Script Reading is an age old topic telemarketing companies struggle with and how they go about their business.
Are you using script reading sales-types, or professional-level executive callers? In today’s day and age, 99% of executives notice and will spot out the difference. What kind of telemarketing do you want to represent your company? Open conversation styled communications put your sales team on another level.
Think about it for yourself just a moment here. When the phone rings and you don’t immediately identify that number on your caller ID screen you generally will think to yourself ‘Who is that calling?’ .. ‘Is it a SALES call?’ .. Your mind is already preparing itself to be pitched and you pick up the phone with your standard greeting only to be hit with.
“Hello, My name is XXX and I’m calling on behalf of company YYY. We have a very special offering right now and would love for you to be a part of it. The ZZZ product is 50% better than …….”
WAIT WAIT WAIT JUST A SECOND HERE!
Do these people ever come up for air? I’ve had phone calls like this where I’m keeping them on speakerphone just to time how long they will talk before taking a breath and letting me speak on the other end. Guess what? I ALWAYS SAY NO. I’m not going to give information to a telemarketer approaching me this way, just script reading without paying any attention to me, the one answering their call. It says nothing to me about their bringing value, they are just trying to sell me. Where is that open conversation here? If you want to talk to a wall, become a wall whisperer.
Executive-level sales reps make an enormous difference in getting results. They place a call to have conversation and not just to pitch you on an item like a mindless drone. Hey, you might not be a fit for the product/service, or a host of other reasons that right now may not be an optimal time.
That first telemarketer? You know what happens.. They hang up <click> and the auto-dialer takes them to their next inevitable rejection. Executive-level sales reps stay on the line, and converse. That’s what true open conversation means to us. It’s about having meaningful conversations that drive your brand to more revenue and larger market share.
I could not tell you how many times one of our sales reps did not get a lead from a call attempt on the spot, but it turned into a referral for another company they know needs the solution. Future business because they appreciated the tactful approach. Often times we also are given re-direction to the proper people internally that no bought list could have provided. Influencers from the inside. Golden!
That’s the difference between an Open Conversation and Script Reading.
The word telemarketer has been watered down over the past decade with technology. Companies can set up call centers faster and cheaper than ever before and it shows in the final product, their outbound calls. No longer do people think of telemarketers as sales reps building contacts. It has unfortunately become this nasty phone creature looking to bother you, hitting that script reading with zero quality or value, wasting your time, and ultimately trying to get your personal information or a quick low end sale. We have all been fighting that battle for years. Script reading sucks, outright. It’s a shame people even bother to try.
One of the big misconceptions people get with telemarketing and executive-level telemarketing is the goal. Do you want to contact 1,000 people just to blurt out a 1 line message and move on? Then that call center is best for you. Chances are you’re going to get zero business out of it and waste everyones time. You don’t react to those calls right? Why on earth would your target audience.
In executive-level telemarketing the goal is to have successful interactions with decision-makers. 1,000 calls is never going to happen on the same size/budget campaign as the call center people, it’s just not realistic. Getting a list back of 1,000 calls where 95% of them were little more than “call attempt” is useless. On the other hand getting a list back of 200 calls where 60-100 of them had conversations with people of influence in the companies reached? Wonderful. That’s true market intel that will benefit your company and internal sales reps. It’s also the biggest difference in marketing approach with an open conversation compared to the call centers.
Measure your success by building intelligent connections for your company that can be leveraged today, tomorrow, and in the future. High quality, expertly trained, executive-level sales repss who are having true dialogues with a target audience that matters and understands your value prop. Script reading? Not in a million years.
