6 telesales tips to increase efficiency

Telesales is a great way to promote your products and services to a wide audience. It’s also an opportunity to strengthen brand awareness and gain new customers. Some people may be looking for your exact offerings – a call from your sales team at the right time can be a major win-win in this case.

Of course, without the right mindset, tools, and processes in place, telesales activities may do more harm than good, such as wasted time and money, frustrated customers, and unmet goals.

But worry not: with these six tips, you’ll be on the right track to realize the full potential of telesales in your contact center.

1. Recruit smartly

Telesales is not for everyone.

This is especially important to keep in mind when recruiting agents.

A successful telesales agent needs to be optimistic, extroverted, and emotionally intelligent. In addition, a friendly attitude and great communication skills will without doubt help them close more deals.

When it comes to recruiting telesales staff, there are various options you can consider. You might opt for full-time and part-time employees who join your team for the long run, in other cases, hiring gig workers for certain projects may be a better option. As we mentioned in a previous article, the gig economy workforce model can be especially beneficial for contact centers. 

Last, but not least, keep in mind that telesales and customer service are very different areas – you might encounter agents who excel in both, but in many cases, applicants are more comfortable in one of the two fields.

2. Invest in training

Having previous telesales experience, while ideal, is not essential for someone with the right attitude and personality.

That is why you should invest energy and resources into agent training. Organize in-depth training sessions to ensure your agents can master their telesales skills before they start working on your campaigns. 

Furthermore, comprehensive knowledge of your products and services is a key to success. In order to close as many deals as possible, your telesales agents will need to know your products and services like the back of their hand.

Don’t forget that there’s always room for improvement: offer ongoing training opportunities so that agents can improve their skills.

3. Start with the manager

One thing is certain, a good team needs a good leader. So, once you have the right telesales agent team in place, you’ll also need to appoint a manager who will empower them to thrive.

Managing a team of telesales agents is no small feat, so don’t just appoint someone who seems to be promising but is not ready for the position yet.  

Telesales managers really have to be able to see the whole picture as they are responsible for the overall performance and budget of the telesales department. In addition, they will not only need to cope with processes, technology and customers, but also with employees.

In fact, good telesales managers don’t just give instructions to their team, they actively coach and motivate them. Therefore, if one of your potential candidates is exceptionally good business-wise but lacks people management skills, it may be a good idea to keep on looking.

Last but not least, bear in mind that a good leader needs to give plenty of feedback to their team. And if you haven’t mastered the method of giving feedback, make sure to check out our article on it.

4. Have realistic targets and appropriate tools

‘Anything is possible’ is a well-known saying, but let’s admit it, in business, one normally has to be a bit more down-to-earth. In order to reap success in telesales, you’ll need to set realistic targets, meaning you shouldn’t aim too high or too low.

Furthermore, as technology is advancing at lightning speed, and changing the world around us every day, in order to increase your telesales efficiency, you’ll definitely need to rely on a comprehensive software solution.

Software options these days come with many powerful features, such as predictive dialers or real-time statistics, which are vital when looking to increase your team’s efficiency. VCC Live®’s predictive dialer, for example, allows telesales teams to process a large number of calls and sign more successful deals by maximizing talk time per hour.

On the other hand, tools like Weflow can help automate repetitive data entry tasks, allowing your agents to spend more time selling and less time updating your CRM.

In addition, real-time statistics allow your team to make the most of customer data, as well as react to real-time situations including allocating more resources during peak times.

5. Have a powerful script

When it comes to telesales, having a powerful script can help your agents close more deals. Luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create a powerful sales script. Just make sure to do your research, check out how your competitors achieve success using scripts, and you can start creating your own.

Not so long ago, agents printed out their scripts, and read them out from their hard copy. Fortunately, these days, you can easily create powerful telesales scripts and integrate them within call center software.

Our call center software, for example, allows you to build and customize your scripts using an intuitive drag-and-drop editing interface.

6. Be patient

Last but not least: it requires patience to achieve success in telesales. My experience is that it takes about 2-3 months for even the best telesales operators to start performing well at their job. For most telesales agents this period is between 4-6 months, while for those who develop a bit slower than others, this period is normally about 10 months.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should fire your agents just because they need more time to perform well in their role than you would like. As mentioned above, it is definitely worth focusing on hiring and investing in training programs, as in the long term they will help you build the team of high-performing telesales agents you’ll need to maximize your success!

So, these are my telesales tips that will definitely help you put your business on the path to success. Make sure to follow them, and reap success in telesales!

Are there any telesales tips you follow? Share with us in the comments below!