Customer Service masterclass training – Leicestershire – 11th – 12th May 2010

March 8th, 2010

Customer Service masterclass training - Leicestershire – 11th - 12th May 2010. 2 day course ideal for anyone who talks to customers on the telephone in a customer service role : customer service, contact centre, call centre, internal sales etc.

Customer Service 2 day training - Autumn 2009

Customer Service 2 day training - February 2010

Customer service course will cover key communications skills for offering exceptional customer service. Includes questioning skills, listening skills, mixed messages (why the message you send is not the message they receive) plus we’ll show you how the first 6 words you say to someone over the phone can tell the other person 40 plus things about you.

If you want more customers, and to develop more loyalty from the people you currently sell to, we’ll show you how. Get more customers, more often, who will stay for longer and spend more. Follow the link to find out about the dates of all forthcoming open courses. http://www.tomarket.co.uk/courses.php

2 day customer service course ideal for anyone in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Stamford, Grantham, Wellingborough, Loughborough, Coalville, Oadby, Oakham, Uppingham, Rutland, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham, Hinckley, Lutterworth and all parts of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. 11th – 12th May 2010.

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Posted in Forthcoming courses, communication skills, customer handling, customer services, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Telesales masterclass – Leicestershire 20th – 21st April 2010

March 5th, 2010

Telesales masterclass – Leicestershire 20th – 21st April 2010.  Dates for the next open course for telesales and telemarketing personnel now set.

2 days to help you be better !

2 days to help you be better !

Course will cover all the key elements of communication skills and how to structure an effective sales call. We’ll be covering top tips and techniques for dealing with objections, listening skills, questioning skills – what the different questions are, when to use them and how to structure a powerful telephone sales call around good questioning. Add into that an introduction to the 2 stage process for directing the conversation, and a couple of hours on how to structure powerful telesales and telemarketing calls and you have the basic tools to make sure you convert more opportunities that come your way on the phone. Contact us for more details on 01858 461148. You can download a copy of a telesales course schedule directly from the site http://www.tomarket.co.uk/course-schedules.php 

This 2 day course is ideal for anyone in Derby, Nottingham, Coventry, Leicester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Oadby, Market Harborough, Hinckley and Oakham as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, West Midlands and East Midlands. Leicestershire 20th - 21st April 2010.

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Posted in Forthcoming courses, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Buy some huge experience with a short term telesales manager

January 26th, 2010

Buy some huge experience with a short term telesales manager. There are other alternatives to simply recruiting and committing to the fixed cost that employing your own telesales or telemarketing manager involves.

The job market has changed a lot in the last 12 months or so, and there are a number of high quality people who have previously run successful telesales and telemarketing teams who are now out of work. And frankly the vast majority are open to suggestion.

There are alternative ways of getting the right manager for your team

There are alternative ways of getting the right manager for your team

You are therefore in a powerful position. You hold the cards. You therefore don’t have to recruit in the same way that you used to, at least not at the moment. A good quality interim telesales or telemarketing manager can help you by drawing on wide industry knowledge. You can benefit from cross industry best practice. Chances are the person currently heading your team the telesales manager, telesales team leader or telemarketing supervisor may have more limited experience.

An external interim manager should be able to offer you many things. They will know some great people to speak to, they can provide training for the team, and knowledge of how to set up systems that work, that are proven across industry.

We specialise in business to business for instance and have worked in many market sectors over the years including small business, insurance, packaging, plastic container manufacturing, automotive leasing, board printing, I.T., health and safety products, with directors of small to medium sized business, fork lift trucks,  software,  capital equipment, car finance, car dealerships, marketing agencies, outsourced telemarketing agencies, office cleaning, vending machines, event organisers, paper print, schoolwear, workwear, payroll training, healthcare insurance, optical services, plus many more !

We therefore have some good cross industry experience and we know of a few quality managers who are looking for the right position across the Midlands. For more information about how this may work for you, call us on 01858 461148  or e-mail us info@tomarket.co.uk. Get another job ticked off your list !

