At my work we have to make calls. These are ‘warm’ calls. Clients of ours but not expecting us to call.
And myself and pretty much everyone else in the company hates it. To the point where they have put an arbitrary number on how man we need to make in a week in order to justify the generation of the lead lists.
It’s not ‘talk to this many clients a week’ it’s just ‘make this many calls’
So I have crafted a carefully thought out technique for ensuring the rate at which I actually speak to clients is very low.
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Out of my lead lists I pick names for people that sound younger rather than older. Young people notoriously don’t pick up their phones. This is exactly what I want. Jalen or Olivia? Probably getting a call. Carl or Deborah – probably not.
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I check profiles for professions. If it’s a job I know works at the same hours I am making a call they are less likely to pick up. School teacher in the summer? Definitely not calling them. Financial professional or laborer, could be a good option.
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I then look at interaction history with each client. Have they been called before? Did they pick up, did the associate leave a message, the the client hang up on the associate, was if a wrong number? Any interactions that indicate the client will not pick up go in the ‘I might call this person’ bucket.
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For repeat customers I look at my own logs – I love when I see a client who previously hung up on me or who was a wrong number. Just call them again!
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For customers I do get in contact with I always hope they say they don’t have time and to call them back – or they hang up or say they’re not interested. For those who want callbacks, I just don’t call them back.
All told I make my required number of calls in a week and it takes me way longer than just calling the 1st ten people in a row but my actual contact with clients remains very low. I get credit for doing the work and can just say ‘bummer it didn’t work out this time’