subject: Appointment Setting and You [print this page] Appointment Setting and You Appointment Setting and You
Executive Appointment Setting
Appointment setting is a crucial part of obtaining new business. This system of attracting prospective clients requires a well-managed, strategic program to perpetuate the goals of scheduled appointments.
Taking on such an endeavor leaves businesses with two options:
(1) Construct your own in-house call center to supply appointments, or
(2) Employ the services of an outside firm to facilitate them for you.
Building a call center is not an easy task, for several reasons (none of which have to do with purchasing phone lines and desktop computers!) High turnover rates, as many have already experienced, is customary. There have been cases of call centers experiencing 100% turnover of phone staff MONTHLY!! This shifts your focus from creating clients to continuously recruiting and training.
After going through the process of finally finding good appointment setters, (The metrics will undoubtedly read: "1 out of every 10 employees") your company will find itself realizing that the cost per appointment is MONUMENTAL!
This is where the "pros" come into play: Companies that do B2B appointment setting and charge by the hour. While this seems like the "Silver Bullet", your problems may be long from over.
If you don't pick your appointment setting company well, you will most likely find that the quality of the appointments are poor. Your salespeople will be dragging themselves across town or across the country to see unqualified prospects, and will suffer the morale killer of encountering a surprising number of cancellations and no-shows.
A Business Development Representative has to GENERATE INTEREST with a targeted prospect, ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY, and CLOSE for the appointment. In combination, he most time-pressed prospects will open their calendar and agree to a meeting if they meeting the following criteria: Budget, Authority (This means setting an appointment with the highest appropriate person, preferably C-Level Executives), Need, and Timing.
Selling doesn't begin with a scheduled appointment. It begins within the first 15 seconds of initial conversation!
When calling, we represent your company as your assistants. 100% Company branding on every call.
We have targeted conversations No telemarketing or "Dialing for Dollars"! We probe deep & wide, developing relationships for future execution.
Documentation and reporting of every call's content. We develop and deliver a proprietary database and pipeline.
We are interested (early and often) in the outcome of every appointment (How could it be improved), and do periodic product reviews.
Ability to scale up or down as needed based on the project type.
