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Monthly Archives: October 2018

Keep your focus strictly on your calls for successful selling

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Maintain focus

Giving each and every call your full attention will help you to improve the quality of your telemarketing campaigns. As well as giving potential customers a better impression of your business, staying focused helps you to deal more appropriately and more skilfully with questions, queries, and objections.

Understanding just how important concentration is to the quality of your calls will help you to stay focused on your prospect from beginning to end. This can have a big impact on your results and help you to achieve more from your telemarketing campaigns.

Making a good first impression

The first few moments of any professional interaction will set the tone for your future. These initial minutes and seconds are crucial, as Psychology Today says:

“First impressions matter, for good and bad. They are fine when you like someone on first meeting; they are not so fine when the first meeting is negative. Positive first impressions lead to social cohesion; negative first impressions lead to biases and social prejudice.”

If you’re distracted by something in the room or by other thoughts in your head, it’s likely to diminish the quality of the impression you make. As you won’t have a second chance to make a first impression, this could impact on your long term business relationship.

Responding to queries and questions

In order to ensure you convert, we advise that you ensure that you keep your focus.  Even drifting off for a minute or two can cause you to miss out on vital information. This in turn can lead to your answers becoming less focused and less targeted, something that could cause your telemarketing call to fall flat.

Tone and quality of voice

Did you know that when you move around a room, or even fidget in your seat, it can have an impact on the quality of your voice? Focusing solely on the task in hand will help your voice to stay steady throughout your call and ensure your potential customer has your full attention.

How to stay focussed on a telemarketing call

In order to get the best results from your next telemarketing call, remember to relax and ground yourself to keep your focus. Let your colleagues know that they should avoid talking to you when you’re on the phone and clear your immediate space of anything that could cause a distraction. The calmer and more tranquil your office is, the easier it will be to give the call, and the customer, your full attention.

Find out more about improving the quality of your telemarketing calls by taking a look around our site or getting in touch with a member of our team.

Ask an open question

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Ask open questions

Open questions are an integral part of telemarketing. Helping you to get a conversation going, build rapport and gather the information you need, questions are some of the most important tools telemarketers have at their disposal. Asking an open question can make your telemarketing technique even more powerful. Use these communication tools wisely. They can help to broaden the conversation, engage your potential customer and help your call come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Why ask an open question?

Ideally, you want the decision maker to do most of the talking during your telemarketing call. However, as most people are reluctant to share information, or even come across too enthusiastically, in an initial conversation you’ll need to use a few techniques to get them talking.

Open questions are questions that can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Select the right open question at the start of your call and it will allow you to generate conversation and help you find out a little more about the person and the company you’re speaking to.

How to find the right open question

Although ‘how are you?’ can technically be classed as an open question, it won’t get you very far in the world of telemarketing. At best, you’ll get a polite but dismissive answer, at worst, your intrusive query could annoy the person you’re speaking to. As Mind Tools says:

“Asking the right question is at the heart of effective communications and information exchange. By using the right questions in a particular situation, you can improve a whole range of communications skills.”

Instead of asking a generic question, use this invaluable opportunity to ask a question that will reveal something about the decision maker and their company’s needs. Do a little research as you dial their number, or while you’re waiting for the phone to be answered, so you know just what to ask when the opportunity arises.

Planning your telemarketing call

In an ideal world, every telemarketing call would run something like this:

  • You open the call by introducing yourself, your company and the point of your call.
  • You then ask an open question – this should always begin Who What, When, Why or How.
  • This open question should give you a good idea of the company’s requirements, you can then use this information to generate a lead.
  • Finally, you need to close the call. Ask them for a convenient time or date to follow up your conversation.

Learning how to harness the power of the open question can make a huge difference to the quality and the success rate of your telemarketing calls. Start practising with the technique now to see how much of an impact this simple, but effective conversation tool could have on your business. Get in touch with a member of our team to learn more about improving your telemarketing technique.

Keep an eye on your benefits

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Focus on benefits

Although the features of a product or service are crucial to its appeal, it’s the benefits of the product or service that will make or break the sale. As Marketing Donut says:

“Successful selling requires you showing your customers how your product meets their needs. Highlighting your product’s benefits in quantifiable terms is more likely to result in a sale than simply describing its features.”

When making a telemarketing call, try to keep the key benefits of your product or service at the forefront of your mind. Conveying these benefits to your potential customer will help them to see your company’s value and could make all the difference to the success of your call.

