When turning prospects into leads is a key component of your business’ success, appointment setting becomes a critical step in your process. Whether or not you complete a sale through a sales appointment is entirely dependent on the first impression you make, the information you convey, your tone, and chemistry with the decision-maker. Granted, not every business owner is an excellent conversationalist, so outsourcing appointment setting services can do wonders for increasing sales.
Should I Remain In-House or Outsource?
Keeping your appointment setting team in-house or choosing to outsource it relies on several factors and considerations such as:
Skill Sets
Though lumped under the category of sales, selling and appointment setting requires vastly different skill sets. Where your sales team will handle presentations, negotiations, and closings face-to-face, your appointment-setting team will work over the phone, usually making cold calls and introducing your product to prospects in the hopes that they’ll book a meeting with your primary sales team. Cold calling is a repetitive process that requires thorough navigation and pattern recognition that requires the work of an experienced appointment setter.
Hiring Personnel
Though an in-house appointment setting staff might seem more cost-effective in the long run, training them can take a lot of time. If you aren’t ready to take your team away from certain responsibilities in order to train them, you may be better off outsourcing another team. In this case the best option is to hire virtual assistants for the purpose.
Technology
As we mentioned, cold calling can be incredibly repetitive but made easier by integrating automated technologies. Some platforms to consider are auto-dialers, which allow users to tag caller IDs, create personalized messages, track previous calls, and calendar appointments. As with any type of technology, automation platforms demand a certain skill set to properly implement, which your current sales team may not be familiar with.
Analysis
With more data and demographics to look out for, it’s important for appointment setters to analyze information regarding prospects who are on the fence and prospects who are definitely interested. Furthermore, analyzers need to gather relevant pieces of data regarding a client in order to craft a more personalized approach and be able to hit the right pain points.
Reporting
After gathering and analyzing data, employees must be able to present information such as connected calls, redials, and appointments in a way that can be easily reviewed and optimized. Most sales automation platforms can generate detailed reports that you can later adjust and edit.
Cost and Scalability
When you outsource appointment settings, you get the initial costs at the front end and have the ability to control these over a short period of time. If your initial project with a smaller group of prospects proves itself successful, you can easily scale your program up.
Conclusion
The convenience of an all-in-one sales team is undeniably attractive but can take up a lot of time and set you back on overhead. Especially because of how appointment setting has become more sophisticated over the years, outsourcing a team of experts who can increase your chances of closing is a much better option than experimenting with your in-house team.
Looking for an appointment setting company you can count on? At RepStack, we turbocharge your business growth by implementing the best practices for closing qualified leads. We help you hire a Virtual Associate that can meet all your business needs.
