After prospecting for potential customers for the products/services of your business, your sales team will most likely have a conversation with those customers – either via e-mail, phone call, or face-to-face.
After this conversation ends, the sales team will be given one of the two available answers by the potential customer – namely, that yes, he or she really consider buying the product, or that no, he or she is not interested in the product/ service.
Obviously, the conversations that turn into appointments are considered sales opportunities – basically, you have found your customer that’s interested in the market your business activates in, you have contacted him or her, and now they want to meet with your sales team in order to buy your product/ service.
As you have already guessed, the Conversation to Appointment Rate is yet another important sales metric that has to be taken into consideration when running a business.
The Basics of Conversation to Appointment Rate
A low Conversation to Appointment rate basically means that your sales team does not handle its conversations with the potential customers too well. It’s not because they are lazy or just trying to get through the day faster – most of them don’t know how to approach potential customers.
Therefore, to increase this rate, the sales reps of your business must know how to model themselves and their conversations to the person they’re speaking to. One too many times we are greeted by the same speech when called by someone advertising a product – and, to be honest, we just want to tell them that we are not interested and end the call as soon as possible.
Let’s see what should your sales reps do in order to increase your business’ Conversation to Appointment Rate.
Understand the Potential Customer
First of all, a sales rep must understand the potential customer’s internal business challenges that are fit to what your business is offering before making a call. Sale reps that follow the same script on each and every call will get nowhere and, eventually, will get bored of themselves as well.
It’s important to have a conversation above anything else – of course, include the product/ service you have to sell in that conversation.
Approach
Of course, when a sales rep calls a potential customer, he or she must have the right attitude and approach. While that may be too specific and hard to achieve, we have just the piece of information for you – studies have shown that sale reps that have a subordinate level of contact with the potential customers are more likely to convert the latter into appointments.
Speak only Business
To speak only business means telling the potential customers only the statistics and the hard facts that come with your business’ product or service. Basically, a sales rep should give the person they’ve contacted exact detail and information about the product, and not rely entirely on things such as I’ve tried it, it’s good, you should buy it.
Convert to Appointment
A call should only last between two to four minutes. In this time period, a sales rep must persuade the potential customer to come and have a talk about the product/ service they are selling.
Moreover, it is also recommended that the sale reps specify the amount of time the potential customer is going to spend – or waste – with this appointment; they should go for the 15-minute appointment, in which they should be just as concise as when they called the potential customer.