Despite its sometimes tarnished image, telephone prospecting is still an extremely important sales development tool for French companies, especially in the BtoB sector.
But many organizations face obstacles when it comes to setting up their telephone operations, whether for appointment setting or telesales. Indeed, prospecting companies by telephone presents a number of challenges, such as the secretary barrage, building a quality prospect file, or managing salespeople's time.
In this article, Sidely addresses the main issues surrounding BtoB telephone prospecting to help you develop your company's sales performance.
Contents:
Despite a somewhat tarnished image, telephone prospecting remains extremely common in France, and is a very important acquisition lever for companies. It is particularly effective in BtoB for complex sales, enabling immediate returns and rapid qualification of prospects. Today, it is often part of a multi-channel strategy, combined with other methods such as emailing and social networks. While many "experts" had predicted its replacement by various marketing innovations, augmented by automation or even AI, telemarketing has, on the contrary, integrated perfectly into these new unified models.
Direct marketing is always a profitable business for companies that have mastered the codes. And therein lies the rub! While BtoB telephone prospecting is an invaluable growth lever, finding the winning techniques these days is proving complex, and many organizations are struggling when it comes to launching telephone operations, whether for appointment setting or telesales.
Starting with your sales people, who prefer to contact prospects who have already expressed an interest (by filling in a form on your website, for example). And with good reason: it's really hard to maintain your composure when faced with a person who is blocking your path, or a caller who is visibly disturbed by unannounced canvassing. Your sales people need to show determination, perseverance, and manage their emotions well. They also need solid training in interview management, active listening, and a good dose of audacity to capture the caller's attention and end the call on target!
But it's worth the effort: for your company, the result is a new contact who wasn't actively looking for you, and generally, less competition and a privileged relationship. That's the art of outbound calling: finding customers "beyond marketing".
Another major advantage: cold prospecting reduces your dependence on market fluctuations, because if inbound demand drops, you're still able to increase the volume of outbound business. So prospecting is the best way to make your business more resilient!
BtoB (business-to-business) prospecting has several features that distinguish it from BtoC (consumer-to-consumer) prospecting:
The technical nature of the services you sell, and the variety of people you'll be dealing with online, will generally discourage you from using scripts (which are systematically used in BtoC).
Thus, BtoB prospecting requires a more personalized approach and management of longer, more complex sales cycles, while BtoC prospecting focuses on rapidly attracting the consumer with clear value propositions and a simplified decision-making process.
We'll now take a look at the essential steps for deploying BtoB sales operations over the phone.
Successful BtoB telephone prospecting requires an initial setup phase. This defines the main aspects of the operation, and guarantees that it will be deployed in the best possible conditions.
The performance indicators to be tracked in telemarketing vary according to the objectives of the mission (qualification, appointment setting, telesales, etc.). But generally speaking, KPIs are chosen to measure return on investment in different ways.
For example, for an outbound appointment scheduling operation, companies seek to track the following indicators for each salesperson or appointment taker:
Measuring acquisition costs (in this case, the cost per appointment booked, for example) enables you to compare the return on investment (ROI) of telemarketing with that of your other channels, such as search engine optimization or advertising.
Reporting is therefore essential. To achieve this, agents need to fill in the CRM, your main information system for everything to do with sales operations.
We'll see about that now!
To run an effective BtoB telemarketing campaign, you'll need to build up a stack, i.e. a suite of tools and software to help you carry out and monitor your operations.
To begin with, a CRM enables you to centralize all prospect and customer interactions. By centralizing this sales database, you enable every employee involved in the sales cycle to instantly view all the information they need to carry out their mission.
CRMs are particularly useful for reporting call data, creating segments to target in your call campaigns, automating repetitive tasks (e.g. sending brochures by email), or personalizing your message based on the history of exchanges with the prospect.
Finally, CRM is the reference source for performance analysis. For example, it is common practice to automate the production of dashboards and sales reports from the CRM, so that time is spent on analysis rather than on producing reports.
Examples: Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho.
This software is designed to record calls for training, quality assessment and sales technique improvement. Here again, we're talking about solutions designed for quality control, and therefore more suited to call centers, where supervisors or managers intervene with live operators, or once the call has ended.
If you decide to implement this type of solution with your field or telemarketing sales reps, take the time to explain the process to them, and turn your approach in favor of progress and performance (what sales rep isn't looking to increase their bonuses?!).
Examples: RingEX, Freshdesk, Zendesk, Aircal.
Depending on the nature of your operations, other types of applications may prove useful:
💡 You can also check out our list ofmust-have mobile apps for salespeople!
🤖 Artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into the software tools used for telephone prospecting:
The raw material of any BtoB prospecting campaign is, of course, the prospect file! Prospecting databases can be purchased, rented or built in-house. In most cases, they are the result of a combination of these techniques. Your CRM can also be enriched with data extracted from third-party applications via API links.
The aim is to create prospect segments that correspond to your campaign objectives. BtoB targeting is often enhanced by the use of specialized prospecting tools, the best-known of which is LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Last but not least, some CRMs come with qualified databases integrated by default. This is the case with Sidely, which offers companies targeting the supermarket sector a complete database of all the points of sale they can prospect.
To improve profitability or benefit from the experience of an expert company, many companies opt for outsourcing. Companies specializing in outsourced telephone prospecting are equipped with highly advanced performance monitoring and proximity management procedures, often enabling a higher level of results.
But the risks in terms of security and quality are real, and you need to weigh up the pros and cons carefully. The table below summarizes the main points to consider when deciding whether outsourcing is right for you.
💡 Sidely's opinion
Whatever your position on outsourcing, always keep a minimum of telephone prospecting in-house. Even if salespeople are reluctant to carry out hard prospecting, you'll find many advantages:
In France, regulations governing telephone canvassing are extremely strict for private individuals, but much more flexible for B2B customers.
The Bloctel list, for example, only concerns private individuals. Companies are not required to consult Bloctel before making B2B prospecting calls. What's more, BtoB canvassing hours are not regulated by law, unlike BtoC.
On the other hand, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also applies to B2B contact data. Companies must manage business contact data in compliance with the principles of transparency, security and the right to erasure. Indeed, all information concerning a natural person, such as an email address including his or her first and last names falls within the scope of personal data, and as such must lead the holding company to comply with the RGPD.
This includes the obligation to inform individuals about the collection, use and storage of their data, as well as guaranteeing their right to access, rectify and delete information. Data must be collected for precise and legitimate purposes, and companies must put in place appropriate security measures to protect such data from unauthorized use.
In the end, while the good practices may be identical (presenting yourself clearly, respecting "normal" hours), the framework that applies to BtoB prospecting essentially concerns compliance with the RGPD.
