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What makes a good appointment?

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Appointment setting tips

Setting an appointment with a potential customer is an important step in moving your business relationship on to the next level. Giving you the chance to come face to face with potential clients, appointments help you to strengthen your business connections and secure new leads.

However, in order for an appointment to be of any value, it needs to be of good quality. The last thing you want is for your potential customer to cancel as soon as you’ve put down the phone. It’s essential you put the time, and the effort, into ensuring your appointments are really going to happen.  We share you how below.

Pens, not pencils

As soon as you tell someone you’re going to ‘pencil in an appointment’, you’re giving them an excuse to cancel. If the appointment isn’t set in stone, the potential client won’t feel obligated to meet the commitment. Many will actually cancel as soon as it feels even a little inconvenient. Instead of giving prospects this ‘easy out’, get them to commit to a firm time and place for the appointment.

Begin by finding out when they’re free to meet, and make the appointment as convenient for the prospect as possible. Make it clear that, as far as you’re concerned, the meeting is going ahead. This should help to prevent them from cancelling and ensure the appointment takes place.

A motivation for a meeting

From your point of view, a meeting is important because it gives you the opportunity to get to know the prospect a little better, boost brand awareness and increase your chances of making a sale. However, the benefits for the prospect are often less clear cut. If they’re not 100% sure they want to use your products or services, they may be unwilling to commit to an appointment. As sales people, it’s our job to show them how the meeting will benefit them as well as as.

Before you pick up the phone to make an appointment setting call, try to think of a few good reasons why the potential client should commit to a meeting. For example, as @startupstowers says, “if it is a product that might be a little complicated, the company will require someone to show the client how it works.” Alternatively, you could talk about how it would benefit your business to see the client’s premises or factory, and how this will allow you to create a more accurate quote or tailor your products or services to suit their needs.

Be clear on dates and times

When setting an appointment, it’s incredibly important to be clear about when and where the meeting is going to take place. Repeat the time and place to the prospect at the end of the call and make sure they’ve put it in their diary. It’s also imperative to ensure you know exactly where their premises are so that you are able to find the location easily and efficiently.

Learn more about making good quality appointments by taking a look around our site, or getting in touch with a member of our team.

A successful call isn’t just securing leads

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Telemarketing targets

Although making introductions and raising interest in a product or service is an important part of telemarketing, there’s a lot more to the task than generating leads. In fact, if you’re running a well-rounded telemarketing campaign, securing leads will be just one aspect of your strategy. As well as creating valuable leads, there are a number of other goals you can achieve through a telemarketing campaign. Many of these help a company to boost brand awareness, increase its customer base, and strengthen its B2B relationships.

Appointment setting

Setting an appointment with a new potential customer is often the first step in making a sale. However, in the vast majority of cases, marketeers won’t be able to make an appointment the first time they contact a new business. As Marketing Donut says:

“Research suggests only one in every 50 deals is struck at a first meeting – yet many sales people give up after just one or two knock-backs.”

Instead of making an appointment the ultimate focus of a call, think about how you can begin to build a relationship with the prospect. This will help you get to know their needs and requirements, and understand their specific circumstances.

As well as helping you to build rapport with your prospect, taking the time to get to know them will help your call to stand out from the crowd and help you to tailor your products and services more precisely in the future. Setting an appointment is an important stage in moving a telemarketing call towards completion. It shows that the prospect is genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

Market research

The more you can find out about your customer base and prospective clients, the better. Understanding their needs, their goals and their objections will all help you to ensure you’re offering the products or services they really need. Asking prospects to spare you a couple of minutes to answer a few questions can take the pressure off. The decision maker won’t feel obligated to make a purchase (or an excuse) at the end of the conversation. Simply getting a dialogue going is a good way to garner valuable market research and to begin building a business relationship with the prospect.

As you start dialing your call, get the company website up. Looking over this will allow you to tailor your questions to suit their needs and give you the opportunity to show how your products or services could make their lives easier. Showing empathy, understanding and expertise during calls should leave an impression on the buyer. When you call back to secure a sales lead, they’ll remember you in a positive fashion.

Looking for further advice?

If you want to make your telemarketing calls about more than simply securing sales leads, we can help. Our training methods help to raise the bar and can give your telemarketing the depth and expertise you need for your brand to outshine others. Get in touch to find out more.

6 appointment setting tips

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Appointment setting guide

Appointment setting is an integral part of telemarketing. As @townsendwardlaw puts it:

“It does not matter how eloquent, persuasive, good looking or charismatic you are if you never get the chance to position yourself in front of a prospect – in-person or over the phone.”

