Succeed in Telemarketing

If you have experience as a salesperson or in customer service, or like the idea of working on the phone, then you might do well with a job in telemarketing. Each company will have its own sales etiquette for you to follow, but there are some general guidelines that you can benefit from regardless of what you'll be selling. They mainly involve how to practice and develop your approach to making calls, and ways to make adjustments once the call has been placed. By taking an organized approach to telemarketing and staying positive, you can establish yourself in the profession while developing excellent communications skills in the process.

Steps

Preparing for Your Shift

1. Know what you need to accomplish. Before making calls, be sure to know just what is expected of you for that day, especially sales targets. This will help you to plan out a calling strategy. And don’t be shy about asking your supervisor to clarify instructions. This shows that you’re detail-oriented, a quality which bosses and managers look for in their employees.
2. Set goals you can reach. Once you have your daily assignment, set some hourly goals. These should be ambitious enough to reach your daily targets, without being so demanding that they’re unrealistic. Placing impossible expectations on yourself can cause needless stress and frustration.
3. Remove distractions. To create a work environment where you can focus, you’ll need to do away with potential distractions. Before you begin to make calls, remember to turn off your cell phone, close any web browsers on your computer, and tell co-workers that you’d prefer not to be disturbed during work time.
   • To help you limit your internet time, try productivity tools such as LeechBlock or SelfControl.
4. Get comfortable at your desk. Sit at your desk with a good posture, not slumped back or bending over your keyboard. Arrange your devices so you can access them easily. Also be sure to have everything you need at your desk, such as calling lists and a bottle of water. This way you shouldn’t need to get up until your break time.
5. Be sure you’re sleeping enough. Try to get in the habit of sleeping for as many hours as you need to in order to function well the next day. This might mean not sleeping in too long on Sunday, if you’ll need to get up early for work on Monday. You’ll need to be in top form and focused to sound pleasant and convincing on the phone.
   • Consider taking a walk during your break to clear your mind and to recharge your energy.

Perfecting Your Sales Pitch

1. Master your script. Your supervisor should give you a script to follow for your initial sales pitch. Or you may be asked to Encourage People to Buy from Telemarketing Scripts based on some guidelines. You’ll want to avoid reading the script word-for-word, since this an easy way to lose a potential customer’s interest. Memorize it by reading it several times, then trying to cite it from memory one line at a time.
   • In the telemarketing industry, the product offer is known as an “Elevator pitch” because of how it summarizes the product or service in a few sentences, which should be recited during the time it takes to ride in an elevator.
2. Practice in front of others. If you're just starting out in telemarketing, you might have problems with shyness. To reduce any reluctance you may have to make calls because of shyness, ask your supervisor if you could practice your sales pitch in front of a group of fellow employees. Ask them to give you feedback on how clearly you’re speaking, the appropriateness of your tone of voice, and how convincing your delivery is.
   • Ask one person in the group to act as the potential customer, and carry out a mock sales conversation with them.
   • Another good way to build confidence is to shadow a fellow employee. Ask your supervisor about spending time watching, listening to, and taking notes on a top employee while they make calls.
   • Asking your boss for extra help will show them that you’re a dedicated employee and interested in doing all you can to help the company.
3. Get to know your product. In order to be able to speak convincingly about the product or service you’re pitching to the potential customer, it’s important that you understand it well. Ask your supervisor for a written summary of the product or service that you can study.
   • If you’re selling a physical item, ask to see the product so you can study its characteristics and afterwards describe it better to the customer.
4. Read up on your audience. Most telemarketing firms limit their calling lists to potential customers who are most likely to buy their products or services. Ask your supervisor for a summary of the backgrounds of potential customers you’ll be calling. They may all have several things in common, such as age, income, gender, or profession. Knowing these beforehand can help you to customize your pitch to the audience.
   • If you’re calling an existing customer, find out as much as you can about their purchasing history and product preferences. Be sure to use this information when making your pitch.
5. Be ready for negative responses. The majority of potential customers that you call will not be keen on what you’re offering them—at least at first, of course. That’s where your persuasion skills come into play. But you can't expect to be able to come up with replies to negative answers on the spot, so you’ll need to prepare a list of replies to potential rejections to your sales pitch.
   • For example, in reply to, “Sorry, I’m not interested,” you can keep them on the line with, “But I haven’t told you the best thing about [the product or service],” or “If you’ll give me twenty seconds I’d like to try to change your mind.”
6. Practice last names. Mispronouncing a potential customer’s last name is a sure way to lose their interest right away. If the name’s pronunciation is unfamiliar to you, ask a co-worker or supervisor for help with a possible pronunciation. If you’re confident you know how a longer, multi-syllable name should be said, practice reciting it a few times before making the call.
   • If you’re not sure how to pronounce a last name, it’s best not to even try. Instead, simply address the person you’re calling as “sir” or “ma’am.” Or if it is permitted by your supervisor, address the person by their first name—it’s less risky to come off as too familiar with a person than it is to botch their last name.