We can help you with phone team management and development across the Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Daventry, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Cambridge, St Ives

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, benchmarking telesales teams, interim telesales manager, small business marketing, telemarketing, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Unsolicited telephone sales calls can be illegal

January 22nd, 2010

Unsolicited telephone sales calls can be illegal. So this means you can’t simply start calling names and companies at random from a list. And you certainly can’t do what some companies used to do in the 80’s which was to call numbers out of the Yellow Pages to make sales calls. 

Make sure your telesales activity stays the right side of the law

Make sure your telesales activity stays the right side of the law

As long ago as December 2003, the government introduced legislation which made it unlawful to make unsolicited calls to individuals who have indicated that they do not want to receive such calls. Both consumers and businesses can register their unwillingness to receive telephone (TPS) and fax (FPS) communications on a central register.

Over 15 million consumers and businesses have already registered their numbers which means these businesses and consumers must not be contacted unless permission has been explicitly granted to the calling company. There is a potential fine of up to £5,000 for each breach of the legislation. So this means you must ensure your in-house list must be checked periodically, and any lists you buy in should already be TPS checked. Any reputable list supplier will do this as a matter of course.

Incidentally there is a shelf life of 3 months on these checks meaning that any list that has not been checked for 3 months should be checked again. There are many companies that will provide a service to check your numbers for you, such as www.numbercheck.co.uk.

We find that this is a much more serious issue if you operate and sell in consumer markets and phone people at home. Most companies don’t register their office numbers thank goodness as the whole economy would grind to a halt, but many householders do.

This is brought to you as part of  To Market’s public service! If you want further information or advice on this subject, we suggest you have a look at the telephone preference service’s website http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/ctps/what/ for all the official information.

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Telemarketing management, Telephone preference service, owner managers directors, small business marketing, telemarketing, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Council customer service training – open course East Midlands

January 19th, 2010

Council customer service training – open course East Midlands 9th March 2010.

Councils all around the country are under increasing pressure to upskill their customer facing staff, both from government and from customers of course ! There is also a general trend to establishing centralised customer service teams as opposed to the strongly departmental set up previously. Some of you are further down the road with this programme than others.

We have worked with a number of councils in the East Midlands undergoing this transition. So having run a number of bespoke courses to include customer service both on the telephone and also face to face, we are opening up this training as an open course.

 

The fee represents a huge saving of over 50%, compared to what our clients in the private sector would pay.

 

The course will run week commencing 8th March so if you have unallocated budget left, it can come out of this year’s budget.

 

The course will cover aspects of customer service including ;

 

  • Listening skills
  • Questioning skills
  • Building rapport
  • Directing the conversation
  • What makes excellent customer service

If this is something you are interested in, simply e-mail us info@tomarket.co.uk. We will then send out more details about the precise dates, and the venue (not booked yet, but likely to be the East Midlands.) We will also send you a copy of the full course schedule with details of all the modules which will be covered during the day.

 

Lunch and refreshments will be served and each delegate will get a full set of printed notes.

 

Why might you be interested ?

There are a number of reasons why this may be of interest to you. I believe that this is a unique course – I have not found any other courses specifically for customer service in councils. Here are some of the key reasons

 

  • Support in the development of your people (who are the face of your organisation)
  • To add to their skills in their increasingly general role
  • Customer service is a key aspect of your business process
  • You may have some budget left
  • They will also benefit from sharing experiences in a room with people from other councils. (While this isn’t specifically what the course is aimed at, it is a very useful by-product.)

We’d be interested to know your thoughts on this course even if it’s not for you at the moment. You’re welcome to phone or e-mail us.

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Posted in Councils customer service training, communication skills, customer handling, customer services, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Getting past the gatekeeper – 5 top tips

January 19th, 2010

Getting past the gatekeeper – 5 top tips. One of the parts of our interactive training sessions I particularly enjoy is when we brainstorm ideas as a group. This is one of the fun parts of our training work on getting past the gatekeeper, or getting past the receptionist as it often is.