Identifying your benefits

Even if your product or service is the biggest, fastest, most innovative, or newest in its field, your customers won’t want to part with their cash unless you can show how these features will directly benefit them. During the call, you need to ensure you show a clear link between the features of your product or service and the needs of your customer. The more comprehensively you can do this, the more likely you’ll be to make a sale.

Before you can tell potential customers all about the benefits of your product or service, you need to clarify the key benefits for yourself. Prior to making a telemarketing call, sit down and think about the following:

  • What is it
  • What does it do
  • Why is it special
  • How can it help a business
  • What problem does it solve
  • What opportunity does it help deliver
  • What differentiates it from its competition

Keeping these ideas in mind when making a telemarketing call will help you to come across as more enthusiastic, more excited and more confident – all qualities that can help to enhance your telemarketing call. The more enthused you are about your product or service, the more contagious your excitement will be and the more likely your potential customer will be to make a purchase.

Time, Effort, Money or Security

The difference between a feature and a benefit, is that a benefit has a real-world impact on the life of your potential customer. When listing or describing the benefits you can offer, think about how your product or service can save your potential customer time, effort or money, or how it can improve the security of their business.

The more clearly and more emphatically you can get these benefits across – and link them with the immediate needs of your potential customer – the better. Come back to your benefits throughout your call and take a few seconds to summarise them at the end of the conversation. This will ensure your call ends on a positive note and that the benefits of your service or product are fresh in the mind of your potential customer.

If you want to learn more about improving the quality of your telemarketing calls, take a look around our site – or get in touch with a member of our team.

Sit up, look up and breathe

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Working posture

Just because you’re not speaking to customers face to face doesn’t mean you can ignore your posture during a telemarketing call. Although they may not be able to see you sitting with your shoulders back, spine straight and chin up, they’ll be able to hear it in your voice. This can make a huge difference to how you come across. As Call Centre Helper says, “The body also has a massive effect on our breathing pattern which in turn has a massive effect on the way the words are spoken.”

Learning how to improve your posture, and then ensuring you implement these improvements, will help you to come across as more confident, engaged, and energetic during your telemarketing calls.

Projection and breathing

Just like a wind instrument, the body produces its clearest and loudest sounds when you’re standing tall or sat up straight. Straight lines help the breath to travel through your body and make it easier to project your voice, two things that are very important for effective phone communication. Before you pick up the phone, or when you’re dialling, make a conscious effort to draw your shoulders back, put your chin up, and sit up tall. If you struggle to maintain this posture throughout your call, try standing up. This should help to re-energise your body and keep your voice clear and engaging.

Energy

Maintaining a good posture during the working day has been shown to help boost your energy levels. Your body will respond to your dynamic posture and you’ll feel more awake and more engaged as a consequence. If you’re currently struggling to maintain your energy levels throughout the day, this could be a great way to give yourself the boost you need.

Communication

Another major benefit of sitting up, looking up and breathing during a telemarketing call is that you’ll sound more confident. Your potential customers will interpret this confidence as expertise and will therefore be more likely to take everything you say on board. Confidence and energy will also help to make you sound more enthusiastic. Customers are likely to pick up on this enthusiasm during the call. Whether they realise it or not, it will influence their decision making and could be the crucial factor that convinces them to give your company a chance.

Although your customers can’t see you, posture is still an incredibly important part of telemarketing. Making just a small adjustment to how you sit and how you breathe when you’re on the phone can translate to real changes in how you come across. With so much to gain from such a small change, posture is one thing that no telemarketer can afford to ignore.

Find out more about improving your telemarketing technique by getting in touch with a member of our team.

Blue Donkey wins Innovation Award at 10th Ely Standard Business Awards

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Business awards

Blue Donkey are proud to announce that we have been awarded the coveted Ely Standard Innovation Award, having made it to the finals in several different categories. Our innovative approach to telemarketing, client support, loyal client base, and dedication to quality have all been commended by the judges, read on to find out more about our success and what the judges had to say about Blue Donkey.

Backdrop to the awards ceremony

In Ely and the surrounding area, the Ely Standard awards took place. Committed to recognising the most innovative and hard working companies in the east Cambridgeshire area, the awards ceremony took place on the 28th September in the beautiful Ely Cathedral. A celebration of local business talent, the awards were a wonderful opportunity for professionals from Cambridgeshire to come together and acknowledge the companies pushing the boundaries of business.

