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Turn incoming calls into sales & profits
| Guest post by: Bob Janet |
Article Overview: The top sales performing businesses understand how very important the telephone is as a selling tool. They understand: 1. Customers and prospects telephone the business because they have a need, problem or want. 2. Many times the telephone conversation determines whether the prospect becomes a customer or whether the customer remains a customer of the business. 3. The person answering the telephone is a very important provider of customer service for the organization. 4. The person answering the telephone has a great opportunity to gain customers and obtain sales.
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Turn incoming calls into sales & profits
Professional Telephone Answering:
Techniques to gain and retain customers
The person answering the telephone and talking with the customer / prospect plays a major rule in determining the success or lack of success of the organization. You must accept responsibility for providing timely customer service in a courteous business manner.
Applying the telephone customer service skills in this white paper will help you and your organization become a professional provider of quality customer service that will gain and retain customers for a lifetime of profits.
Telephone Skill 1: Answering the telephone:
68% of customers leaving a business leave because of lack of caring expressed or lack of perceived caring from you or someone in the company.
Callers begin to form their impression of your organization by:
A. The number of rings it takes to get an answer
B. The first voice they hear
Answering Techniques
A. Answer the telephone within the first three rings
B. Greet the caller
C. State your organization’s name and your name
D. Offer assistance, invite questions.
Use friendly phrases
• Thanks for calling.
• How may I help you?
• How are you today?
Example: “Good morning, Sales Growth Now. This is Bob Janet, how may I help you?”
This is also a good time to ‘source track’ – If the caller is a first time caller ask them where they heard about your organization. The old saying of a failed business goes, “I always knew 1/2 of my advertising worked, I just never knew which 1/2.”
Telephone Skill 2:
A… Listening for selling opportunities:
Your organization is in the business of selling products and services. Most customers telephone because they have a problem or need your products and services will solve. All you have to do is listen and identify the problem / need they have and match your products and services to them.
1. Listen to what the customer is saying. They are either (a) making a statement about their problems/needs,
(b) giving you an objection to something they have already purchased or
(c) asking you a question concerning their problems/needs.
2. Think about what they are saying. Think about what your organization has to offer the customer to solve their problem/need. If you are 100% Customer-Centered* you want to solve their problem/need the easiest way for them, but that does not mean you cannot sell them your products and services.
3. Make suggestions in the form of choices. Choices of your products and services that will solve their problem/need. Giving choices is the easiest way to ask for the sale. Giving choices (a) gives the customer the feeling of control, and people buy and buy more when they feel they are in control and (b) makes it easy for the customer to choose to buy from you instead of your competition.
Always Smile!!
Face-to-face your voice accounts for only 33% of your effectiveness.
In a telephone greeting your voice accounts for 84% of your effectiveness.
B…Listening for closing statements:
After you offer suggestion in the form of choices of products/services, listen for the customer to make a closing statement. Examples: “That will work.” “I never thought of that.” “How much will that cost me?” “How soon can you deliver?” Any positive statement made by the customer, after you gave them a choice of solutions to their problems/needs, is a closing statement.
Sure, not all closing statements by the customer will close the sale, but as one of the coaches to the famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky said to him when he was frustrated with Gretzky’s lace of shooting in an important game, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”
Telephone Skill 3: Asking questions:
Be eager to help the caller. Be animated.
Make the caller feel welcome. Make them feel they are the most important person in your life. If you are 100% Customer-Centered* they will perceive they are the most important person in your life at that time.
Ask questions that will help the caller explain the problems/needs they have. Questions that give you an understanding of exactly what they want and need from your organization.
Example: “Mr. James, what is it about the ____________ that I can help you with?”
Mr. James, you said you need your _________ repaired. How old is your __________?”
So I can better help you, what exactly are your needs for a ________________?”
*100% Customer-Centered – Means that everything you say and do is about the customer
not about and for the customer, not you or you organization.
Telephone Skill 4: Furthering the sale:
If you do not sell them over the telephone, further the sale by making an appointment to meet with them, having an outside sales professional telephone or meet with them, or asking their permission to send information. Always give the prospect a choice. It gives them the feeling of control, and they cannot say “no” if given a choice. For example: “Would you like to meet with me Monday or Tuesday?” If they do not choose one of the times continue to give them choices.
