When mail-outs go bad!

I’ve just had this feedback from Lynnaire Johnston, The Word Wizard, about a call she received that perfectly illustrates the problems that occur with continuity between a sales phone call and a request for information. Some valuable feedback here for sales teams.  Lynnaire was a buyer until ...

 

I feel sorry for telemarketers. They often get a tough time from the recipients of their calls, maybe that’s because they always seem to call when I’m in the middle of something. If I’m being generous I’ll listen to their pitch but more often than not they’re so dreadful I get rid of them using an objection their training hasn’t equipped them to deal with.

Generally, too, their training seems pretty poor so it’s quite refreshing when one phones up who seems to have a few clues and a bit of personality.

I received a call like that today. From my power company wanting to sell me telecommunications services.

The young lady had a nice manner about her. I could understand what she said, she seemed to have some personality and wasn’t obviously reading from a script.

But several things went wrong which meant she wasn’t able to close me on the phone (good luck with that, I very, very rarely will oblige on that score). She chose as her pain point (hot button – as the Telephone Man would say), price.

That might work with most people but not with me. I’m more interested in service because the small amount of money I could save by taking up their offer could easily be eaten up in the time it might take me to deal with any attendant problems. In other words, there are risks to me of changing provider. I want to know what guarantees are available to me if any changeover all goes pear-shaped. So, any caller needs to know what my hot button is. Don’t just assume it is price.

I often get rid of callers by asking them to send me something in writing. I almost never receive anything and when I do it is generally pretty dismal. As it was in this case. All the young lady did was email me the company brochure. Which there was a disconnect between her call and her email.

It also means I have to do the work of calculating whether I really am going to save money. And given it’s such a small amount, why would I bother? I won’t. It would have been easy for her to bullet point the prices she’d offered me so I could compare them with what I’m currently paying. But she didn’t make the effort and instead treated me like a number. She failed to make me feel special which would be more likely to motivate me to take the desired action.

So, here are the lessons I think need to be learned here:

• ·         Don’t assume you know what motivates your customers.

• ·         Don’t make them do your job for you.

• ·         Make it easy for them to say yes by providing guarantees.
•         Connect your call and your written material properly, providing what you’ve been asked for.

• ·         Make your prospect feel special and not like every other person they’ve spoken to today.