For many businesses, establishing an in-house lead generation & appointment setting programme is often viewed as a ‘lower’ cost option and that perspective is still true to this day. If it’s done well, your business can make some considerable savings; read on if you are considering this option…..
Recruiting good people – firstly, consider sourcing great candidates. Your recruitment programme is going to require creativity when it comes to finding good people. We recommend you consider a wide pool of candidates & avoid simply focusing on those with a ‘sales’ background. At Gungho, we look for mature, articulate, competitive candidates, who are magnificent communicators and can handle senior decision makers. A large proportion of the Gungho team have no background in sales or marketing!
Productivity – your calling team will need to be highly productive. Productivity should be based on a combination of two things; number of dials, and successful conversions. Think about how many dials your team need to achieve their appointment target? At Gungho, we make over a 100 dials for each 10 hour day, and typically secure at least one appointment for every 10 hours.
Workflow – creating a workflow that facilitates telemarketing is vital. It might be difficult to ‘shoe horn’ this into your current CRM system. A customised CRM system will help your team become super-effective. Take time to customise dashboards and reporting, this will provide an anchor to track results & effectiveness.
Management – looking after an in-house team of callers requires careful management. Invest in training, coaching and on-going mentoring to keep your team on target & enjoying their work. A call recording system will assist managers to coach and audit the quality of calls made. The majority of Gungho management team started from the ground up; each manager knows what it is like to cold call and are well placed to support our teams.
Salary & benefits – consider remunerating your team to motivate and inspire quality (over quantity). At Gungho, this transpires to a higher basic salary, a small bonus for any appointment that is made, and provide incentives to those who are performing well. Ensure your team are kept comfortable & well fed & watered. At Gungho, we operate out of individual ‘sound-reduction’ cubicles and wear state of the art noise cancelling headsets. And it’s amazing how cakes, goodies, and great coffee keep an office happy!
Motivation – a minimum headcount of cold callers will get you better results. See a recent warning around employing one single (lonely) caller. Two (or ideally more!) instils healthy competition and gears good results. Creating dashboards inside a CRM system keeps your team self-motivated, tracking how many calls they’ve made & patterns of success. At Gungho, each team member accesses real time dashboards, displaying their productivity & effectiveness, keeping our team top of its game and always refining our approach.
Staff retention – retaining good people will be a challenge. The industry average retention rates for telemarketing staff is sadly just 6 -12 months. Successful telemarketers are ambitious and often want progress to face to face selling. Establishing a retention programme will identify how to reward and retain great people. At Gungho, our average retention rates are 42 months, thankfully far high than the industry average!
If you’re considering an appointment setting programme, and are weighing up the pros & cons of in-house v outsourcing, please do get in contact on +44 203 326 8150
