Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

In July, someone posted this question:
Have You Ever Received a pleasant ... Telemarketing Call ?.

It wasn't specifically about getting past voice mail, but there were a lot of good responses there that you might want to look at. (My own answer to that question did refer to voice mail, actually.)

You might also want to use the link to Search Questions on the right side of this page to find additional similar questions have been asked here before. Try the keywords "telemarket" or just "call."

For the most part, I agree with what Tate's already posted here. Keep your message natural and don't sound scripted (even if there is a script).

- Shelley

PS. Please fill out your profile page so we can learn more about you. That helps us provide you with better answers!

Hi Helena,

Secured provided you with some good tips. Can’t over emphasis the “be honest” recommendation – It’s the only way to make a worthwhile connection.

Voice mail is becoming a very difficult hurtle for telesales – to the point where telesales may not be able to accomplish its mission alone in many business environments I think of a mixture of media when making B2B calls. Not too long ago, I could call and develop some rapport with an executive’s assistant and get help with a message to a C-level manager. And while it’s still worth a shot, it hasn’t worked nearly as well in recent years.

Success in getting through to a businessperson is usually directly related to his/her interest in the message. I’ve found if the message doesn’t sound canned, if it’s a message truly worthy of the targets time, it will be much easier to get through. Here are a few tactics that have worked for me.

- Leave a short tight focused voice message referencing what the target will get, example, a free report, planning tool, something that helps with their job verses a premium gift. Mention you will follow the voice message with an email to make it easier for them to respond to your offer. Send the email right after you hang up. (sometimes I still use a fax)

- Give the prospect time to respond. Then call again a simply ask if they received your message, repeat it and resent it if necessary.

- leave one message (every few days), DON”T leave dozens of messages, if you call and get voice mail hang up and call again later.

- Try to contact staff or receptionist to see if the prospect is traveling, on vacation or in meetings all week.

- Try calls early morning, lunchtime, and evenings hours.

- Try starting the process with a business letter in a business envelope with a real stamp, followed by a call and reference the letter in the voice mail.

There are an endless number of creative ways to get a conversation with prospect. You have to think like an investigator building a dossier on the target with the tough-to-get-ones. And all this activity is under ROI scrutiny

hope this helps,

- Steve

I'd need more info to provide specific advice (what level decision maker, are you following up expressed interest or generating interest, do you have mail pieces to send which can support your outbound effort, what is your goal for the phone call, etc...)

but I'd begin by asking myself, "Why should the person bother to call me back?"

I'm on the phone every day, attempting to generate interest on behalf of my clients, and my working assumption is that no one ever returns voice mail messages. When they do, it's a pleasant surprise...

I leave brief messages as a brief targeted advertisement - it's your personal radio station directed at a specific member of your target audience.

What ever happened to doing up-front research and offering the prospect something of very specific value?

I'd probably respond if I heard a message on voicemail saying, "My name is NAME and I'm with XYZ Company. I believe I can help you with your packaging problem, and perhaps save you $150,000 a year in the process. Please give me a call at 555-2222 and I'll be glad to provide more details. Thanks in advance."

The more targeted and specific the offer/promise, the better. You want to really reference the itch most likely to be scratched. If you don't know what it is, that's almost impossible to do.

Of course it takes more time and effort to do this kind of research, but it works a lot better than the generic message approach, even with the prospect's name inserted once or twice. Besides, it takes a lot of time and effort to leave messages that never get returned too. I'd rather have three callbacks from a dozen messages than no callbacks from one hundred messages.

For more on this approach, see the book "Rasputin For Hire." (www.rasputinforhire.com).

Intriguing... So, do you find people are leaving VM on all the time and only returning selected calls? Or do you think they sometimes have VM off and only put it on when busy or on the phone?

Try calling outside core business hours. This is also a good way to avoid 9-5 gatekeepers. Executives tend to start early, work late, and pick up their own phones outside normal hours. Give it a shot..

If that's no use, one technique I have used with success is a promise (threat???) to keep calling unless they call back...

Like this

Hello Mr/Ms X, this is (name) from (company), would like to speak with you about: (pick something applicable to your offer)
- saving 25% from your x budget
- increasing revenues by 50% for low/no additional expenditure
- saving 30% of your time every week
It will only take 5 minutes (or whatever) so please call me back on 555-1234. If I don't hear back from you by Thursday I'll assume this message did not reach you and as it's such an important matter I'll keep calling until we get to speak.

Now your contact is faced with the daunting prospect they can't ever get away from you, so they either call back (and maybe tell you to cease and desist) or they wind up speaking with you when you call.

Key here is not to leave one message and wait forever, key is to call, leave message and keep calling back as per promise in message above.

Good Luck

ChrisB