by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

My phone rang. I had to say hello twice. And you know what that means: someone in a call center selling something—and probably doing it poorly. All my negative expectations were fulfilled in a recent exchange. I remained polite because I’ve been where this caller is. And it’s easy to make these kinds of mistakes, especially if you’re trying to avoid being aggressive. This bad call serves as an example of what not to do. Are you or your team falling into any of these traps?

First, we’re all trained by now to know that when we have to repeat our greeting, it’s not going to be a good call. I don’t know if there is a dialing system out there without a connection time gap after pickup, but if you have to use predictive dialing, do everything you can to find a solution that minimizes this call center red flag. I believe any time saved by auto-dialers is offset by the antagonistic mode it generates in the prospect. Is that worth it? Is speed everything when the price is turning off the very people you’re trying to win over?

Second, this caller asked me “How are you today?” Attempting politeness in this way gives your prospect the chance to say, “Terrible,” which leaves you nowhere to go. Script a different greeting which is professional but gets to the point without the risk of derailment. We recommend getting right to your message or perhaps asking, “Do you have a moment or are you putting out fires?”

Third, this caller said, “You downloaded a whitepaper from us….” She hadn’t identified the company in a way that jogged my memory. And she didn’t reference the specific marketing piece. I get a million emails. I download and read a lot of things. If you are calling me because of a campaign response, your company name or the title of the piece should be able to ring a bell or you should be specific to remind me. I said, “I have no idea what that was.” She had to pause and look it up because she didn’t already know. Even if she was calling on many individuals who had responded to various touches, she should have had the details about my click-through handy. When she finally did tell me what I had downloaded, the title was so vague that I only barely recalled it.

Fourth, this caller asked me a yes or no question. She said, “I want to make sure you got everything you needed. Did you get what you needed?” As I explained above, neither the piece nor the company were memorable, so we got off in the weeds about the article itself. Because she had initially asked about my action of downloading rather than any potential underlying pain, the conversation was already doomed. She didn’t lead by saying, “I’m calling to discuss our best practices for blah blah blah which I imagine are an issue for you because you downloaded our whitepaper blah blah blah…” And then her open-and-shut question made it effortless for me to say, “Yep, I’m all set.” She served up her own rejection on a platter.

Fifth, this company wasted their money. I applaud that they were doing telephone follow up on an email campaign, since so many companies fail to take this step at all. But the effort was fruitless. If the other calls were similar to mine, I imagine the ROI was not there. Without good strategy and excellent resources, you are throwing cash away. Spend adequate funds to do the job well rather than just getting it done.