Telemarketing is a technique often perceived as intrusive. However, it works every time. Companies build a customer base, learn about the needs of prospects and improve their products. However, telephone prospecting requires in-depth work on the sales plan and regular follow-up to optimize the strategy. Let’s look at the steps to follow in order to succeed in telephone prospecting and prospect qualification.
SUMMARY:
Telephone prospecting: definition and interests
The phases of telephone prospecting
Our point of view on telephone prospecting
1. telephone prospecting: definition and interests
The definition
Telephone prospecting is a sales technique that consists of calling prospects or customers (outbound marketing or direct marketing). Sales representatives call contacts that have been previously registered in a database.
Telephone prospecting can be very targeted: The sales representative calls potentially interested customers (qualified prospects). But the campaign can also be very broad, precisely to identify prospects and thus find the famous qualified leads.
In this second case, outsourcing the qualification of prospects to a specialized service provider is often the preferred solution.
Everything depends on the objectives to be reached and the strategy followed by the company. Telephone prospecting can be used for :
- qualify the potential of this contact
- establish an initial contact
- establish a business commitment
- sell products and services (close the deal)
- Attract potential buyers to the store (promotions, private sales, new product launches, store openings or re-openings, etc.)
2. The stages of telephone prospecting
The sales technique can be broken down into four steps: building a customer file, preparing the call, contacting the target, informing of the telephone contact.
- Create a file for telephone canvassing The company has the possibility to create its own customer file, although the tendency is to buy or rent this commercial tool.When renting a prospecting file, the company only has access to the contact database and not to the complete database. Access to the contact database is limited in time.
With the purchase of the customer file, on the other hand, the company becomes the owner of the database. This more complete option is also more expensive than renting. The acquisition costs are therefore higher. However, the company can reuse its archives indefinitely. On the other hand, the acquisition of the database requires a long and complex management (routing, sending, updating).
The way a file is created depends on the type of transaction. For purchases, in particular, salespeople can obtain contact information (last name, first name, landline or cell phone, company, position, etc.) by scraping various information sites.
The job is then to filter the database to find the right contact. Which one? The one for whom your product or service speaks and who corresponds to your ideal customer (persona). Furthermore, a first approach can precede the contact by initiating social selling actions on social networks and emailing campaigns via marketing automation tools.
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preparation of the acquisition conversation
Effective sales cannot be achieved without a thorough preparation phase. Salespeople need to know the main selling points and the needs of customers. They must also integrate the company’s values into their pitch and anticipate objections. The message must be clear and meaningful, especially since the first few seconds of a phone call are crucial to the outcome (the famous foot in the door).
3. The sales plan contains all this information:
- The mission statement
- Market environment and competitors (benchmark)
- The company’s problems
- The offer
- The vocabulary
- Contracts and rates
- Customer profiles with testimonials
- Targeted prospects
- The call file
- Calling strategy (script, sales pitch and objection handling)
- Qualifications
- Inquiry procedures
- The reporting system
- First of all, the document reminds you of the objectives. For example, “25 leads per month with a minimum conversion rate of 20% into a sales opportunity at the end of the phone call.” The goals are then revised as you move from the initial acquisition phase to the current phase. These are elements that are taken into account to determine the fixed and variable compensation (incentive bonus) of the sales force.
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The phone call
The art of the salesperson is to achieve your goals by making the right calls. There are many methods to optimize conversion rates. Without wishing to be exhaustive on the subject, let’s recall some essential points:
- Work on your hook to limit the number of hooks;
- Confirm the caller’s identity by making sure you are talking to the target of the recording.
- Make an exchange and don’t just develop an automatic argument in a monotone voice.
- Ask the caller about their organization, revealing their problems (pain point).
- Store information about your environment
- Discover formal and hidden needs through active listening
- Present your solution by developing key arguments with intelligence, based on the data collected previously.
- Evaluate your product or service against the market and your competitors
- Ask for your interlocutor’s opinion to confirm your decision, adjust the offer according to his reactions or answer his objections and concerns.
- Conclude according to the objective of the call by making a sales inquiry to close a sale or a second inquiry to discuss a specific point (e.g. budget).
- Reporting
Reporting is an important step in optimizing telephone prospecting and salesperson performance. Whether it is daily, weekly or monthly, the report contains a multitude of data:
Call features:
- Date
- Time
- Person contacted
- Company
- Position
Type of call :
- First call
- Appointment with a qualified manager
- Distance selling
- Telemarketing.
Summary of exchange:
- Formulation of the proposal
- Contextual elements
- Identified interests
- Objections raised
- Reasons for a possible rejection (“no time”, “no need”, “too expensive”, “already with a competitor”, “no budget”, “no internal resources”, etc.)
Evaluation of the contact (hot or cold track) and probability of closure.
Update of the database.
At the same time, this data contributes to the estimation of call center performance indices (KPIs), such as the volume of outbound calls handled, the reachability rate or the termination rate. A test phase is necessary to adjust the strategy after the first calls (monitoring and listening to reference calls).
3. our view on the acquisition of telephones
A well-developed sales plan
The sales plan is the cornerstone of a cold calling strategy. While it may not be comprehensive when dealing with qualified prospects, it is essential to closing the sale. The salesperson’s battle plan is to build a customer file, make a sales call and promote the product.
Persistent salespeople
Sales personnel must be trained and motivated and receive attractive compensation. While the fixed part counts in the budget, the variable part, which is based on results, is essential. Indeed, salespeople are sometimes confronted with difficult customers or those who give up. They must therefore keep control of their emotions and maintain their enthusiasm despite the pressure of the objectives.
Test, repeat, adapt
Then there is the question of the cost of telephone prospecting. The idea of outsourcing the call center makes it possible to employ specialized sales teams that are willing to invest. In addition, the flexibility of an external provider in terms of recruitment, management and training is very practical for launching an acquisition campaign, knowing that the first period will be devoted to testing in order to refine the strategy.
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