Tele-marketing standards
15 Aug 2007
When I’m in the office and not too busy, I ask for all cold telephone calls to be put through to me. I like listening to (in most cases appalling but occasionally brilliant ) pitches. I took one yesterday from what was obviously a telephone-marketing agency, employed to make calls for a CCTV company.
It started with – “Is that Mr King?”
“Yes” I said. That was followed by “How are you today?” I simply hate that question from a total stranger on a cold call – it’s so very insincere. Occasionally and this time also, I responded to that with “absolutely awful thank you”, to which the response was “ excellent!”. That’s not unusual either. They often don’t listen. This was followed by: “I’m calling from the XYZ Company - would you be interested in buying CCTV?” “No” I responded. And they said “Thank you” and hung up.
Can you believe that! I was appalled. Didn’t anyone ever teach them to sell the problem first – NOT the solution. I can think of 101 better ways to start the approach. For example – “Good morning Mr King – I’d really appreciate your help with something we’re working on at the moment. Do you have a minute to help me with this please? (Yes – maybe) I was wondering who to speak to in your organisation please about the increasing level of burglaries in your area and if the potential increase in insurance premiums might become an issue for your company. Who might that person be?” And that was straight off the top of my head, without even thinking about it – I could do better!
Who briefed this telephone marketing agency? The client presumably. Should the client have known better? Possibly. Shouldn’t the telephone marketing agency have known better and advised the client of a better approach or come up with a far better one of their own? What a waste of time and money! It’s no wonder cold-calling irritates so many people and gets such poor results. And worst of all it reflects badly on the sales profession as a whole.