Tips For Increasing Your Cold Calling Engagement

Ah yes, cold calling. The ever-elusive technique to engage customers and establish new potential business connections. Years ago, I worked at a call center where the entire duty of my position was to cold call business leaders in an attempt to get them to participate in an online survey for another third-party company. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly my easiest job. Cold calling is unmistakably difficult, but I did learn some valuable lessons during my stint employed as a call center agent. Here are a few tips I gathered from that experience as well as a few other ideas on how you can improve the return success rate on your cold call efforts and operations.

Your employees MUST absolutely be trained properly.

This is by far the most important aspect of the whole process. If your agents aren’t properly prepared to handle the variety of experiences they are going to encounter when they cold call, then your success rate is going to be minimal at best.

- Provide employees with the training and knowledge they need to succeed.

Coach your employees to know exactly what their objectives are and how to get in and out of the calls as smoothly and as quickly as possible. Getting to the purpose of your call in the fewest words possible from the very moment the call begins is absolutely essential. To support this goal, make sure your team has seamless access to accurate, up-to-date knowledge. People and companies constantly move locations and switch contact numbers, positions, etc., and the variance is only increasing due to the proliferation of gig work. Pair a great knowledge management strategy with a standout lead research effort to ensure agents have the most recent information.

- Utilize seasoned team members to assist newer employees.

It’s particularly important (and smart) here to make use of more experienced team members to serve in training newer employees who you’ve recently welcomed onboard or to those who have transited into this new role from another department within your operations. When cold calling, the varying experiences one is going to encounter are practically endless. However, like all things, there are recurring scenarios that come up time and again as one continually makes calls throughout the day. Having the ability to convene with a more seasoned agent on what they’ve encountered, and how they got around or navigated in-call roadblocks leading them to achieved success, is absolutely crucial to preparing new agents as they embark on their journey in this new role at your company.

- Allow technology to help you gain beneficial insights.

Present-day analytics technology can provide invaluable information to your cold calling operations. Given the robust amount of data you can gather, an opportunity exists for you to track employees, identify those performers who do an exceptionally efficient job, then mirror that success with the patterns across all employees executing similar tasks. Noticing trends early and often will help you to provide your employees with the best routes for them to achieve success. The more information they have on what works and what doesn’t, utilizing best practices where found, the more wins they can achieve in their calls.

Another tech aspect to consider is the use of real-time learning guidance through online platforms and e-learning programs, as well as incorporating AI into your training regimen. Much like a pilot in a flight simulator preparing for various weather events, playing out simulated customer interaction scenarios can help your agents navigate similar situations which they are likely to encounter in the real world. The old adage practice makes perfect rings true here.

Tips to support your cold call agents.

Working as a cold call agent is a notoriously difficult position. The necessity to not only properly train your employees to help ease their journey, but also to work to keep them happy and upbeat has never been greater. This is particularly relevant in today’s market where competition is undeniably strong and customers expect excellent service from brands. Happy agents are at the forefront of these efforts.

- Provide your employees with regularly scheduled breaks.

Working as an agent making outgoing calls to individuals or department receptionists who are not anticipating your incoming communication effort is truly a difficult job. In an ideal world, the whole experience would move along effortlessly (perhaps you’d send an email beforehand or you’d already have a contact referral, etc., but we’re talking about cold calling here!), converting into completing the attempted objectives targeted.

However, we all know that cold calling annoys many of us, so just imagine being the individual on the other side actually making the calls all day long and just the sheer number of rejections one faces in the process. The toll this can take on an individual can be profound, getting to even those who have “tough skin” or whatever other phrase you want to use here. Not everyone is going to be “on” every single day. Even the best agents in the world are going to experience doubt and fatigue at various points in this role.

Therefore, it’s absolutely critical that you provide employees with scheduled breaks to blow off steam or just take a breather. Your employees will do better with this method as opposed to just having them repeatedly make calls while experiencing loss after loss. Along with this, when your employees do complete a call, achieving the set goal objective, be sure to reward them with encouragement or incentives. It’s paramount to encourage employees when they do get a win.

- Monitor your agents’ well-being and day-to-day attitudes. 

Routinely checking in on your call agents is crucial to your company’s success. It’s critical to have happy and well-cared for employees. Your outgoing cold calls are only going to be as good as your agents feel. Another benefit to doing this relates to the nature of agent retention. In today’s world, where it’s clearly becoming increasingly more and more difficult to hold onto employees, particularly in the call center realm, the healthier and happier you keep your employees, the greater chance you have that they will stick around for longer periods of time. Having more seasoned employees leads to more experienced and productive agents who can more effectively achieve business objectives, while simultaneously providing crucial knowledge and support to newer employees.

Remember, any surveys and analytics tools that you utilize to track customer feedback and sentiment can easily be turned inward to better understand how employees are doing.

- Consider implementing incentives to encourage agents.

Think about creating a success chart where employees get rewarded for each completion they make. Implementing gamification techniques can help spur positive, proactive action on behalf of your call agents. Perhaps provide an employee gift card or other incentives to employees who do well throughout the day or week, but do NOT wait until the end of the month or quarter to offer such praise. Cold calling work requires more frequent encouragement than many other roles as the position is akin to being like an actor who goes on several auditions before a callback or booking is achieved. Loss and rejection are just standard elements of that job and are also necessary evils. Highlighting everyone’s performance on a daily / weekly basis helps boost team morale.

