to them and how they are treated during the telemarketing call. Respect them when they decline a call and respect their wishes if they ask that your company does not contact them in the future. This means actively creating a suppression file for those contacts who do not want to be contacted. This suppression file should be washed up against any internal or external list your company uses.
Posted on 20th April 2010