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Richard Rosen, FastCall411 founder and CEO, is an expert in the calling applications industry and its relationship to local search. With more than 20 years of direct marketing experience, Rosen served as Vice President, Business Development, at both Jambo and CallSource, each a pioneering firm in the pay-per-call and call measurement spaces, respectively.

At Jambo, Rosen led business development, marketing, sales, public relations and product development. During his tenure, he helped define Jambo's pay-per-call and phone-centric product initiatives, and created and launched JAN, the Jambo Advertising Network, as a vehicle to communicate the company's value proposition to local advertisers and publishers. At CallSource, he spearheaded initiatives to provide call tracking to AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, Verizon Yellow Pages, AOL, Google, Switchboard, ReachLocal, Perform Local, and Citysearch, among others. Rosen writes frequently on pay-per-call and call tracking issues, and is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Rosen founded FastCall411 ( www.fastcall411.com) to improve the experience for consumers in need of local service providers. FastCall411 will deliver better local advertising results to merchants seeking new business while offering a superior partnership model and improved economic yields for partners. Over time, FastCall411 will extend its model to mobile search, directory assistance and other input devices.

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Turning Lead(s) into Gold: How to Prevent Your New Campaign’s Leads from Flying Away

Written on
Aug 9, 2006 
Author
Richard Rosen  |
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Turning Lead(s) into Gold: How to Prevent Your New Campaign’s Leads from Flying Away

The goal for these calls, obviously, should be to close a sale. But if that isn’t possible, train your staff to conclude calls with a promised call-back if issues can’t be resolved or if customers want time to decide. Then, follow through. People don’t get angry when you can’t answer all their questions immediately. They get angry when you promise a call-back and don’t call them back. Your phone leads need to be moved through a pipeline that progresses through each stage to a close.

If possible use a direct-dial number to your sales department rather than routing callers through an automated phone system. If you have to use an interactive voice response (IVR) system, make sure it is programmed to be as customer-friendly as possible. Research tells us that consumers calling for more info want to speak with a live person. Otherwise, some hang up and call a competitor. Offer a “speak to a human” option in your IVR. There is nothing more frustrating than to go deep into an automated system and find that the option is not in the menu and there is no way to get to a live person.

Finally, don’t make your customers play transfer tag. If you can’t answer their questions, don’t transfer them unless you know the other person is available to take the call. Instead, take their name and a call-back number and tell them a representative will call back within a certain time frame. When you do call the client back, always leave your name and email address in the voice message. At that point — you are playing phone tag and you want to give the client another way to contact you.

Five Tips the Phone Pros Know

1. Smile. Always smile when you’re on the phone. That smile actually shows in your voice.

2. Answer the phone with the company name and your name. Don’t rush the name of your company and don’t use short cuts. Say, “A-Plus Air & Heat, this is Jack.” Not Just “A-Plus” and “Jack.” Answer with that smile and a pleasant intonation — it’s not trust-inspiring when you sound like you’ve answered the phone 20,000 times today and you’re just going through the motions.

3. Listen, Repeat, Speak. Listen to the question, repeat it and answer fully. For instance, if the caller asks, “Do you carry brand X air conditioners?” answer by saying, “Yes, we are an authorized dealer for brand x air conditioners.” Don’t just say, “Yes” or “yeah.” Even better? “Yes, we have been an authorized dealer for brand X for more than a decade. We’re one of their gold certified dealers.” This is where preparation can help your staff make the most of each call.

4. Sell your products. If you don’t carry brand X, offer an alternative. “No, we don’t carry brand X, but we are an authorized dealer for brand Z because we find it works better in our local climate.”

5. Make an offer. Give the caller a way to begin doing business with you while still on the phone. “I’d be happy to send someone out — at no charge to you — to evaluate your situation and see if Brand Z would work for you. Can I schedule that today?”

Pay-per-call and other performance advertising campaigns are valuable and now quantifiable vehicles to start business flowing toward your company. But if you don’t prepare for them, many of those leads might flow out your back door.

As your customers get set to dial, get set to establish a strong connection. Then, make every ring count.





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