Here are 5 top tips that have come from training groups we’ve run ;

  1. Build in continuity if you’ve spoken to them before “He asked me to call him” or if untrue, instead try “we agreed to speak round about now ……”
  2. Go via another department (accounts or HR for instance) and ask to be transferred. This also often helps get the name.
  3. Ask for them by name : directly, assertively and confidently. You could also simply ask for them by their first name if appropriate.
  4. Use the fear close. Spell out ‘dangers’ of not taking your call. Does depend on the industry you’re in. This can work with compliance industries such as Health & Safety. Not many receptionists will be brave enough to block you in response to lines such as “I just wanted to chat to him about the forthcoming legislation and I’ve got some information for him that will help you stay the right side of the law” will they ?! 
  5. Be prepared to engage the receptionist or PA in conversation. Use their name back to them, and use words like help, advise and suggest. You will be appealing to their ego and sense of power.

There are many m0re of these tips and we are collecting more all the time, but I hope these help you. They certainly help us, and the countless people we work with. The best of luck, and I mean that most sincerely folks !

To Market runs training sessions to include this bane of our lives across the Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Loughborough, Daventry, St Ives, Cambridge and wider parts of the East and West Midlands

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Posted in Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | 2 Comments »

What to do if you lose an order

January 18th, 2010

Sadly sometimes it’s gonna happen. Despite your best efforts and the positive thoughts you had about this job, you find out you did not get it. At this point many salespeople simply give up and move on. After all there’s plenty more fish in the sea. However you’re a professional and so you’re keen to learn as much as you can from this situation. Good !

Professional telesales & lost orders

Professional telesales & lost orders

Often you will hear of this lost order indirectly. It seems customers don’t want to deliver bad news in person. So strangely if you’re going to get additional information about what happened and why, you will need to make it easy for them ! As I said – strange that !!

Contact them by phone, and explain that you’re keen to learn from the experience both personally and from the company’s point of view. Phrases such as “I’m interested in knowing about how we stand in the market place and so I’d like to ask you why on this occasion we weren’t successful in winning your business. Hopefully that way we can learn from it, and improve what we do in future.”

Because their guard is down, you will often find out valuable information. It will also tell you about what is important to them in choosing a supplier. You will be amazed how often it isn’t the price !

Having a dialogue with the customer is important too as it helps you start the dialogue for next time. And as many of your other competitors won’t be doing this, it starts to build your opportunities for next time. Also of course, if your victorious competitor lets them down, they’ll be on the hunt for an alternative supplier. And if you’ve already spoken to them and they know you’re not harbouring a grudge, they’re much more likely to try you aren’t they ?

To Market runs training for companies across the Midlands including Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Wellingborough, Cambridge, St Ives, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and the West Midlands

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

Get flexibility with a short term telesales manager for your team

January 11th, 2010

Get more flexibility with a short term telesales manager for your team. You may be looking to beef up your team with the appointment of a manager. Perhaps you could promote someone from within the team. Maybe they lack some of the experience in the short -term. Alternatively you could look to hire someone who is the finished article – but naturally they cost more. You do have a third option. You could hire in an outside manager for a short period of time – to help you set up the structures and management processes. That way you get the experience and expertise without the ongoing financial commitment.

You have a limited commitment, and it will keep their focus on results for you. Naturally if they don’t help you and your company produce better results quickly, you won’t be keeping them on, will you ?!

You have options too, in terms of the number of days per month you hire them for. Generally we suggest 4 or 5. You have no social costs (NI, sickness etc), and you’re not paying turning up money. In other words they are there to do a job and produce.

Hiring an interim telesales manager may give you better flexibility in 2010

Hiring an interim telesales manager may give you better flexibility in 2010

There are many things a quality telesales or telemarketing manager can help you with. You can agree with them how to set up systems of telesales management. This way once they’ve set them up, you can then administer them yourself without the large overhead. Have a look at our published article at ezine articles http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Top-Tips-For-Setting-Up-an-Effective-In-House-Telesales-Or-Telemarketing-Team&id=2114456 for some of the detail.