Although it’s crucial to telemarketing success, helping your business to make sales and generate valuable leads, appointment setting is notoriously difficult. Convincing your contact to commit to putting a date in the diary requires skill, patience and understanding, so it’s incredibly important your telemarketers know exactly what they’re doing if your company is going to have the best possible chance of success.

1. Begin with an open question

In previous posts, we’ve talked about the importance of beginning with an open question during telemarketing calls, and appointment setting is no different. Asking an open question will help you to catch your prospect off guard and help you to connect with the person you’re speaking to. Once you’ve got a conversation going, it will be a lot easier for you to raise the subject of appointment setting and get the ball rolling.

2. Don’t be afraid to go in cold

Ideally, when making appointment setting calls you should be contacting people who have already had some sort of relationship with your business. Decision makers are very unlikely to set a date with someone on the first call. Work together with your marketing and sales departments to develop lists of potential customers  who are well suited to the products or services you have to offer. If your list is well profiled and you have something genuinely interesting, you shouldn’t be afraid to pick up the telephone to a potential buyer. The telephone is a great way of engaging buyers in a one-to-one conversation about something which could help them improve their business. You can’t direct a mailing, email or any other medium to ask questions and build a discussion around the unique needs of a buyer, telemarketing can do that.

3. Build a rapport

People are always more likely to make appointments with telemarketers that they like. Use your open question to get a conversation going and then ask insightful questions about the company and person you’re speaking with to build rapport. Once you’ve got a dialogue going, you should be able to bring up appointment setting fairly naturally.

4. Don’t be aggressive

No one wants to feel forced into making an appointment so whatever you do, avoid being overly keen or aggressive. If the person you’re speaking to doesn’t want to make an appointment now, ask for permission to contact them again in the future and leave things on a friendly, positive note.

5. If at first you don’t succeed, try again

Most decision makers won’t set an appointment on the first telemarketing call, especially if you’re calling cold. Work towards setting an appointment  by getting their consent to call again. Calling the company on more than one occasion and building a relationship with the contact you’re speaking to will make them a lot more likely to put a date in the diary.

6. Get referrals

Word of mouth recommendations are incredibly powerful. Wherever possible, try to get your customers to refer your business to other companies that might be interested in what you offer. If you can mention the name of a business they trust during your conversation, the decision maker will be a lot more likely to hear you out and set an appointment for a future meeting.

Find out more about effective and innovative telemarketing techniques by exploring the information on our site today.

How to introduce your sales force through appointment setting

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Appointment setting

Appointment setting is one of the most important aspects of telemarketing. Often the key to achieving your campaign goals, appointment setting brings your sales force and your potential new clients together. As well as being one of the most essential parts of telemarketing, appointment setting is one of the most difficult. However, since few relationships in business can begin without first speaking directly to a prospect, appointment setting is something all telemarketers need to master.

Make it about the client

When working towards making an appointment, it’s important that telemarketers ensure the prospect remains at the centre of the call. If telemarketers can make it clear that they’re there to make prospects’ lives easier, potential clients will be a lot more likely to take an appointment with the sales force, and the subsequent meeting will be fruitful for both parties. Telemarketers should make it clear that it is the sales force that’s there to help the prospect find the product or service that suits them and to provide any additional information they need before making a purchase.

Giving the prospect space

Telemarketers should make it clear that the product or service they’re offering will benefit the potential client. They should try to avoid giving the impression that failing to set an appointment or make a sale will negatively impact on them or their business. And remember, this isn’t a sales call. It isn’t up to the telemarketer to try and clinch a sale. Businesses are much more receptive to a call that can be followed up in their own time, to their own schedule.

Confirm the contact

It’s essential that telemarketers confirm they’re setting appointments with the right person. The sales force needs to know they’re speaking directly to the decision maker, otherwise they’ll be wasting their time as well as the potential client’s time. Taking a moment to confirm the appointment is with the right person will give the meeting a better chance of success and get the sales force off on the right foot.

Focus on the task in hand

The main goal of a call is not to set an appointment, it’s to communicate the benefits of a product with a view to setting an appointment. It’s a crucial difference that telemarketers sometimes fail to appreciate.

They should avoid trying to sell products or services to the prospect and instead keep the focus of the call on the benefits of the product. By communicating these benefits with a view to setting the appointment, telemarketers can avoid wasting everybody’s time – including the sales force.

It also gives them the opportunity to tailor their call to suit the requirements of the prospect and give themselves space to answer questions and offer solutions. It’s then up to the sales force to move things forward and take full advantage of the hard work the initial telemarketer has done.

As appointment setting is such a fine art, many companies outsource the task to third parties. This helps to ensure the job is done well and often gives telemarketing campaigns a greater chance of success. To find out more, or to learn about the services we provide, explore our site today.