Is your sales team suffering from a low period and struggling to reach monthly goals? It may be time to rethink your sales techniques and make some improvements. Here are some outbound calling strategies to reevaluate your cold-calling tactics and bring your company back on the right track.
Outbound Calling Strategies
There are several reasons why businesses with large outgoing call volumes succeed or fail. A lot of it has to do with how you are conducting your outbound calls, the level of training your agents undergo, and the tools and technology you use. What strategies can you use to refine your outbound calling results?
1. Set (or Re-set) Goals
The first step when creating any strategy is to decide on the end goals. What is everyone on the team hoping to achieve through these tactics? Is the objective to gain straight sales or set appointments or just survey prospects to determine which are valuable? Additionally, how many calls do you intend to make over the course of a week or month? Having these goals established will ensure each team member is on the same page and works towards the same end.
2. Create the Right List
Another important step in attempting to sell your product or service is identifying who your target audience is. If you don’t pay attention to this key factor, you will waste time calling the wrong people and not making the right sales. Start by conducting market research to determine and understand your ideal customer group. Then, create a list and work off of that.
3. Work with the Marketing Department
Working with the marketing department can help you understand when and how the company may be losing prospects. Use that information to fix the problems before they occur. For example, say your marketing team discovers that most failed customers are the ones that result in abandoned carts. Your outbound strategy might then focus on reaching out to these users and helping them complete the process or resolve any existing doubt.
4. Train Your Agents
Preparing your agents is equally important. Conduct training sessions every couple of months as a refresher to reinforce company standards. Additionally, make sure that reps are familiar with the tools, software, and technology they need to use. This way, no time is wasted on learning in the middle of a call. Provide training materials and opportunities like webinars, textbooks, seminars, etc., that can assist agents in doing their best and increasing their confidence when on-call. Consider using call recording for quality assurance and performance analysis. Reward successful interactions and use failed interactions as lessons.
5. Rethink the Script
To follow the script or not? That is the real question. It is known that customers automatically tap out of a conversation when they hear a monotonous script that they know had been heard by many. But scripts help reps retain key information, stay consistent, and make fewer mistakes. The cold-calling script acts as a safe switch for when they forget or lose track of their speech. The trick to creating a script that is informative but not monotonous is to give reps input. Let them create the script with you through a collaborative and flexible process so that their concerns and issues can be represented as well. And the final product is one that works for everybody.
6. Prospect Comes First
Keeping the prospect engaged and interested has often proven to be a difficult task. If they did not expect your call, it’s less likely that the customer will let you even complete the first sentence of your script. First, you want to grab their attention with an offer that piques their interest. Use persuasive words and phrases. Make customers feel valued and heard. Perhaps you can call them by their name, ask how they are doing, and ease into the script. Let them know how you came across their contact. This way, you don’t come across as creepy or stalker-ish. More importantly, be mindful of their time and let them know that. Offer to set up another call time, if they are busy now. Letting your customers know you care and respect their time will give you a better chance at converting them.
7. Smart Calling
Besides implementing all these strategies, keep in mind that timing matters as well. If you are calling prospects too many times or during odd hours, chances are, you will lose that sale. Additionally, if you call an interested client too late, that too may be a dead end. Using analytics, determine what are the best times of the day and days of the week to reach out or return calls. For example, you can use outbound calling to follow up with an interested customer who dealt with a sales chat rep or interacted with your website or requested a callback. Here, the sooner you connect with them, the better you can capitalize on their interest.
Outbound Calling with Global Call Forwarding
Want to upgrade your company’s outbound calling service? Purchase outbound calling and virtual numbers from Global Call Forwarding. You can then use our Customized Caller ID feature to override the caller ID to display one of the numbers you purchased instead. For example, that way, when calling Mauritius, the caller ID will display a Mauritius number. Additionally, you can also get Outbound Call Recording and record outgoing calls! Sign up today or talk to an expert for more information.