Making the Call

1. Smile while talking. Potential customers will tend be less bothered by a cold call if they’re greeted cheerfully. You will sound as if you’re smiling when you actually do smile while delivering your pitch. To help you with this, have a mirror nearby to occasionally check your expression when you’re on the phone.
2. Use a simple, polite greeting. Try starting with the same greeting each time. There’s no need to try to get creative at this point, since you might risk setting an inappropriate tone for the conversation before hearing the respondent’s tone of voice. For example, try either “Hello, is Ms. / Mr. [last name] available?” or “Hello, may I please speak with Ms. / Mr. [last name]?” as greetings.
3. Get right to the point. When making cold calls it’s important to grab the potential customer’s interest in the first five seconds or so. You need to quickly give them a good reason not to just hang up. That’s why moving from the greeting right into your pitch is essential.
   • Try not to follow your greeting with phrases like “How are you today?” These can only add to the potential customers’ sense that you’re taking up their time.
   • Avoid saying “Is this a good time?” or “Did I call at a bad time?” You can assume that if this is the case, the person you called won’t answer, will hang up immediately, or will let you know that it’s bad time without your having to ask.
4. Speak in plain language. As you deliver your pitch and follow-up explanations, try to use a simple and straightforward vocabulary. Be careful not to use technical terms without defining them, and go with alternative phrasings if you can say same thing in more basic language. Even if you detect that the person you’re speaking with is well educated, it’s always more efficient to use the most direct and universal language possible.
   • Avoid using informal language that gives off an air of unprofessionalism. Make an effort to say "Good offer” instead of “Good deal,” “That’s fine” instead of “No worries,” “Yes” instead of “Yeah” or “Yep,” and “Please hold for a moment” instead of “Bear with me.”
5. Work on pacing your delivery. Try to get in the habit of listening to how quickly or slowly you’re speaking. This way, you can make adjustments to ensure that you’re being understood. Rushing through your pitch might confuse the potential customer, but talking too slowly could make them impatient or sound condescending.
6. Emphasize the product’s results. A potential customer will want to know about not only what the product or service is, but also what it can do for them. When explaining the product in the pitch or answering questions, be sure to talk about performance and results. If you’re doing this right, potential customers shouldn’t need to ask you, “But what will this do for me / my company?”
   • To have some results-based information on hand, ask your supervisor for statistics on customer satisfaction and product performance.
7. Build on positive momentum. Once you make a sale, try to carry the confidence you build from it into the next call. This means not being tempted to feel satisfied with one sale, and instead moving right into dialing another number. If you feel frustrated or overworked, these would be times when a break could help you. But this isn't the case when you’re doing well, since you could lose whatever knack you’ve developed even during a short break.
   • To keep things going, don’t put the phone back on the hook after a successful call—just hang up and then dial the next number.
8. Avoid frustration by staying positive. Think on the bright side about what you accomplished even during a rejected pitch: you may have left the customer with a good impression of the company, or learned that a certain phrase or response probably isn’t effective. And at the very least you can feel good that you’ve crossed this person off the list of potential customers.
   • If a potential customer is rude with you, don’t take it personally. Remember, it’s the product that is being rejected, not you.