Held in the spectacular surroundings of Ely Cathedral, the Ely Standard Business Awards hosted over 250 guests, with many of the region’s top businesses in attendance. As well as company owners and other professionals, a number of local dignitaries and business leaders were also there on the night.

Blue Donkey and the Ely Standard Business Awards

This year, Blue Donkey was a finalist in three categories at the Ely Standard Business Awards. We were lucky enough to win one of our categories, receiving the Ely Standard Innovation Award. Designed to showcase businesses that can demonstrate how they’ve adapted, improved and innovated their services to meet changing demand and evolving challenges, the award is one of the most prestigious at the event.

Our success at the award ceremony in this prestigious category relies on several different factors. We are lucky to have an incredibly talented and hardworking team behind us. Our wonderful team of experienced telemarketing professionals, dedicated to working hard towards unrivalled quality for our clients, has allowed Blue Donkey to flourish, building on success upon success, over the past decade. Our team’s dedication to creatively responding to the challenges of the telemarketing sphere has spurred a culture powered by successful innovation.

In addition, we pride ourselves on a challenging and inspiring work environment, in which we celebrate using our skills and talents to provide a powerful telemarketing service for our loyal client base. Our dedication to our excellent quality management system, rather than a sole profit motive, drives a business that sees results. This is why we believe that we have amassed such a loyal base of repeat clients over the years.

As one of the most well-known businesses in the category, the judges were impressed by how Blue Donkey has continued to raise its standards over the years. As a judge for the Ely Standard put it, Blue Donkey “has innovative processes to maintain and develop their position in the corporate world and are worthy winners of this category.”

As finalists, judges commended our excellent performance in terms of providing highly-supportive customer service. We are known for our open dialogue and ability to respond intuitively to the unique needs, pain points, and business goals of every one of our clients. As always, we seek to provide clients with the highest level of service.

Our dedication to these areas of business have ensured that we are one of the most successful and resilient companies in our sector. We are strongly committed to innovation and quality management as a key focus for building a successful business that’s still winning awards after 21 years trading.

Because why has a curly tail

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avoiding why questions

If you remember being a troublesome toddler, you’ll probably recall asking, “Why?” in response to every statement, question or request made to you by your parents and teachers. If you’re a parent now, you might well have experienced a similar phase with a child of your own. After a few hours (or a few days) of the relentless ‘whys’, parents may give a playful response, such as, “Because why has a curly tail,” out of sheer exasperation.

In the world of telemarketing asking, “Why?”, in response to a statement or rejection, especially in the early stages of a business relationship, can be just as inappropriate. A lot of potential customers will find the directness of the question rude and off putting and it could damage your future dealings with the company. Working out a way to ask direct questions a little more gently could help you to avoid hurting your fledgling business relationship while still getting the information you need for a successful telemarketing call.

Why and why not

Beginning a question with the word ‘why’, when speaking to someone in a business context can often come across as too direct. Potential customers don’t want to have to explain themselves to people they don’t know, so may well be put off by your enquiry.

A lot of the time, it will give your prospect a negative impression of your company and in some cases it could cause them to terminate the call altogether. If this is the first time you’ve spoken to your potential customer and you’re therefore still in the relationship building stage, your questioning could do even more damage.

How to tone down your questioning

Toning down the directness of your questioning is actually very easy. In fact, you don’t even need to change the word order of your question, you simply need to soften it with a bit of an introduction. For example, adding a, “Can you tell me…” to the beginning of your ‘why’, will help to make it less jarring. A question like, “Can you tell me more about why you haven’t reviewed your business insurance?” is a lot more subtle than, “Why haven’t you reviewed your business insurance?”.

You could also try responding to a point raised by your potential client with a phrase like, “That’s interesting, why is that?”, although you’re still getting the information you need, your query will come across as a lot more polite.

However you choose to phrase your questions, it’s important to make them sound natural and spontaneous. As The Global Sourcing Association says, “Effective telemarketers sound comfortable and relaxed and use natural language. Prospects don’t respond to stiffness and scripted calls.”

Try to practice asking your indirect questions when you’re talking to colleagues in the office. That way you can get used to toning down your ‘why’ questions and find the phrasing that best suits you.

If you’re interested in finding out more about improving your telemarketing techniques, or if you’d like to get more from your telemarketing campaigns, give us a call and speak to a member of our team today.