5 Reasons Why Your Phone Is Costing You Business

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In studying thousands and thousands of business phone calls over the years, a few commonalities stand out.

1.    Almost EVERY business relies heavily on the telephone in some part of their process in order to operate their company. This critical resource is taken for granted 99% of the time – until the service goes out. Call tracking provides the vision and tools to manage this invaluable asset.

2.    EVERY business has callers that hang up after only 3 or 4 rings. Maybe they are impatient folk, but these are still missed opportunities. Did they call back? Hopefully they did. If you were utilizing call tracking technology, you could be SURE they did or, better yet, received a callback from your business.

3.    EVERY business can improve their phone skills. It does not matter if you are a pizza parlor or a dental office. By reviewing recorded calls with call tracking tools, you can identify areas requiring employee training or places where your process could use some tweaking.

4.    EVERY business gets about 80% hang-ups when people reach voicemail. Again, did they call back? Call tracking technology sends out an instant notification – including the caller’s phone number – as soon as voicemail is reached. It also lets you see if that person did indeed call back.

5.    Almost EVERY business could save money by eliminating marketing channels that are producing little or no return. By easily deploying unique phone numbers on each different channel, call tracking gives real-time vision into what is working and what is not. Armed with this information, you are able to make much better decisions on how you spend your valuable advertising dollars.

Teletraxx provides simple and robust call management solutions for many different industries, from healthcare to auto repair. All of our clients suffered from the maladies listed above before they integrated our tools.

You already have all of the required equipment needed – a phone and a phone number.

·      NO IT resources are required to use our service

·      NO long-term contracts

·      NO reason not to get started today!

Call 717-714-0003 or email info@thepinpointgroup.com

Three Words To Gain Instant Credibility

I read a recent article about three words that really should be a staple in a salesperson's vocabulary: "I DON'T KNOW."

Ego can be a strong personality driver in a good salesperson, but humility might be an even more powerful attribute. We have all been in situations where we've asked a question of a someone where, instead of admitting they didn't know something, they have bluffed their way to an answer. Obviously this move is a lot more harmful than good. In many sales situations, once a prospect gets a whiff of insincerity, they may politely ask for a brochure or say they want to think about the purchase, while later completing it somewhere else. Most of the time admitting ignorance makes everything else you say more credible and marks you as a person who speaks the truth.

As humans we are are guilty of using deception as a shield to guard us from feeling uncomfortable. We somehow think that are supposed to pretend to know everything as a salesperson. While it helps to know your craft well, we may still be presented with obscure questions that nobody has after asked us before. In these situations, you can actually gain even more brownie points by commending the customer's inquiry by stating "That's a great question," and of course promising to get the answer.

I guess one could also easily relate to a job interview where we were asked something (maybe we did not know) and had to BS our way through. ("That's a great question" works well in that situation too).  Ultimately, there is no shame in not knowing something. For some people, that is just hard to admit. This can be attributed to ego, stubbornness, or just plain apathy.

One method to diffuse the awkwardness is to fire back with some questions of your own. Asking questions is not only how we learn as human beings, but also the sign of a good (and hopefully humble) salesperson.

Remember that ultimately "IDK" is a phrase that may win you more sales than it will lose.


Copyright The Pinpoint Group LLC. All rights reserved. 

You Don't Know Me...(do ya?)

Customer web lead: "Hello. I saw this product on your website and would like to know if I could get it in blue."

Company reply: "Thanks for your inquiry. We have the best widgets in the world. Call me if I can help you. Bill Smith. 555-555-1234"

Did you ever get an e-mail response like this from an inquiry you submitted? Or worse, has your company ever sent a reply like that? This is a direct result of trying to use an automated system to try to earn a sale. Here's a revelation- THIS DOES NOT WORK!

Automation can be a great tool if applied properly. But call it what it is- an auto-generated reply. If you are shrewd and can (properly) utilize templates to your communication process, make sure that you personalize them. Personalizing the content in e-mails will result in a much higher chance of getting read. Be cautious in using personalization (like a name) in your subjec, as this has been a popular spam technique. Different audiences respond differently to the use of personal salutations, so it always makes sense to test your messages first to see how they are being received.

Automated (and dynamic) responses are also subject to the quality of the data that is being served up. How many times have you received an e-mail or direct mail piece that had improper capitalization of your name? Did you read it? Probably not...

Lastly, if your communication channel provides a user with the ability to submit comments or questions, READ THEM, and answer the question in your reply. If you do not properly and respectfully handle the initial response to your prospects, your chances of moving them to the next step in your process will be greatly diminished.

Good selling!

Jeff Scherer

Copyright The Pinpoint Group LLC. All rights reserved. 

CRM? Oh yeah, we're doing that...

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) has become one of the more popular catch-phrases among marketers and businesses in the past few years. The problem is that if you asked 100 CMOs what CRM is, you'd probably get 100 different answers. Most believe (in its simplest form) that it's a method of communicating with the people that purchase their products or services. In a short sense, they are absolutely right. Having someone's name and address or e- mail address in a database does not really constitute a CRM system however.

I am not going to debate the definition of CRM, but rather challenge you as a business owner to think about the proper use of the customer information you have amassed. First of all, have you indeed gained a prospect/customer's permission to market to them? Just because they purchased or requested information from you in the past does not really mean that you have free reign to bombard them with communications that probably are not relevant to them. Sadly though, this is what a large percentage of companies call "marketing."

The best way to reach the people you want to reach with the right message at the right time, is to ASK them for their preferences, and then ACT on those replies. Granted you may never get 100% of them to reply, but as Warren Buffet once said, "One girl in a convertible is worth five in the phone book." In other words, one customer that IS willing to share their preferences with you is worth more than five names in your database. This of course, is provided that you properly apply that information you collected.

Today, the most successful companies will be the ones that can develop (and manage) a personal relationship with the people that are interested in their product. Technology certainly plays a role in the grand scheme of things but it will never replace a human interaction.



Copyright The Pinpoint Group LLC. All rights reserved.