You’re staging a successful pay-per-call campaign that’s harvesting great qualified leads in the form of incoming calls. Or perhaps you’re in the process of teaching customer-service personnel to convert incoming calls into sales.
Either way, you need to maximize the sales and marketing skills of your call-center staff to ensure no lead goes to waste.
“There exists one device more powerful than all (social media sites) when it comes to making and closing sales — the phone,” advises Grant Cardone on Entrepreneur.com. “The phone is money, and everyone has one. Calls are immediate and powerful if you can get the right person on the phone and know how to use that time effectively.”
Tips for turning incoming calls into revenue generators at your organization:
– Employ extroverts who are able to build rapport with a variety of people.
– Provide staffers with information allowing them to personalize their pitches. Call metrics programs can help with that; Dial800’s CallView360, for example, offers the call source and the medium from which it was precipitated. “Have every available tool at your disposal to repair, fasten and strengthen your customer’s interest,” advises Erin Olilla on Nowblitz.com.
– Develop lead-conversion templates and guidelines, but avoid rigid scripting that makes agents sound like robots. Focus on open-ended questions that negate yes or no answers.
– Some experts recommend asking immediate questions that eliminate those unlikely to buy. “You cannot spend time with small talk and chat with prospects,” says Cardone. “That’s the old-school mentality — you must get in and get out.” Others say creating a dialogue is more effective. “If you can make them feel good about the purchase and validate their interest, you’ve already done most of the work to complete the sale,” says Olilla.
– Critique actual calls with and without agents, noting which approaches are most effective. Ask star agents to coach others.
– Offer purchase choices to give customers a feeling of control and increase the likelihood they’ll buy, advises Brad Janet on the National Association of Sales Professionals website.
– Teach staff to recognize and respond to closing statements, which Janet defines as positive remarks the caller makes after being offered choices (i.e. “How much is that?” or “That might work”).
– Post agent metrics to foster a sense of competition.
– Establish commission and incentive programs that motivate outstanding service and sales achievements.
– Consider following up on unfulfilled leads with emails or outgoing calls, in case the customer has questions or concerns that can be addressed and resolved.
Finally, take advantage of the data offered by call-metric programs to continually tweak your call-center strategy.
“Customer-driven companies not only need systems to do the marketing and the sales-calling part of lead generation … but also need help with all the reporting analytics that help them identify and analyze the process,” says marketing consultant Linda Myers-Tierney on Customerthink.com. “Once you get in there and look, you find things like human factors and other subjective elements that are opportunities for improvement.”
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