What seems to be a trivial problem in telemarketing can still be a major obstacle once you actually sit down and try to make a call yourself. If miscommunication occurs already at the start of the call, you will have difficulty prolonging it into anything that will result in a lead or appointment. It is like accidentally mislabeling costs and certain taxes in accounting. The effects on your telemarketing strategy could still be catastrophic.
The Trivial Telemarketing Problems That Are Not So Trivial
One of the things that these deceptively ‘trivial’ problems have in common is that they happen in the single moment when your telemarketing agents are doing the simple tasks of making the calls. If you are an accounting business, you would expect these calls to tell everything your salespeople need to hear about your prospects’ accounting concerns. Here are some of the ‘petty’ problems that might actually choke the qualified accounting leads you need:
- Thick accents – This is not to poke fun at your prospects. However, even when just requesting information, less skilled telemarketing agents may not be able to understand completely because pronunciations are different. Tones are also compromised by the nature of the prospect’s native tongue. Remedies to this are either agents who are adjusted to hearing these or at least a quality analyst who does.
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- Poor telecom tech – If either you or your prospects have a really bad line, your telemarketing agents must try and find other ways to communicate. Of course, they can also attempt to try and understand past the static. Either way, consult other means to verify the information to avoid misspellings and use email so that prospects can better word their problems.
- Buggy database hardware – Poor tech does not end in the phone. It can also extend to the databases use. If you are an accounting firm, you probably know the risk of using worn out hardware to store critical financial information. The same applies in telemarketing services. Slow download times and corrupt data are just some of the nightmares in store unless you upgrade your telemarketing tech (even just a little bit).
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These are actually quite basic requirements for telemarketing (whether you are outsourcing it or setting it up in-house). Improve your listening skills, fix up both your telecom and database tech or else your underestimation will lead to serious accounting lead generation problems.
