Our 22 Phone Sales Tips To Use When Contacting Customers
For how much time most of us spend on the phone, it’s amazing how poor our phone skills can become if we are not improving our skills regularly. It’s especially important for those in sales where’s it’s a necessity for you be on the phone.
We all need a little inspiration and motivation sometimes to re-shape our attitudes and our actions, and keep us on the road to success. It’s time to be intentional about your phone sales.
To do that you must consider our phone sales tips when you are contacting your customers and prospects.
Get Our 22 Phone Sales Tips Here…
1. Limit the background noise.
Some background noise if fine, but the last thing you want the other person to hear when you’re calling is loud music or the sound of informal activities going on in the background.
2. Don’t be distracted by email or other items popping up on your computer while you’re making a call. Be focused. Because you can’t see them, it’s easy to become distracted with your eyes. Allowing yourself to become distracted may easily cause you to miss a key point.
3. If the phone call is important, stand up when you make it.
It’s amazing how much energy and focus you’ll have if you stand to make an important phone call. Nobody likes talking to a “blah” person.
“The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!”
– Marvin Phillips
4. Don’t make an important telephone call from a telephone that is not stable, whether that be a cell phone with spotty coverage or a weak handset. Quality counts, as it represents you.
5. When starting a new telephone conversation, always give your first and last name. Never assume the person you’re talking to is going to recognize your voice or think you’re the only one with your first name.
6. Show the same level of respect to the gatekeeper or other any other person who answers the phone as you would show to the person you’re looking to talk to.
7. Never use a speaker phone with a customer, even if they say it is fine with them. Speaker phones add to the perception the conversation is not important enough to capture 100% of the person’s attention. (The only exception, of course, is if there is a group involved.)
8. Never ask if it’s a good time to talk.
This gives the other person a perfect excuse to end the call. If you are unsure if the person has time to talk, then state up front that the phone call will only take 10 minutes.
When you give the person an exact time, be sure you time the call. After the allotted time, tell the customer you’re at the end and ask them if they would like to continue or reschedule. This demonstrates to them how much you respect their time.
9. Your tone of voice matters more than you think.
If your tone of voice is flat and lacks any sense of enthusiasm, how do you expect the other person to ever show interest in your call? Please, sound like you want to actually to talk to them.
In addition, when tempers flair please take a deap breathe and count to five. After that, if tempers have not yet calmed it may be best to try another approach or rescedule this call for another day.
10. Talk with your hands, as it allows you to convey more energy in your voice.
Use a high-quality headset so you to talk with your hands.
11. Always have the person’s name and the name of their company on a piece of paper in front of you as you call. Last thing you want to do is to accidentally forget who you’re calling just as they answer.
12. Use the person’s name at least 3 times in every phone call.
Who doesn’t like to hear their name said?
13. When greeting people on the telephone, avoid using their last name. It’s too formal. Your objective must be to have a casual conversation, like you would talk to a good friend. You need to build rapport so you can have a realtionship that produces repeat customers.
14. Use visually descriptive words to help paint a picture of what you’re saying. Obviously, a phone call is not as multi-dimensional as talking to someone in person. This doesn’t mean, though, that a phone conversation has to be boring.
15. Use open-ended questions as a way to build the dialogue.
Just because you’re talking with someone on the telephone does not mean you can’t use open-ended questions. People will never hang up on themselves, so if you can get them genuinely responding to questions, the call will likely continue.
16. Reaffirm everything.
Again, because you’re only communicating with your voice means you must very reaffirm everything.
17. Unless there is no other way, avoid negotiating anything over the telephone.
Since you can’t see them, you don’t have the advantage of using body language as a tool to help you negotiate.
A phone call, however, can be an excellent way to introduce a new idea upon which you would like to receive some feedback. Many times it will allow feedback to be gained in a less threatening manner than if it were to occur in person.
18. If you do have to negotiate over the telephone, use pauses and your tone of voice in the same manner as you would in a face-to-face negotiation. Don’t allow yourself to be sucked into a quick negotiation just because you’re on the telephone.
19. When you end a conversation, always summarize it in the same way you would end a live meeting.
By doing so, you can prevent misinterpretation of your discussion.
20. Always allow the other person to have the final comment or question.
Just because you’ve asked all your questions doesn’t mean the other person has asked all of their’s.
21. Never be the first person to hang-up the telephone.
Always allow the other person to disconnect first. You never know when the other person might just share with you one more piece of vital information.
22. Be quiet when the other person disconnects.
Many times a person will think they have ended the call when they have not actually disconnected. You might just surprise yourself with what you hear from the other end.
OUR BONUS TIP
Avoid the common blunders that hurt most people in one-on-one presentations and make the other person feel comfortable with you.
Want To Be Able To Communicate Your Message, Make A Great Impression And Create A Real Conversation Every Time?
Wouldn’t it be great to know that every time you meet someone for a one-on-one presentation (either on the phone or in person) that you are coming across at your very best?
By applying these phone sales tips to your daily phone routine will help you boost your sales, better your communication and better serve your customers and prospects.
If you’d rather not make phone sales calls every day. Then you can get immediate access to our traffic-generation team that will get qualified leads for you.
We do hope these phone sales tips help you better communicate with your customers!
Talk Soon,
Nicky & Dave
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