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Business to Business Situation: Client employs a specialized field sales team that acts as business communications consultants to help prospects determine the most appropriate telephone, Internet and cable TV services for their businesses. Client was frustrated that this highly trained team spent much time prospecting for leads and relatively little time consulting with potential customers and asked Affinitas to recommend a lead generation process that could refocus the sales team’s efforts. Solution: Affinitas recommended a process whereby a portion of the records currently used to drive existing direct mail campaigns (which generated leads for an inside sales team) could be used to drive a process of outbound calling for lead qualification and appointment setting in support of the field sales team. A pilot test was performed in two of the Client’s five serviceable markets. Approximately 25% of Client’s mail records were provided to Affinitas for calling, and Client developed a special offer for the test. Affinitas wrote the script, developed and delivered training to the agent pool, and made outbound calls to prospects to share the special offer and to make an appointment for a visit from a Client consultant. Appointments were scheduled based on a grid of available days of the week and day-parts, developed in concert with Client sales managers. For prospects that agreed to an appointment, Affinitas collected contact information and the day and time of the appointment. A daily file of leads was automatically generated and e-mailed to the sales manager in each Client market, who then distributed to the field for follow-up and closure. Results: The outbound calling process was effective in generating lead appointments at a rate more than double the rate of the field sales consultants. In addition, the field was able to spend all of their time in making visits and consulting with prospects and were able to close sales at nearly three times the rate of their previous process. Upon completion of the pilot test, Client rolled the program out to all five of its serviceable markets. The program rolled out in the month of March, and by the end of November of that same year, Client had surpassed its sales goals for the field sales team. |
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