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Phone Marketing: Does the Telephone Help Market Your Business?
Nope. Not what you are
thinking...
I am not talking about
making telephone calls, or telemarketing. What I am talking about is ...
The Incoming Telephone
Calls to Your Business!
Have you ever tracked the
number of telephone calls that came into your business in a
day/week/month? Then...have you measured how much customer information
was gathered or sales made on those calls?
Let me paint a picture for
you...first we will examine the typical scenario in most businesses
currently...or business A as we'll call it:
The owner in business A is
typically frustrated with the results of her advertising, complaining
about the tens of thousands of dollars in radio, mail, or tv ads running
with no noticeable ROI.
Then the telephone rings...
"Dangit, I was right in the
middle of something!" an employee rings out in frustration. Grudgingly,
the employee picks up the phone, helps the customer really quick, and
hangs up the phone. I am so sick to my stomach right now, I cannot tell
you what was actually said on the phone between the employee and the
customer. Just about every cardinal sin was broken on this phone call!
The sad thing is...most businesses carry on this way as a regular course
of business. And...in the next marketing effort this business will spend
thousands more to acquire more phone customers to subject to this
torture. Sad.
Ok, on to the positive
stuff...
Business B has a program
and policies in place for how to handle the incoming telephone call.
Even taking this one step further, every day there is an incentive pool
of $1.00 per call where customer information is gathered or a sale is
made. At the end of the day, the pool is split amongst all employees who
took a phone call.
You can guess how these
calls are handled.
Customer phone calls are
just as important as your face to face customer...or for you internet
marketers...just as important as your email list (why don't we gather
telephone numbers for marketing our online products?). We seem to work
so hard to gain contact with new and current customers...yet we
discourage even one method for that customer to contact us?
Your challenge for the
day...
Take about 15 minutes RIGHT
NOW...and round up your employees. Find out how the phone skills can be
improved, and put a policy in place to improve them!
You can visit
www.thephonecoach.comfor
details on one program dedicated to helping you with key information in
this area.
Your sales and marketing
budget will thank you.
Thank you for reading.
Joseph
Ratliff is a professional direct response copywriter, marketing
consultant, and author of The Profitable Business Edge... a brutally
honest look at marketing your small business. Joe can be reached by
email at
joe@dynamicwebcopy.com or on
the web at
www.dynamicwebcopy.com ... If
you contact Joe after reading this article, he has prepared a number of
free gifts valued at over $500!
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