- Treat your team as an actual team.

Likewise, try not to make it so much of a competition between your agents. The job of cold calling is already hard enough. The last thing a call agent needs is to feel like they are not only having trouble completing call objectives, but also getting lapped by their peers. This method takes inevitable external loss and compounds it with internal personal loss, quickly leading to feelings of despair. That’s a cycle you desperately need to avoid at all costs. Instead, emphasize a collective team effort that you’re all working together toward a common goal. Keeping spirits up is the name of the game.

Respect the time of those you are calling.

Everyone’s too busy. That’s just life now in 2022. We’re all bombarded with far too much information, omnichannel paths, things which we need to respond to, etc. Everyone’s brain is fractured into a million places. I don’t know a single person who “gets it all done” every single day. We all feel behind. The last thing many of us want is a random call coming in and occupying our mental space, further distracting us from our already overwhelming and stressful day.

- Provide agents with the CRM data they most need to save time.

Providing your agents with the relevant and necessary information they require on those individuals or businesses they are calling will help them work as efficiently as possible. The more informed your agents are, the better prepared they will be to possibly hit your stated objectives while personalizing interactions and minimizing annoyance for customers. Therefore, your agents must have the quickest loose script to follow when someone picks up the phone on the other end. The faster you get to the point of why you are calling, the better. Of course, don’t have your agents sound like robots, as we know personal connections and personalization go miles in situations like this, but do provide your agents with a quick outline to guide them along while on the call.

- Your call also must convince those picking up why they should entertain your request in the first place.

The faster you can convince the receiver on the other end of the call why your communicating with them is particularly important for them, the higher rate of success you’re going to have throughout the day. Reducing the effort of customers on the other end is paramount.

One thing to consider in doing this would be to think about offering incentives to those individuals you are contacting. The company for which I used to work would offer people a real, actual $100 for completing a survey that took roughly twenty minutes to complete. I’m not going to say that it worked every single time, but it definitely increased the participation numbers of those willing to complete our questionnaire.

Remember too that not everyone you speak with is going to believe that an offer such as this is legit. Therefore, it’s important to have a website, app or robust social media presence to direct potential participants to so that they can verify the authenticity of your call and feel more comfortable with the whole experience. Having the ability to shoot off a quick email that agents can have ready at their fingertips, explaining what you’re attempting to achieve with this call, and again, why it is important to the receiver, is another great tactic agents can employ in the moment.

Offering an incentive also creates the opportunity for you to build a connection and further develop future customer engagements with the person or company you are calling. Once people are rewarded for taking your call, they are much more likely to entertain future omnichannel communication opportunities with you or with another associate from your company. In fact, this even creates a positive image in their minds of your business as a whole. “Oh yeah, they gave me $100 bucks last time!” This may even open the door for you to expand the conversation into other areas of business in which you desire to progress.

- Keep track of how individuals would like to communicate. 

It’s important to consider what communication channels those you're calling actually prefer to use. Some people don’t mind a phone call, while others may be more apt to entertain your inquiry via email or another channel. Don’t annoy people who you know don’t necessarily enjoy calls. All that is going to do is frustrate them and put a bad taste in their mouth with regard to your brand. Cold calling is hard enough. The last thing you need is for your agents to have to start from an even deeper hole before they ever begin the process the next go around.

- Keep in mind the time of day in which agents attempt to complete their calls.

Cold calling during standard business hours may not be the best time to achieve a successfully engaging phone conversation. On the other hand, with so many people working from home these days, it actually may be the absolute best time. It’s just going to depend on the industry and the individual person.

Keep a record of when certain people are available so that you can grow your own data trends as you move forward. If you can’t get through to the individual you are seeking to contact, ask if there’s a better alternative time to call back or inquire if you can obtain an email or direct line of contact for a later correspondence. Now you’re at least on your way and have generated a little momentum towards your goal. Be patient. We all want to travel A to B, but sometimes going A to C might be what ultimately gets us to where we wish to go. Overtime, you’ll spot the trends of the days and times that work best for your particular industry and the individuals with whom you are seeking to connect. Next, you’re able to schedule a heavier call session around those times while utilizing the slower times to provide those much needed breaks to your employees.

- Make sure your calls are identifiable to those on the receiving end. 

Yet another tip to increase your call conversion rate is to have your number pop up with the name of your company when you call. Many people don’t answer phone numbers from digits they do not recognize, particularly because they so often are strange robocalls. I personally sometimes get two or three of these annoying calls a day. Verifying the name and authenticity of your organization on the caller ID, if not the specific reason for calling, significantly increases the chances that someone is going to pick up the phone as they think it has a greater likelihood of being a legit call or person on the other end who may be of importance. There are several technology companies, say something like First Orion, that can assist you in setting up a verifiable identifier on your caller ID for when your calls go out.

Repetition here is also helpful. The more we see or hear something, the more it sticks with us. If individuals see your company name or logo on the caller ID, and then your agent also says the company name in the first few moments of the call, you’ve already pushed your brand twice in mere seconds. It’s the same reason people tell you to repeat someone’s name whenever they introduce themselves to you. We do this so it sticks with us. Steve, Steve, Steve!

Good luck on your cold calling!

I hope these suggestions help you to increase your return rate of successful cold calls. Cold calling is a unique and challenging art form. With just a few tweaks, I believe you can achieve much better success. Godspeed on your journey. Onward!