What are the advantages of using professional outsource appointment setting companies

Author: Nicole Semar

Lead generation and appointment setting are two activities that field sales representatives detest with a passion. Sales representatives perform at their best when they are out on the road, meeting new customers and engaging in sales activities face-to-face. There are very few businesses that do not use outbound telemarketing in some way, shape or form for their appointment setting. It is very unusual for a meeting to be arranged without some form of communication over the phone. Due to the fact that the likelihood of closing a sale is higher face to face than over the phone, especially for products/services with a high average order value, it makes sense to attend as many face to face meetings as possible.

You can have the best face-to-face sales team on the earth but, if they don’t have any meetings to attend, you won’t be generating any sales. So, what is the best way to approach outbound appointment setting? Rather than make your sales reps get on the phone and book their own appointments, which they will hate, employ someone to do the telemarketing on their behalf. If you have a large sales team, you will need to employ a couple more telemarketers. If you are not comfortable with the idea of employing additional staff, which also comes with additional baggage such as performance monitoring, extra wages, CRM software etc, you can consider using outsource appointment setting companies.

The advantage of engaging with one or more appointment setting companies is that the hassle and headache of managing additional staff is someone else’s problems. Telemarketers live or die by their results so you can be confident that, in using a professional outbound telemarketing company, your appointment setting will be carried out to the highest of standards. No telemarketing company makes money by failing.

Telemarketing is an investment worth making. More appointments for your sales team means more face to face appointments. The more appointments your sales team attend, the more sales they make. Appointment setting is an incredibly useful tool that will allow you to increase your revenue, expand your customer base and generate more sales. Telemarketing is a relatively low cost investment in comparison to the revenue it will bring in.

In order to achieve success with telemarketing you have to be persistent and consistent. Making a few phone calls here and there will not result in an appointment. Sometimes a telemarketer can spend 8 hours per day on the phone, speak to 100 people and only get one meeting – it depends on the nature of the industry and the products/services on offer. This one meeting, however, will be fully qualified and the prospect will genuinely be interested in doing business with you. A telemarketing agency will have a good idea of the results that can be achieved in different industries and can provide a forecast so you can see if it is a viable option.