Appointment Setting Tips That Can Make A Difference

Businesses rely on lead generation services to build consumer interest in products and services using different marketing tools. Once a stranger is qualified as a lead or prospective customer, a business will set up an appointment with them to promote their product or service.

Since a business will not want to waste time or resources meeting people who have no intention of purchasing their product or service, lead generation services will focus heavily on appointment setting. This is the process of calling as many people as possible from a list of prospects and then qualifying them as prospective customers. Once this is done, an appointment is set between the prospective customer and a sales representative to provide more information on the products and services, make a sale, or follow up with the prospect.

Appointment setting is an important part of lead generation services and businesses tend to rely on customer service outsourcing for appointment setting as well as telemarketing and live chat support services. Whether a business is carrying out their lead generation campaigns themselves or opting for call centre outsourcing, these are appointment setting tips that can make a significant difference.

1. Talk to the right person

When you contact a business for a sales pitch, you are likely to first deal with a gatekeeper like a receptionist or secretary. While you may not be able to easily get past them to reach a decision maker at the organisation, a gatekeeper can only listen to your sales pitch and deliver a summary of it to the decision maker.

Instead of wasting time pitching to a gatekeeper, look for methods to get through the gatekeeper to reach a decision maker at the organisation. One of the best ways of doing this is by ensuring you get proper introductions before you start pitching. This way, you will know who you should address your pitch to when making a call.

2. Be flexible with your script

You may consider all possibilities when preparing your script and have a clear idea of how the conversation with a prospect will go. However, you cannot predict all outcomes and the prospect may change the course of the conversation in a way you did not expect. This is why it is important to maintain some level of flexibility with a sales pitch and focus on a main goal instead of delivering a script word for word.

When preparing a script, you should be sold on the product or service before you can sell it to someone else so it is vital that you study the product carefully and understand it. When delivering the pitch, get to the point without beating around the bush, ask relevant questions, and close quickly.

Regardless of how you prepare your script, remember that you must never waste your prospect’s time. This is something all lead generation services must ensure.

3. Respond without delay

When delivering your pitch in person or interacting with your prospect via email or live chat support services, make it a point to respond quickly. The longer you take to respond to a concern raised by the prospect, the more likely you are to lose them.

In addition to not delaying responses, lead generation services like telemarketing, appointment setting, and live chat support services must listen to the prospect and pay attention to their concerns. Understanding their priorities and requirements will give you a better idea of how to pitch a product or service to them in a way that convinces them to make the purchase.

If you ignore what the prospect has to say, your sales pitch will not be effective and you may fail to close the sale.

4. Keep improving and learning

Your strategies and tactics may have been successful so far, but this does not mean there is no room for improvement. Strategies used in call centre outsourcing are constantly changing and evolving, which means that you can never stop learning.

Study trends and practices in appointment setting as well as customer centre outsourcing and improve your sales pitch and strategies accordingly. Industry professionals recommend ending with specific questions on when an appointment can be made instead of asking a closed question on the possibility of meeting to discuss the product or service further.

By rephrasing questions in this way, the prospect will be required to commit to a specific date instead of merely agreeing to an appointment.