How to improve your telemarketing script

While it’s an old strategy, telemarketing is an incredibly effective way to attract, and convert prospects into customers. A study shows 82% of prospects attend meetings and events scheduled through telemarketing, while 57% of others prefer that salespersons call them.

Such stats prove prospects are waiting to hear from you, either from an internal or outsourced call center. However, if your telemarketing campaign is to yield fruits, you need well-written, highly engaging, and on-to-the-point telemarketing scripts. Read on for tips on how to create such scripts.

Top tips to improve your B2B telemarketing scripts

Prospects want to hear from you, but that doesn’t mean they’ll sit through a long, boring sales call. It’s up to you to convince them what you have to say is worth your time. The only way to achieve this is if you have a great telemarketing script. That said, check out these five tips on improving your B2B telemarketing script.

Do your due diligence before creating a telemarketing script.

When you cold call a prospect, there’s always a high chance they may listen to you and even engage by asking questions about your product, service, or market in general. For instance, they may inquire about new industry regulation and how it impacts your company. Without proper research, you’ll be unable to answer such questions, and that’s how you’ll lose potential clients.

That’s why pre-call telemarketing planning is critical.

Before creating your telemarketing script, learn about your industry and how it affects other sectors. It’s helpful to research emerging and upcoming trends, potential legislation changes, new industry regulations, and their impact on your products and services.

This way, if your telemarketing call is successful and you get to the point where the customer is asking questions, you’ll showcase your expertise and convince them you’re the solution they need.

Formulate a plan

Although the end goal is to turn prospects into customers, not all telemarketing campaigns focus on that.

For instance, some companies create telemarketing campaigns to collect feedback about new products, while others use telemarketing to rebuild relationships with former clients and prospects.

That’ll help you come up with B2B telemarketing scripts that align with your objectives. It’ll also help you determine the right person to talk to when you call. For example, if the goal is to create email addresses for your mailing list, you’ll need to talk to the decision-makers and not the gatekeepers. By pre-planning, you can identify such factors beforehand and create a telemarketing script that fits the target audience.

Customer service providers at top BPO firms iContact ensure that their scripts are planned and well-thought-of to guarantee efficiency and quality service.

Create a killer introduction.

First impressions matter and are even more critical when the prospect knows nothing about you. What’s more, with every telemarketing call, you get only the first twenty seconds to capture the prospect’s attention.

This makes a great introduction to an incredibly important section of the telemarketing script. It should be conversational, passionate, attention-grabbing, and at the same time, highly professional. Include conjunctions, bold words, italics, and voice intonations to improve your script’s quality and make it sound like a regular conversation.  

Create a list of pre-qualifying questions.

Once you successfully introduce yourself, your next step as a telemarketer should be to address the prospect’s pain points. But not every client or potential will willingly open up about the challenges they are facing.

Having a list of pre-qualifying questions on the fly will help nudge them in the right direction. For instance, if you are an SEO provider and the goal of your telemarketing call is to pitch to a potential client, you can ask questions like:

• Do you feel the SEO tools you’re using are helping you attract qualified leads?
• If you could create the ideal SEO tool for your business, what would it be like?
• If you could magically eliminate two of your biggest SEO problems, what would they be?

Pre-qualifying questions give you an idea of what a prospect needs and allow you an opportunity to offer them a solution without coming across as too salesy. So, include several of them in your B2B telemarketing script.

However, while asking these questions, be careful not to sound like you are on a research survey. Otherwise, the prospect may hang up on you if they feel under pressure.

Incorporate objection-handling techniques in your B2B telemarketing script

Prospects get plenty of calls from other telemarketers. That makes them highly guarded, and ready to object to anything you offer. Incorporating objection-handling techniques in your telemarketing script will help you manage the situation. Document the most common objections you’re likely to encounter in your script and create planned responses.  

For instance, if the prospect immediately says they’re not interested, you could say, “I completely respect your choice, but I want to kindly borrow a minute of your time to briefly explain how our new solution fits your business.”

The short window you’ve asked them for might make them listen to what you want to say. After all, it’s only a minute of their time.

Telemarketing is an efficient marketing strategy, but it comes with its fair share of challenges. Hopefully, the tips above will help you improve your telemarketing scripts.