Appointment Setting
Whenever your business developers are spending time searching, contacting, qualifying, and trying to set up initial appointments or demos with potential new clients, it takes away their precious time from doing the actual demos and further business meetings.
If they don’t do all this, they are probably struggling to set up sufficient new business meetings and appointments.
At Spex Asia, we know what it takes to set up quality appointments for your business developers. We may not have the intricate product knowledge that your specialists have, but we do know what it takes to reach your target audience and to set up initial appointments and demos.
On average, it takes us about 75 calls for one qualified appointment. That gives an average of just over one qualified appointment per day. Not everyone can be reached by phone at the first try, so sending follow up emails is an essential tool for appointment setting. About half of the qualified appointments are confirmed via email.
Aspects that impact the results of a successful Business to Business (B2B) Appointment Setting campaign are:
Preparation: This sounds obvious but spending time to understand the goal of the campaign, products, or services to be offered, qualification criteria, and process of confirming appointments all need to be considered carefully to achieve the desired outcome. Additional qualifying questions can be part of the qualification process to ensure essential information is available.
Sending follow up emails is very important as about half of the qualified respondents will confirm via email that they are interested in a meeting or demo. Good call scripts and email templates need to be prepared accordingly as part of the preparation (and reviewed regularly).
Qualified Agents: An appointment setting agent represents your company and should meet the highest standards that you have for your in-house staff. A good agent is reliable, dedicated, motivated, and able to achieve their daily KPIs.
Being able to bypass gatekeepers is a must, as those will usually be the first point of contact. A good agent should sound confident with a clear voice and ability to communicate what the call is about and trigger some level of interest in the services and products offered.
Ongoing staff training and reviewing activities will help the agents keep on developing and delivering results.
Processes: Establish and follow a transparent process for an appointment follow up and a feedback loop. If appointments are not properly followed up with, opportunities may go to waste, and it is hard to keep track of the progress of a campaign without an ongoing feedback loop.
Good record keeping of activities and feedback is a must. Comments and activities should be captured so they can be shared.
Regular and prompt feedback about the appointments needs to be a part of the process. Are we reaching the right job titles? Do they express interest? What else are we able to find out during the initial calls?
Ongoing feedback from the Business Developers about these questions will ensure that the appointment setter can readjust when needed and focus on the best companies and contacts.
What is the desired outcome of an Appointment Setting campaign?
Results must be measurable and quantifiable, consisting of:
– The number of Qualified Appointments that meet the agreed criteria. These Qualified leads need to have shared some of their needs as part of the qualification and have agreed to a meeting to discuss their needs
– Once these appointments took place, it should be monitored how they are progressing through the sales cycle, and how much (expected) revenue they bring in, to establish the ROI value of those appointments
If you would like to discuss a potential appointment setting campaign, feel free to contact us for a discussion.
Click here for a list of case studies and testimonials of clients we have successfully worked with.