Responding to the Customer

1. Don’t assume a gender. If the person you’re calling has a feminine-sounding name, and you reach a person with a feminine voice, try to avoid assuming that you’ve reached the person you’re looking for. The same goes for an apparent masculine name and voice.
   • Making an assumption would sound something like, “Oh, hello, Mrs. Thompson?” If you’re correct, you risk sounding suspiciously familiar. If not correct, you could cause offense if you mistake someone’s gender.
2. Adjust your tone according to theirs. In order to give the impression that you’re speaking to the potential customer and not at them, try to adapt your tone of voice to the mood they present. If they sound upbeat, put some extra enthusiasm into your delivery. If they sound tired or angry, speak in a neutral but friendly tone to avoid sounding oblivious to them.
   • Don’t use a familiar form of address unless they address you with familiarity. Resist addressing them as “Mate,” “Guy,” “Sister,” “Brother,” “Man,” “Dude,” “Partner,” or “Pal” unless they address you in this way first.
3. Learn to detect hesitation. An experienced telemarketer will know the signs of a person who is hesitant and one who is adamantly not interested. If the potential customer turns you down, but doesn’t hang up on you after your pitch, it’s possible they could be hesitating. Even if they’re just being polite by not hanging up, polite people are much more likely to stay on the phone if you can convince them to.
   • To try to keep them on the line, try responding with "I think you might change your mind if you knew a little more about this product / service."
4. Show your gratitude. Whether you’ve just made a sale, or are dealing with someone who has insistently refused the offer, be sure to express your respect for the customer’s time. Even if they don’t seem interested now, they could always become a customer in the future. At the very least, you want to leave them with a positive impression of the company, so show courtesy by being thankful when ending the call.
   • If they’re not interested, thank them by saying something like, “I appreciate your time,” or “Thank you for your interest.” If they make a purchase, or ask to be called back, add intensifiers: “I really appreciate your time,” or “Thank you very much for your interest.”

Tips

• If you believe in your abilities, then your attitude will remain positive and your calls will sound enthusiastic and more appealing to the person on the other end.
• Note the best times to call in terms of when you make the most sales. Be sure not to be taking any breaks during these times, and make as many calls as possible then.
• Stay focused on your calls and making sales. Don't allow yourself to become distracted by thoughts outside of your calls. Keep a notepad nearby to jot thoughts and reminders that come to mind.The purpose of this is to put aside the distraction so you can deal with it later, but still stay concentrated on what you are doing.
• Stay with what works for you. Discard any techniques that have proven unsuccessful for you in the past, continue with the ones that have worked, and be open to new ones.Ultimately, you should use techniques that you are comfortable with. Once you find something that works, keep using it, but don’t stop trying to improve it.
• Don't hang up the phone. Telemarketing is a numbers game. The more calls you make, the more successful you will be. When making calls, keep the receiver in your hand, and hang up by pressing the button. By doing this, you are training yourself to keep making calls and not procrastinating by taking breaks between each call. The call-out process should be ongoing if you want to build the number of calls you make and increase the likelihood of successful calls.

Warnings

• Avoid the “telemarketing voice”—a tone of voice that is flat and sounds uninterested. It's unappealing and lacks the emotional connection needed to relate to your customers.

Related Articles

• Be a Good Telemarketer
• Respond Creatively to Telemarketers
• Politely Deal with Telemarketers

Sources and Citations

See also

• Report Illegal Telemarketing and Robocalls in the U.S.
• Ask Telemarketers to Stop Calling
• Be a Good Telemarketer
• Respond Creatively to Telemarketers

What links here

• Be a Good Telemarketer