First impressions are incredibly important in the world of business. If you get off on the right foot you might create a professional relationship that will last a lifetime. Make a poor impression, however, and your B2B contact could be over before it’s even begun. Ensuring that your telemarketing team are making good first impressions whenever they pick up the phone is therefore essential. Your business should create long lasting relationships with other companies and see real results from its telemarketing campaigns.
Avoid scripts
Though keeping a few notes and bullet points handy isn’t a problem, you should avoid having telemarketers follow a complete script. Reading text out word for word will instantly make a call sound robotic and boring. The prospect is likely to view your company as impersonal and lose interest in what your telemarketers are offering.
Ideally, you want your telemarketers to have natural communication skills and be familiar with the products and services that they’re talking about. If they’re able to engage quickly and easily with the prospect and talk freely about your business and your company’s USP, they’ll be able to navigate past the gatekeeper and get a real, two-way conversation going without a script in sight.
Create a targeted call list
The call list you provide to your telemarketers will form the base of the campaign. If you have a list that’s been well researched and well put together, every call your team make has the potential to produce results. This is great for morale and will help every telemarketer in your company to approach each call in a motivated and positive way. If you have a poor quality call list on the other hand, your team may strike out again and again. As well as creating a negative atmosphere in the office, this can cause your team to become complacent and to reduce the amount of commitment they invest in each call.
Get them excited about your business
Positivity is incredibly important when it comes to making good first impressions. Try to get your team motivated about your company, your products and your services. Before they pick up the phone – or while they’re calling – have them think of five to ten of your business’ main benefits. This will help them to sound enthusiastic and passionate when the prospect answers, two things that can help to make a great first impression.
Smile and sit up straight
Two of the simplest ways to improve the way you come across on the phone are smiling and sitting up straight. Encourage your team to ‘smile as they dial’ so that the prospect hears the positivity in their voice the moment they answer the call. Sitting up straight will help your telemarketers to feel more awake and more alert.
Make communication, not selling, the focus of the call
Although you want to see results from your telemarketing campaign, it’s important that your team focuses on building relationships with other businesses rather than just selling. If the main purpose of the call is sales, the decision maker may be put off, damaging your chances with the prospect for good. Encourage your team to see communication as the goal. If your telemarketers can create a good first impression, find out more about the company’s needs and arrange a time for a future meeting, it will help to produce long term results.
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