“Let’s schedule an appointment!” This is the beginning of most sales transactions, especially in B2B sales. Businesses that directly pitch their product on the first call in a “salesy” voice run the risk of pushing away potential prospects. Instead, businesses can hire an appointment setter to bridge the gap in the sales funnel.
Selling a product becomes easier when you know the leads and have set an appointment with them. Especially for small businesses and start-ups, an appointment setter is a perfect addition to the marketing and sales team, as they can solely focus on their relevant work while the appointment setter can do their magic.
Still can’t decide whether you should hire an appointment setter? Well, read till the end to know everything about appointment setters and the benefits of hiring them for your business.
Table of Contents,
- Who Is an Appointment Setter?
- What Does an Appointment Setter Do?
- How Are Appointment Setters Beneficial to Your Business?
- Saves Time
- Converts Leads Into Prospects
- Lower Your Costs
- Generates and Nurtures Leads
- Experts in Multiple Aspects of Sales & Marketing
- Promotes Your Business
- Why Outsource Appointment Setting Services?
Who Is an Appointment Setter?
An appointment setter is a sales development representative (SDR) that filters out the leads and qualifies them as prospects. They use their telemarketing and sales skills to set sales appointments between qualified leads (prospective clients) and the sales team. Later, the salesperson pushes the prospect down the sales funnel to close deals.
What Does an Appointment Setter Do?
An appointment setter is responsible for prospecting, qualifying, and nurturing leads to set sales appointments between them and in-house sales experts. The steps include preparing the leads for outreach, researching and looking for any information that can be valuable for personalization, and reaching out to the leads via emails, social media, or calls.
The main reason why you should hire an appointment setter is that they are mostly involved in cold-calling ventures to identify warm and cold leads. As the fresh hot leads are passed down the sales funnel, they then try to pursue the cold leads after some time to see if they are interested in the brand at a later stage. Moreover, an appointment setter also helps the marketing team develop the better lead qualification and nurturing techniques.
Why Should You Hire an Appointment Setter?
1 – Save Time
When you hire an appointment setter, your marketing and sales representatives can invest their time in other crucial work. They will take care of cold-calling prospects and qualifying them. On the other hand, it frees up time for your marketing team to make better lead-generation strategies. Also, the sales team can focus on closing more deals as they interact with more qualified leads and can help your teams save a lot of their time.
2 – Convert Leads into Prospects
While your marketing team is often busy developing strategies to bring in more potential customers and capture leads, they can’t qualify leads. So, you can hire an appointment setter to interact with these unqualified contacts to learn about their interests. If your sales executives work on lead qualification, they won’t be able to prioritize the qualified leads. This is why you should hire an appointment setter who can make the job easier by communicating with the leads and qualifying them as prospects for the next stage of the sales funnel.
3 – Lower Your Costs
How can it lower your cost if you hire an appointment setter as an additional resource? Well, your in-house sales team isn’t usually as effective in qualifying leads when it comes to cold-calling. A professional appointment setter is an expert who can connect with leads and get you appointments with prospects that are most likely to purchase. So, this investment you make will enable your sales team to focus on closing deals effectively, and as they get more qualified leads, the overall ROI will be higher.
4 – Generate & Nurture Leads
Due to a lack of lead nurturing ventures, 80% of new leads never convert into sales. The buyer’s journey is often not the same for every lead, and you need different approaches to nurture and convert them. You can hire an appointment setter to not only focus on qualifying the leads but also pursue the less-interested leads in innovative ways to push them down the sales pipeline. They create a list of warm and cold leads for the sales team, as well as follow-up and re-initiate interactions with the cold leads after some time. In the meantime, they can work with the marketing team to develop better strategies before following up.
5 – Expert in Multiple Aspects of Sales & Marketing
An appointment setter is more than just someone who calls and sends emails. They are the best in the business with all-around knowledge of sales and marketing techniques. They are the cold-calling and email marketing experts that can help you maintain your sales funnel with qualified leads. They can assist your marketing and sales teams in defining various strategies for different campaigns. Hire an appointment setter or appointment setting agency, and you can get useful advice regarding your marketing ventures from experienced marketers who provide services to multiple businesses across the globe.
6 – Promote Your Business
Why should you hire an appointment setter and how does it help in promoting your business? Well, marketing your brand and getting noticed is crucial in this competitive world, and appointment setters can market your business efficiently. They are experts in cold-calling and creatively designing their scripts. As they have been involved in many conversations with clients, they can effectively promote your brand without sounding like a salesperson. So, even if the lead doesn’t book an appointment, the brand marketing message will be in their mind. That’s why many businesses hire an appointment setter, as they can promote brand awareness.
Why Outsource Appointment Setting Services?
We discussed the advantages of hiring an appointment setter in the above section. But, the truth is, the advantages are even more if you outsource appointment setting services. You won’t be hiring an in-house permanent resource, but instead hire an external appointment setting agency on a contractual basis. How is this more beneficial?
First, you get access to experienced appointment setters who can efficiently deal with multiple clients. You won’t have to rely on a single person to set appointments. The agency will automatically allocate resources based on your requirements. Also, when you outsource this process, your in-house marketing team can solely focus on developing strategies and bringing in new leads. Next, experienced professionals can help your teams by giving valuable advice to execute sales and marketing campaigns.
So, you will be getting a great team of expert appointment setters for the price of one, and hence, you can yield sustainable results. You can save time and money as well as modify the terms of contracts as you carry forward if you hire an appointment setter. This is why businesses prefer outsourcing the appointment setting process.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is appointment setting?
Appointment setting is a marketing strategy focusing on bringing in new prospects through scheduled appointments. It is similar to cold-calling, which most businesses use to contact established leads. It is the step between prospecting and final sales.
2. What does an appointment setter do?
An appointment setter is responsible for contacting potential customers and scheduling a meeting for their company. They usually work in sales teams, identify prospective customers, and schedule a meeting with sales representatives.
3. Why should you hire an appointment setter?
Hiring an appointment setter who communicates with potential customers to schedule the meeting enables your sales representatives to focus on sales.
4. How does the role of an appointment setter differ from that of a sales representative?
The main difference between an appointment setter and a sales representative is the goals. The appointment setter wants the potential customers to speak with the sales teams, whereas the sales representatives wish the potential customers to purchase the products and services offered.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know why it is important to hire an appointment setter, it is time to set things into motion. As discussed in the above section, you can always choose an appointment-setting agency to outsource cold-calling work. This can trim down your costs and be a productive move from a business point of view.
Well, that’s a wrap from us! If you are looking forward to hiring appointment setters to boost ROI, feel free to contact our team for a profitable collaboration.
Related Reads
- 5 Skills You Need to Have As a Successful Appointment Setter
- Appointment Setting – The Ultimate Guide (Including 6 Tips)
- Sales Appointment – 8 Effective Ways to Improve Your Sales Strategy
Illustrations by Storyset