Why Inbound Calls Are Really Cold Calls
Use of Customized Call Center Software
How To Get The Most From Your Answering Service
Track Sales Calls with Call Accounting Software
Handling the Telephone Interrupter
Article Tags: answer the telephone, bob janet, business manner, c state, customer service skills, first voice, givin, good time, lifetime, phrases, professional provider, professional telephone, profits, quality customer service, source track, telephone customer service, three rings, time caller, timely customer service
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About the Author: Bob Janet RSS for Bob's articles - Visit Bob's website Click here to visit Bob's website   Double Your Sales Back to the things that worked How to be around to celebrate anniversaries and make a profit every year Sometimes Customers Lie How to close the telephone price shopper |
Related Forum Posts
How to develop sales contacts?
- Unfortunately starting off there isn’t a whole lot of easy tricks. But when you get those 2 interested prospects from sales calls and turn them into customers, you need to develop a referral system that gets 3-4 good prospects from each of them.
That's the key to prospecting in sales, referrals from satisfied customers. Sometimes they'll give you the business without having to ask, but normally you'll have to pry a little and ask them who they know that could use your service or product.
Green Gardener Goals
- - Grow Revenues in 2007 towards seven figures or set stage for 2008
- Turn a Profit in 2007
- Develop online marketing capacity in ecological interms of web traffic
(not sure about metrics)
- generate 1000 sales leads via online, print, personal contacts events
- Christmas ecological product lines
- Have an email newsletter of between 1500-2000 recipients
- generate $50,000 in online sales of plants, seeds, gardening accesories and Ecological Gifts in 2007
- develop community based marketing program based on lessons learned in pilot
- systematize sales, admin, operations and Real Time Enterprise Capacity
- feel good enough about 2007 to go on vacation in Jan 08
- buy land in country
How to develop sales contacts?
- You have the best plan going right now....you have to be assertive, and talk to people like people...don't sound to much like a sales person...I have been in corporate sales for over 15 years, I have sold over $15 million dollars in contract sales...here are the keys to selling:
1) Know your product better than your competitor. Not just what it does, but why your brands are better...do a comparison...be the EXPERT!
2) COLD CALL!! You have to put in your time, make your calls, build relationships, and if they tell you to follow up in 3 months, get yourself a great follow-up CRM. $15bucks a month, you can enter all of your prospects, notes, letters, etc..and they have a calendar for follow up calls...keep all your prospects in one place for daily access...
3) Did I mention COLD CALL!!? Also, once you have built your customer base, you then have the opportunity to ask for referrals. Follow-up with your customers every few months to make sure they are happy...especially with CORPORATE customers...the hotel business is a great start, you want the to think of you when they need more TV's!! I call it, "be everywhere."! Stick to corporate sales, you get more for your money...although if you want to sell to individual's try e-bay, or classifieds, but don't waste a ton of time trying to sell 1 tv, sell in BULK!
4) Nothing happens overnight, you have to earn the big money...put in your time, work your A__ off, and give great customer service!
GOOD LUCK! Hope this was helpful...
Re: Hello
- Sorry, I missed the first part.
How I started was quite simple. I was unhappy where I worked as a sales manager. One of my more apt sales reps met with the owner of the company on the side. After a few vodka's he was promoted to my position and I was demoted as he convinced him that I was "unorganized and too young".
Seeing my huge contact list and the several millions of dollars in contracts that was incoming for me in commission, he drafted a story that I was working on the side for a competitor. I was fired and he slipped in and collected my commissions.
I used to have a hard time with this. It's really a testament to say that even though an event at the time can seem tragic and devastating, sometimes it's the best thing that could ever happen to you.
I wanted to have my own business and with the severance, I took it and started. I wouldn't have it any other way. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Advertisement that sales
- Plan your marketing programme. It should include commitment to capital resources.
If you run a small business, you aren't likely to have a generous enough advertising budget that will allow you to run costly branding or campaign ads.
Every advertisement you run must convey to your prospect a solid offer and attractive reasons to act quickly, and result in increased sales and an enhanced image of your company.
Good advertising always pays its own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs and shortened selling cycles.
A useful formula that will help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising efforts is A-I-D-A, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
When creating an advertisement, always remind yourself that it should: (1) capture your prospects' Attention, (2) arouse their Interest in your offer, (3) create their Desire for your product or service, and (4) provide a powerful spur to Action, that is, turn your prospect into buyers.
Remember, bad advertising is an unproductive expense, and good advertising is an investment in future profits!
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