Developing Telemarketing Skills
April 25, 2011
Many businesses have a difficult time developing their telemarketing staff because they choose people that are not cut out for the business. No one would argue that not everyone can become a doctor or a scientist, but for some reason business often thing that they can hire telemarketers, give them a script and a headset and they will be successful. Telesales is a profession and (just like a surgeon is skilled with his or her hands) a telemarketer is skilled with their words and has to possess a personality that is conducive with the profession. If closing a sale or appointment does not excite a telemarketer, they are probably in the wrong profession. However, those that do have raw talent can be developed into productive and successful telemarketers. Therefore, the telesales professional needs skills that actually help to grow the company. For instance, a sales professional should know how to handle resistance and conflict and they should know how to relay excitement to the company in which they are speaking. Moreover, telemarketing professionals need to learn cultural sensitivities, which is crucial when you are on the phone and cannot see the person. Finally, the last skill a good telemarketer needs to possess is strong closing skills, because if you tell a client about a product and they are interested, if there are no closing skills, the sale or appointment can be lost.
Does The Quality of Call Centre Equipment Matter?
March 15, 2011
Your telemarketing sales teams are professionals and as such the need to have the correct equipment in the call centre is critical to their success and subsequentally your organisation’s success. There is certain equipment that every call centre must have in order to run smoothly and effectively. For instance, you sale staff must have an adequate and good quality headset, telephone handsets, batteries, ear cushions, as the minimum essentials to make your staff confident and successful. Why is this? Well imagine being a telemarketer and having to use a headset that had static or slight feedback – the customers cannot hear them properly, or they cannot quite hear the customer – at the end of a longer period such as a month – what would this do to your overall sales prospects?
Of course, any call centre also needs to have the proper hardware, software, and telephone systems that are functional and reliable, so that you do not have dropped calls. Providing your telemarketing staff with the right equipment boosts their confidence because they know they can depend on the equipment not to fail during a sales call. If your sales staff are worried about the equipment failing they cannot concentrate on their sales ability to bring in the clients, which of course hurts the entire business. Therefore, the equipment you supply your call centre will either enhance your sales or hinder them – make sure you use equipment that helps.
Good Practices in Telemarketing
March 1, 2011
Telemarketing good practices basically follow common sense and to a great extent mirror what is good practice for businesses in general. For instance, setting goals for various programs you have in place, and making sure these are realistic as well as measurable is a good practice.
Testing and refining of strategies and techniques is paramount to success.You need to have individuals or a team that can take your existing customer data and analyse it to see which companies and customers have the greatest possible profit margin. You need to know which organisations are most likely to use and buy your service or product so that you can focus your telemarketing efforts on businesses like these.
And this directly leads onto another good practice which is taking advantage of the flexibility that is engrained into any good telemarketing staff or agency. This means using a flexible, bespoke approach to campaigns, gaining an advantage by adapting your sales team according to market trends, and to the analysis of what works and what doesn’t work. If it does not work ditch it, but when something is working, develop it so you can be even more successful.
Conversation or script – which works for you?
May 13, 2010
An online site for call centres published an article about conversational selling. One point made in the article relates to the use of conversational selling rather than the use of scripts. I have discussed this in a previous blog entitled “Call Centre Scripting”. People tend to know when the person on the other end of the phone is reading from a script. The conversation is stilted and does not flow naturally. One of the worst ways to start off a conversation is from an obvious script. Conversations by nature flow naturally so “Can I speak to the owner of the business?” Or “I am calling today to speak to you about X product” sound scripted and will be spotted by the gatekeeper straightaway. Open with the contacts name wherever possible. “Could I speak to Dave Johnson please?” 90% of the time you will be asked “who’s calling please?” then just give your name but don’t volunteer any other information unless asked. This is always a good footing to start a call and once you have settled into the call, the conversation should flow naturally.
Can you improve sickness and absence at your workplace?
April 13, 2010
Does your call centre or telemarketing agency suffer from repeated sickness or absence and are you doing enough to combat this. Most businesses across the country will find from time to time sickness related absences will be a problem. Now for the majority of cases this is probably due to genuine circumstances but there are invariably some cases where people have the day off just because they feel like it.
The question is what can be done about it. Some companies offer a bonus schemes that reward not only employees performance at work but also their attendance. This makes employees think twice about having time off just because it happens to be sunny outside or for other unknown reasons.
One of the best ways to improve absences is to implement a sickness and absence policy where people have to have a back to work interview after short periods of absence. This again encourages people not to take the day if they are going to be questioned about it when they return. Whichever policy you decide to implement you need to make sure all employees understand it and most importantly your call centre or telemarketing agency needs to adhere to it.