You can also pick their brains about other forms of marketing for your business.  Development of your website, and other ideas on how to build inbound marketing are also important. Additionally a good telesales or telemarketing manager will probably have some great contacts especially if they’ve been in a consultancy type of role before. If you want to discuss how this may work for you, contact us, and we can tell you more about our experiences in this field helping clients.

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Posted in Telemarketing management, benchmarking telesales teams, interim telesales manager, small business marketing, telemarketing, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Keep telesales language and suggestions positive

January 8th, 2010

What you say on the phone is extremely important. And people you talk to will pick up on things without you or them even realising it ! Also remember that what you say reflects what is going on in your head, (the internal dialogue as NLP practitioners call it) so staying  positive is key.

When carrying out team audits with telesales, telemarketing and internal sales teams we often notice agents being apologetic or negative about the suggestions they are making. This is a great shame as it undermines what you are offering.

Positive language and suggestion will help you sell more

Positive language and suggestion will help you sell more

On one team audit we carried out for a Midlands based vending machine company we advised the client to brush up on some of the sales language. “Is there any way I can send some info out ?” suggests that you are asking them a big favour. It also implies you are expecting a ‘No’ too.  In training, we often talk about how asking a question framed as a suggestion sounds so much more assertive. An alternative therefore might be “OK, what I’d like to do is send you some information about our latest range of vending machines. I’ll then give you a call early next week when you’ve had the chance to have a look at it. Is that ok ?”  

I’m not pretending that making such changes to your ’script’ is easy to do instinctively, being a good salesperson requires practice, and so does being an effective phoner. And remember your voice is the only tool you have to use.

On another team audit http://www.tomarket.co.uk/teamaudits.php with a company in the board packaging industry we noted the need to minimise negative language. One one call Tim said “I’ll find out what went wrong” in answer to a question from a customer who’d had problems with a previous product. There are other ways of wording this so that it doesn’t sound so serious. “Ok, I’ll have a look into that for you, and I’ll ask Sharon our product devlopment manager to give you a call to discuss it with you. Would that be ok ?” 

Finally when talking business with clients and prospects avoid provocative phrases “to avoid harassing you on a weekly basis.” Make it sound warm and human by all means but don’t ’suggest’ things which have negative imagery. Unless you’re marketing Marmite – in which case “you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it” is probably ok !

This is a topic that comes up frequently in our courses in Leicester, Northampton, Birmingham, Coventry, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Daventry, Solihull, Lichfield, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Nottingham, Derby, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, the East and West Midlands

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Selling advice, Telesales team assessment, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales, vending | No Comments »

Questions really are the answer

January 6th, 2010

Questions really are the answer. It is true that good and effective questioning skills are key to building good relationships with your customers and prospects. And remember that everyone is a customer, it’s just that some of them haven’t bought from you yet !

Questioning skills are key to build good relationships with customers

Questioning skills are key to building good relationships with customers

I was with a customer yesterday who was talking about the fact that his sales team who deal with customers on the phone and on the trade counter don’t readily offer alternatives when a customer asks for a product which is out of stock. This is so important for a number of reasons.

First it is important to remember that a customer who calls you on the phone or in person really wants to go away with their problem solved. They don’t really want to have to try somewhere else or phone around. So in fact, by offering alternatives you are potentially solving a problem for them. Be proactive – it is good selling and good customer service.

Secondly a customer or client can often go away with a solution that they’re happy with, or in some instances happier with than what they thought they needed ! Use your experience and expertise to offer them other things they may not be aware of.

And the best way of offering advice and alternatives is by questioning. Only by using quality questioning skills will you be able to find out all you need to know about the customer’s application and their requirements. That is important as the advice you come back with, is likely to be more useful to them. They will also respect the fact that you’ve listened and shown some interest in them.

Questions then really are the answer, as they help you find out the things you need to know and at the same time it helps you build rapport because you show interest. It works for professionals such as lawyers, accountants, detectives and doctors. Let it work for you too.

To Market runs training sessions that include beefint up your questioning techniques across the West and East Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, Daventry, Solihull, Lichfield, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Leicester, Northampton and London 

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Posted in Customer Service tips, Field sales training, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, customer handling, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

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