marketing-strategy, Service Industry

[Cold Call skills] How to Start Your Cold Call? Seven Cold Calling Tips to Help You Impress Clients!

Cold-Call

For friends who have experience in sales, you must have heard of “Cold Call” and “Warm Call” to a greater or lesser extent. These are frequently mentioned terms in the process of learning sales. In simple terms, “Cold Call” refers to the practice of reaching out to individuals or companies who have had no prior contact or knowledge of the company, and promoting products or services through phone calls. On the other hand, “Warm Call” involves contacting customers who have had previous interactions, have some familiarity with the company’s products or services, and engaging in sales calls.

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Cold Calling Techniques

“Cold Call” is a very common sales method, and almost everyone with a phone has received sales calls at some point. As a salesperson, you’re destined to invest a lot of time and effort into cold calling. However, with the right techniques, you can ensure that every bit of time and energy is well spent, leading to higher efficiency. Below are several techniques and methods that can enhance the efficiency of cold calling.

1.Start with Popular Topics

When initiating a conversation with a customer, many salespeople wonder what to use as an opening line for a Cold Call. In reality, you can opt for recent popular topics to engage them. For instance, you can discuss recent news, exhibitions, movies, or even trending topics on social media. However, it’s crucial to avoid using negative subjects. Even if discussing a potentially negative topic, salespeople should refrain from bringing it up.

2. Uncovering Customer Interests

Even in casual conversations, when discussing topics of personal interest or achievements, people tend to talk endlessly. This principle applies to salespeople during Cold Calls as well. When engaging with customers, it’s crucial to constantly pay attention to where their interests lie.

3.Proper Use of Sales Scripts

Many salespeople jot down certain phrases and product information as notes, creating a sales script. When using a sales script, it’s crucial to remember not to recite the words mechanically. Before making the call to a customer, practice repeatedly so that these words are ingrained in your mind. Similar to actors rehearsing their lines tirelessly backstage, deliver the script with genuine emotion and sincerity.

4. Listen to Customer’s Voice

Some salespeople, during a “Cold Call,” tend to bombard the customer with rapid-fire information about the product or service all at once. Unfortunately, this often results in customers hanging up the phone abruptly. The essence of a “Cold Call” lies in the conversation with the customer, not just in delivering a monologue. It’s important to learn to listen to the customer’s voice. Sometimes, customers might even share their everyday concerns, even if they are not directly related to the product. This presents a valuable opportunity to build a closer relationship with the customer.

5.Choose Convenient Customer Time

Before any company starts promoting its products, it conducts market research to create a profile of potential customers. Big data analysis can also be employed to identify times when potential customers are more likely to answer calls during their leisure. Calling at inconvenient times for customers can only make them more impatient and hinder the success of the transaction.

6.Utilize More Open-ended Questions

For both customers and salespeople, the process of a “Cold Call” involves mutual unfamiliarity. Both parties are essentially strangers just getting to know each other over the phone. In such situations, open-ended questions are more suitable. They assist customer service personnel in quickly understanding the customer’s background and perspective, thereby comprehending their needs. Moreover, open-ended questions can help customers open up and become more receptive to you, bridging the gap between you and the customer more quickly.

7.Send a WhatsApp Message Before Cold Calling

With the advancement of technology, the efficiency of Cold Calling is decreasing over time. It becomes costlier with lower returns and is challenging to scale up. For businesses with a large pool of potential customers’ phone numbers, individually dialing each number through  Cold Calling is time-consuming and labor-intensive. However, utilizing WhatsApp for mass marketing messages can be an effective alternative. WhatsApp allows sending messages without adding contacts, even if the recipient doesn’t have your phone number saved. Directly calling customers might lead to immediate hang-ups, especially when they have no prior knowledge of your company’s products or services. By sending a message via WhatsApp beforehand, customers at least glance at the received message, gaining preliminary awareness of your company’s offerings. Subsequently, calling these customers increases the probability of successful sales due to the established initial contact.

