5 Ways to Make Cold Calling More Effective
Cold calling, a traditional sales technique that involves calling people with whom there is no existing relationship, and trying to convert them into your customer. A major portion of the sales industry has assumed the cold-calling strategy to be obsolete as there are multiple other accessible methods present. But this assumption is making them lose on to numerous convertible customers.
Today phones are considered a basic necessity of living and in this era, everyone demands and needs a phone, be it young, middle-aged or someone old. So when your customer is just a call away from you, is it a time to avoid the usage of cold calling or increase it?
Recent statistics show that 92% of the customer interactions happen over the phone, so instead of getting rid of it, one should focus on making it more efficient.
Here are 5 tips to make cold calling efforts successful:
The data is gathered over the years and while using it, even the validity is not taken into consideration. Follow these 2 widely important steps to improve the data quality –
Sign up and use 100 free credits to try validation of your data. You may even refer to the quick demo.
This information will help you segment your data. Segmentation is dividing and maintaining the database on multiple factors that ensures channelizing of time & energy towards the right users, in the right manner.
By dividing the data you will reach the customer
A customer always welcomes a level of personalisation which can be gathered by some efforts on research.
2 seconds, phone disconnected by the user.
This is what I’ll do if you call me and talk to me with that tone. Well, credit cards and other service calls have really impacted me! Well, moving on. When I get a call I expect an opening line which includes a good greeting, an introduction, a reference point, information about your product and transition to a question or dialogue.
A gentle tone and sense of personalization comforts the user and works as a cherry on the cake.
Together with details about your product, add the possible objections and queries that may arise. Be prepared to answer detailed queries too. Practice out the script to build up a confident voice. The users do judge the quality of the product by the quality of the call.
Speak in a friendly, genial, non-threatening manner and not in a blunt, plain tone eager to hit the sales target. On a call, making a sale should not be your ultimate goal but building a relationship should be.
One additional tip - don’t be afraid to ask. When you are open, honest and ask your queries with curiosity, not only will the prospect feel relaxed but will happily provide you all the information required to make a sale. Above all, cold calling demands a lot of practice as it can be frustrating and hard, so practice, practice & practice.
Follow these tips and make way for better results. Good luck!
Today phones are considered a basic necessity of living and in this era, everyone demands and needs a phone, be it young, middle-aged or someone old. So when your customer is just a call away from you, is it a time to avoid the usage of cold calling or increase it?
Recent statistics show that 92% of the customer interactions happen over the phone, so instead of getting rid of it, one should focus on making it more efficient.
Here are 5 tips to make cold calling efforts successful:
- Improve data quality: With relevant experience and survey of marketers I can certainly say the data used for cold calling is not kept up-to-date due to which negative results outcome the positive ones.
The data is gathered over the years and while using it, even the validity is not taken into consideration. Follow these 2 widely important steps to improve the data quality –
- Validation – In short, make sure the data you are carrying is authentic and not unreliable. This can be done easily by using ClearoutPhone which is a global phone validator covering 240+ countries.
Sign up and use 100 free credits to try validation of your data. You may even refer to the quick demo.
- Segmentation – With the correct use of phone validator, you can fetch significant details along with the status of the phone number, like
- Line type
- Carrier type
- Location
- Time-zone etc
This information will help you segment your data. Segmentation is dividing and maintaining the database on multiple factors that ensures channelizing of time & energy towards the right users, in the right manner.
By dividing the data you will reach the customer
- In the right way – SMS or call
- At the right time – Keeping in mind the timezone
- In the right language – According to the location
- Research your prospects: The more the research, the better the probability of conversion. With multiple social media channels you can get to know a person, his choices, where he works and even the basic details of the company. With such information you can hit the right key points, determine the time and energy to be focussed on a specific prospect & presume the possibility of conversion.
A customer always welcomes a level of personalisation which can be gathered by some efforts on research.
- The opening line matters a lot: “Hello sir, I am calling from [xyz]. We deal in [xyz]. Would you be interested in buying one? “
2 seconds, phone disconnected by the user.
This is what I’ll do if you call me and talk to me with that tone. Well, credit cards and other service calls have really impacted me! Well, moving on. When I get a call I expect an opening line which includes a good greeting, an introduction, a reference point, information about your product and transition to a question or dialogue.
A gentle tone and sense of personalization comforts the user and works as a cherry on the cake.
- Preparing a script is wise: Having a prepared script in your hand adds on to the confidence. You don’t have to read out your script word to word on the call, but it ensures that a framework is built in your mind and you don’t miss out on something.
Together with details about your product, add the possible objections and queries that may arise. Be prepared to answer detailed queries too. Practice out the script to build up a confident voice. The users do judge the quality of the product by the quality of the call.
- Don’t be pushy. Listen more, talk less: Don’t burden the prospect with all kinds of information on the first call. The strategy is ‘don’t be a full-fledged briefcase full of brochures and samples and case studies etc. Instead, be a simple folder focussed on gathering more information and giving out required details.
Speak in a friendly, genial, non-threatening manner and not in a blunt, plain tone eager to hit the sales target. On a call, making a sale should not be your ultimate goal but building a relationship should be.
One additional tip - don’t be afraid to ask. When you are open, honest and ask your queries with curiosity, not only will the prospect feel relaxed but will happily provide you all the information required to make a sale. Above all, cold calling demands a lot of practice as it can be frustrating and hard, so practice, practice & practice.
Follow these tips and make way for better results. Good luck!