Posts Tagged ‘telesales advice’

Getting past the gatekeeper – 5 top tips

Tuesday, 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

Monday, 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 »

Questions really are the answer

Wednesday, 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 »

How to sell the delivery charge on small orders

Friday, November 27th, 2009

How to sell the delivery charge on small orders. Many clients are looking to protect margins in what are increasingly competitive markets at the moment. We recently completed some training and development work with a chemical supplies company.  They supply a range of chemical based products to customers in varied market sectors. One item some members of the team struggled with was the newly introduced minimum order value for free delivery. In the report we wrote ;

telephone techniques - tips on increasing order value

telephone techniques - tips on increasing order value

“One small observation I would make is that I would prefer them to offer the alternative price inclusive of delivery rather than saying “and delivery will be an extra £13 if your order is less than £50.” What I am aiming at is to make it easy for the customer to know the total cost rather than making them very aware of what they are being asked to pay as delivery. So instead of it being “well that’s £25 plus a £13 delivery charge”, they could express it as “that will be “£25 or £38 delivered.” In my experience what we all want to know is how much something is going to cost us rather than how it is broken down. Also by saying how much the delivery charge is, you are focusing them on it as a stand alone item. 

Another idea I had when sitting with Kate is to look for added value business as a way of ‘helping’ customers get around the delivery charge. Kate admitted that this hasn’t been tried. There must be items that are fairly low cost that everybody would have a use for. While I don’t know about all the items in your catalogue things like plasters, hand cleaning towels, and barrier creams would fit this description. So if someone is placing an order for £35 for instance you could at least ask the question to see if they would add such consumable items to their order to “take advantage of a lower delivery charge.“ In effect of course it means that these additional items are being discounted by £7.50, and you may just generate considerably more business from some of these low cost items.”

There are many ways of delivering lines to customers that will make them more appealing. It just requires a little thought, and some empathy for your customer. After all customers frequently just want life to be made easy for them. And if you appear to have the answers, you will often get the business from them with little drama.

To Market works with companies to help them sell delivery charges to more people more often across the East and West Midlands including Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Tamworth, Coventry, Daventry, Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough, Coalville, Melton Mowbray, Oakham, Derby, Nottingham, Oadby, Cambridge, Newmarket and London.

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Overcoming objections, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

How to deal with – I’m happy with my current supplier

Friday, November 20th, 2009

How to deal with – “I’m happy with my current supplier.” This is one of the most common objections you face in any form of selling. As a result it is worth building some ’script’ in your head at least to help you combat it.

After all, if you can make 10% difference to your success in handling this objection, think what difference this would make to your sales results.

Happy with my current supplier - how to deal with that old chestnut

Happy with my current supplier - how to deal with that old chestnut

There are many things you can do and say to deal with such objections. Follow this link to the full article we’ve written on ezine   http://ezinearticles.com/?Objection-Handling—Im-Happy-With-My-Current-Supplier-Thanks&id=3289726

It is also worth spending a little time with your colleagues brainstorming some ideas. Combining your ideas in this way builds synergy, creates team spirit and helps everyone. One of our clients has recently started doing this every Monday morning and is already seeing more positive results and a better team atmosphere.

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Posted in Field sales training, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, Telesales tips, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

Quality questions – telesales use

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Having a range of quality questions to use when talking to prospects on the phone can be massively helpful and can get you further than perhaps your competitors will on the phone. You may have done work on open and closed questions before. You may even have done them with us.

Questioning techniques for telesales and telemarketing

Questioning techniques for telesales and telemarketing

 

The next stage is to develop some great questions that will help you get that bit further. We were carrying out some work with a client in Kettering, Northampton recently and we were talking about how to deal with the objection “I’m happy with my current supplier thank you.” A quality question could be “ok that’s interesting, what is it about dealing with ABC that you particularly like ?” Whatever they answer is going to help you understand what is important to them.

If someone is considering a number of different options or suppliers, certainly a question which works well for us is “and how will you decide who to go with ?” or another way of asking the same question is “and what are the most important factors in helping you decide who to choose ?”  As soon as they’ve told you that you know what you need to sell against. Forget everything else – just focus on what is important to them – which they’ve just told you !

Any tips you have for us, let us know at info@tomarket.co.uk. We’re always keen on new ideas.

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Posted in Field sales training, Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Telemarketing management, Telesales tips, communication skills, contract cleaners, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Selling in the recession

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Now is the time to ramp up your sales and marketing activity.

While it may seem the time to cut back and reduce cost, this is true in most areas – but with sales and marketing it is even more important to maintain and step up contact with customers.

Customers are in the stronger bargaining position at the moment and how will they decide who to spend their hard earned with ? The company who is nice to them and makes it easy to buy from.

And this needn’t cost lots either. There is a good chance that you have sales people in your organisation, and they are ideally placed to make some of this effort. Now is the time to spend more time in the office, park up the car and get on the phone, or send out some letters, or brainstorm some ideas between you on ways of repackaging and offering your products and services.

Our colleagues over at the Ideal Marketing Company in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire specialise in helping small to medium sized businesses develop great marketing ideas that work and either cost little or nothing at all. Follow this link www.idealmarketingcompany.co.uk to find out more about their PR and low cost marketing seminars that cover Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough and beyond !

We encourage some creative thinking too. We will be running a range of small scale marketing workshops and seminars soon covering telephone selling, how to develop better relationships over the phone, and customer service over the phone. Drop us a brief e-mail to info@tomarket.co.uk if you’d like us to make you aware of these events when the dates and venues are announced. They will cover Oxford, Banbury, Cambridge, Birmingham, Solihull, Leicester, Northampton, Nottingham, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and St. Ives

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Posted in Selling advice, communication skills, customer services, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »