The first step in creating an effective telemarketing campaign is drafting a good script. This critical component can often be neglected by even the most experienced of professional call center managers. Instead of being a priority, many times writing a proper script is the last aspect call center managers consider. However, even with the best telemarketers, without an effective and concise script, a call center business will not be able to produce results.
Have a Precise Goal
Before you begin writing your script, make sure you understand the goal of the campaign. Some campaigns may simply require you to generate leads. This means you are not actually trying to close a sale, but rather verifying a potential customer's interest in a particular product or service. Other times a client who hires a professional call center requires live operators to close sales over the telephone. Understanding the nature and goal of the campaign will enable you to draft an effective script.
Understand What You Are Selling
Knowledge is the cornerstone of any type of sales campaign. It does not matter if you are selling a product or a service, knowledge of what you are selling is integral to creating an effective script. For example, if you are generating leads for a mortgage company, be sure to understand the terms of the proposed mortgage. When selling services, make sure you understand the pricing and scope of the services before drafting your script.
Know Who to Speak With
When developing a script be sure to know the decision maker's name and title. This should be integrated into your cold call and lead list. When calling on businesses do your best to obtain the person's official title. Generally, the script should assume that the call reached the correct person. For example, an introduction may be similar to the following: “Hello, John, my name is Sarah calling from XYZ Marketing Company.” Notice, that the introduction did not ask to speak to “John,” but simply assumes that the sales person has already reached the correct person.
Explain the Reason for the Call
Your telemarketing script should also explain the purpose of the call. This is important because you may be interrupting somebody in an important task. This may be especially true when targeting other businesses. Even with calls to consumers, you may be interrupting somebody's dinner. This part of the script needs to be direct and concise. However, you should also try to be as natural and smooth as possible. The introduction also needs to explain how your company can benefit the potential customer.
Use Open-Ended Questions
Closed-ended questions are those which can be answered with a single word, such as “yes” or “no.” Open-ended questions, on the other hand, require more detailed responses. Closed-ended questions can be used to close a sale, however, in the opening moments of a sales or lead generation call they can be detrimental. Closed-ended questions can end a conversation too quickly, not allowing the telemarketer to gather information necessary to build rapport. Open-ended questions allow the potential customer to express how he or she feels about business or whatever aspect of their lives that is relevant to the sales call.
Rebuttals
Rebuttals are an integral to any script. No matter what type of product or service you are selling, potential customers will have some type of objection, which is a reason to not want your product or service. Rebuttals are scripted responses designed to overcome objections. Be sure to create strong rebuttals for the most common objections.
The script is the skeleton with which you will build your sales campaign upon. It will help guide how you hire and how you organize your sales process. Once you create an effective script, you can then add other components needed for a successful call center business.
No comments:
Post a Comment