However, using the WhatsApp broadcast feature directly still has some inconveniences. You need to input all the phone numbers into the contact list first. After sending the messages, organizing and categorizing them can be quite troublesome, as it may mix with existing contacts. Even if you use the feature to send messages without adding contacts, you still need to send them one by one, which is very inconvenient. This is where dumbChat can solve the problem. With dumbChat, you can batch import contacts and label them for easy organization. Moreover, dumbChat allows for broadcasting WhatsApp messages in groups, and it’s not limited to WhatsApp alone. It also supports Facebook Messenger, SMS, and more for broadcasting messages.

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of Cold Calling?

Some might ask, isn’t Cold Calling just the telemarketing calls we often receive in our daily lives? Many people find telemarketing calls annoying, and nowadays, a lot of individuals prefer text communication through instant messaging platforms rather than phone calls. Does Cold Calling still hold value in today’s context? Below, I will thoroughly analyze the pros and cons of Cold Calling, and after reading, you’ll have an answer!

Advantages of Cold Calling 

Faster Customer Feedback

When contacting customers through other methods such as email, waiting for a response can be time-consuming and challenging. Often, customers might not reply or even open the email. However, with Cold Calling, you can directly communicate with the user and swiftly obtain their feedback. Sometimes, an entire sales process can be completed with just one phone call.

More Personalized Interaction

When reaching out to customers for the first time through email or other methods, it’s often done through mass messages. However, “Cold Calling” enables dirct contact with customers, allowing for one-on-one conversations conducted in a warmer and more personal tone than text-based communication. Customer responses tend to reflect their genuine thoughts, and sales representatives can adjust their tone on the fly, gaining a quicker understanding of customer needs.

Faster Resolution of Customer Inquiries

During a “Cold Call” conversation, sales representatives can immediately address any questions customers have about products or services. When faced with negative feedback from customers, these concerns can be resolved directly during the call, as opposed to waiting for customer responses like in other methods.

Uncovering More Opportunities

By consistently engaging in conversations with customers, it’s possible to gain insights into their needs. This enables tailoring different products or services to cater to customer preferences and promptly grasping valuable feedback to adjust the direction of future business development.

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Disadvantages of Cold Call

Difficulty in Finding Excellent Customer Service Personnel

An exceptional customer service representative can convert a “Cold Call” into a successful order, whereas an inept representative can turn a “Warm Call” into a “Cold Call.” The initial interaction with customers heavily tests the skills of customer service personnel. Building customer trust, understanding their needs, and effectively recommending products are not tasks easily accomplished in a short period. This poses a significant challenge for customer service professionals.

High Costs

“Cold Calling” involves making numerous phone calls, incurring substantial call charges, especially for international calls, which can be quite expensive. Additionally, the “Cold Call” process often includes many unsuccessful calls, resulting in the wastage of both time and money, making it challenging to scale up. Moreover, hiring skilled sales personnel is not only difficult but also, even if found, they are unlikely to offer their skills at a low cost.

Potential for Damaging Company Reputation

At times, receiving unsolicited phone calls can irritate customers, leading to negative emotions that can reflect onto the entire company. This can harm the company’s reputation and create a negative image, subsequently eroding the trust potential customers have in the company.

High Probability of Being Hung Up by Customers Directly

With the prevalence of various telecommunications scams, people nowadays are highly cautious of unfamiliar phone calls. Moreover, there isn’t much fondness for sales calls. If a call is perceived as a sales pitch, it’s highly likely that the customer will hang up without further ado, or even block the number. Excessive blocking can lead to being labeled as a fraudulent call.

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The “dumbChat” system is an instant social communication platform that connects WhatsApp and the official website’s Chatbot, Facebook, and WeChat. It enables communication with customers through different instant messaging software on the same platform and also supports multiple users logging in simultaneously to handle customer messages.

dumbChat is a convenient message management system that offers features such as multi-user login, scheduled group broadcasting, automated keyword responses, customer service delegation, label categorization, and quick replies. It allows for the recording of customer information, preferences, and progress at any time, thereby enhancing customer service efficiency. The 24/7 AI robot serves customers continuously, saving a significant amount of time and costs, allowing employees to focus on handling more complex customer service tasks. The data analysis function provides clear reports on customer sources, product purchase records, chat data analysis, and more, helping you understand customers, seize more business opportunities, and discover potential clients.

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Last Updated on 2023-10-30

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