Telemarketing: Strategies, Advantages, and Skills

Telemarketing

It is a marketing action in which the telephone is used as the communication channel. It is aimed at contacting clients for commercial purposes, sales, or improving corporate image. It is part of a sales strategy of a company

Applications

1. Commercial applications: the goal here is to make a sale. How?

• Locating potential customers

• Arranging interviews for the sales team

• Keeping track of previous contacts

• Teleshopping

• Generating new sales of a product or a related one to the same customer (cross-selling)

• Renewing subscriptions (magazines, etc)

• Communicating new offers

• Attracting new customers

• Reactivating “silent” customers

• Follow-up, keep track of commercial offers received through postal mail or e-mail

2. Marketing applications, to gather information on actual or potential customers, such as needs, customs, traditions, and ideologies. It doesn't have a sales purpose.

• Conducting customer satisfaction surveys

• Creating or updating customer databases

• Market research on consumption habits, brand awareness, response to a campaign

• Customer service centers

• Launching and keeping loyalty programs

• Surveys on voting intentions.

Advantages and disadvantages of telemarketing

Advantages: Direct and immediate contact // Cost is lower than personal visits // Quicker way of finding potential customers // Allows us to keep in touch with a customer // We can expand the sales territory at no extra cost // It provides immediate results

Disadvantages: No visual information // The acquisition or creation of a custom database is very expensive // It's considered sometimes an intrusion, a nuisance for many phone users

Skills to develop a telemarketing professional

To make a successful telemarketing campaign we must have: A database of potential customers // Appropriate technical and technological means // A sufficient workforce, trained and skilled, a supervisor for every 8 or 10 workers to monitor all aspects

Before the call: we must prepare the calls and believe in our work, in its quality.

During the call: Use a soft and gentle voice tone // Maintain an upright body position // Smile at all times and speak with confidence and professionalism // Use polite language, speak slowly and clearly // Mention your name and your company and the purpose of the call // Use your filtering skills // Use questions to guide the conversation and keep the call under control // Keep a collaborative attitude, answering queries and checking for understanding // Let the speaker talk // Thank the caller at the end of the call and wait for the caller to hang up

After the call: Review the key points of the conversation // If the call was not successful, review the weak points and assess mistakes to avoid them again. // When the caller uses excuses, doubts, or objections, have ready a list of arguments or change them on the go.