Telemarketing scripts-why are they useful?

You have probably never heard of him, but Alan Lakein, the writer of several self-help books on time management from the 1970s, once said that ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’. This is true about most things including your telemarketing campaigns.

Due to the fact that I run a lead generation company, I am increasingly developing my experience in running telemarketing campaigns and a big part of the planning of such a campaign is creating a script. Telephone scripts have a bad name because people generally associate them with call centres and disengaged telephone operators. Despite that, I can categorically say that having a script is key to a successful telemarketing campaign.

However, there is a caveat to this statement: we are not talking about any old script but a good one. So what should a good telemarketing script consist of? Here are a few points:

  • It identifies the best approach for the campaign, depending on your goal and target market
  • It highlights the outcomes you are looking for
  • It contains an opening statement, stating the reason for calling, as well as a hook to capture attention and help start a conversation
  • It details the questions you would like to ask, covering the information you are most interested in finding out from your prospect
  • It includes a closing statement to leave the right impression and agree next steps

Having this kind of script would ensure that you are more likely to get a positive, useful outcome to your telemarketing campaign because it is geared towards growing your target market understanding. In addition, there are a few additional key factors you should consider including:

  • Using a positive tone in cold calls: It doesn’t matter what you say if you say it without conviction or passion. A study found that human behaviour was only influenced by words to the tune of 7% whilst tone accounted for 38%. Therefore, a fundamental factor in your successful telemarketing script is the way it is delivered to the prospect.
  • Objection handling techniques: it is inevitable that buyer objections will arise and you need to deal with them. Questions are key to qualify and clarify objections. If you do this, some will simply dissipate. If you’ve identified a valid objection, you then need objection handling skills to manage the situation. Consider and plan for the most common objections and your response. That way, you won’t be caught out and you will be more confident of success.

If you read my recent Blogs you will have hopefully gathered that I am not a massive fan of measuring success by the number of appointments made. Telemarketing is a great tool and if used correctly it will save you time and money.  It might even get you some leads.

If you have not had much success with telemarketing in the past whether you run it in-house or outsource it, why not get in touch to see if we can help make it work better for your business.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

code