March 23, 2023 by Cheryl Cappellano

Telemarketing – when it DOESN’T work.

When you hear the word TELEMARKETING, do you sort of cringe?

I do.

Even though this is the business we are in.

The word telemarketing gets a bad rap, because often companies don’t know how to do it effectively.

Yesterday I got a call and it went like this:

“Hi this is ______ calling from _____ “( the name was said so fast I didn’t catch it).

I’m calling to talk to you about your health plan. Blah blah blah blah, cost savings blah blah blah blah blah , better service , blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,

“can we book an appointment?”

“No”, I said.

”OK”, she said and hung up.

I got off the phone thinking of all the ways in which this was just so wrong.

I am not the decision maker for this service.
The script was sooooooo long and was clearly being read. It felt like it went on forever.
There was no engagement in conversation, no profiling or learning a bit about Idea Factor, and our current supplier and/or needs.
What was said, was said so fast that I have no idea who the company was that called.

How could this have been handled better?

This is the PROCESS that will make a telemarketing call a WIN for you, a WIN for your target audience and a WIN for the Agent making the call.

Be sure to have obtained the correct decision maker name and title at the company you are targeting.
Send that person ‘lumpy’ mail that is personalized in a bubble envelope so that it makes it past reception and onto the desk of your target audience.
Ensure that the mail itself is fun and delivers your message in 3 seconds or less in a positive fashion.
When you call to follow up, state your name, the company name, and reference the mail that was sent.
Ask a few good quality questions that will help you to identify whether or not your product or service would be a good fit for the person you are calling.
If so, go ahead and ask for the meeting.

The reason this is WIN WIN WIN?

PROSPECT – an interesting and informative conversation that could result in a meeting and/or awareness of your offering

AGENT – a fun way to have a pleasant interaction with an unknown person.

THE SELLER – this will give you the best response rate for your marketing effort while making the touchpoints worthwhile and informative.

Don’t be afraid of telemarketing, just be sure to do it right.

Happy selling!

ABOUT IDEA FACTOR

Idea Factor provides a full suite of marketing services including B2B lead generation (gathering qualified sales leads), surveys, data mapping, event tele-boosting, trade show follow up, in-bound and out-bound omni-channel call center services, data cleansing, list cleaning, customer retention and loyalty programs.

Our commitment to excellence in customer service has awarded us repeat business for more than 25 years, from both our global and community clients. To find out more go to http://www.idea-factor.com or look at our Services here.

February 21, 2023 by Cheryl Cappellano

WOW! Is this the drill for 2023?

I hope I haven’t been boring you with my many, many comments about the lack of good customer service since the onset of COVID.

But really, wouldn’t you agree that it has been dismal at best?

It seems a constant topic of conversation at both our conference room table and our dinner table. Until today.

I bought an oblong cooking pan. Sounds silly to say, but I absolutely love this thing. No matter what you cook in it, it just slides out and cleans up like a dream. From split honey chicken to pizza, it makes both the finished product and the clean up a dream.

So, I thought, I need a round frying pan that will behave in the same fashion. I ordered it.

It came with lots of cool attachments like silicone handles, and wooden spoons, and all the things a cook would appreciate.

But uh-oh, there was a problem. Everything was sticking. Huh?

So, absent mindedly I sent an email describing my experience, thinking I was probably wasting my time.

But no.

The next day I got a note telling me a bunch of things I could do to make this pan not stick.

Since I didn’t have to do a single thing to the first pan I bought I thought yadda yadda yadda.

Yesterday I got a follow up note asking if things had gotten better?

Huh? You mean you care??

Wow, I thought.

“No” I said, “I think I just ordered the wrong product.”

They came back and said send it back.

“But, I have used it” I replied.

“No problem. We want you to be happy. Please send it back for a full refund and here are some suggestions for a replacement that will perform in the same way as your first purchase.”

Can you see my SMILE? Can you see how wide my eyes are?

Can you see how I will tell all my friends and be a loyal customer FOREVER?

I bet you can.

What a treat it was to feel special as a customer. Seems it had been a while.

Customer service is EVERYTHING if you want to protect your BRAND.

Hoping you have your customer experience buttoned down for the year to come.

Those are the brands that are going to WIN.

ABOUT IDEA FACTOR

February 13, 2023 by Cheryl Cappellano

Promotion Not Getting Traction?

Promotion Disappointment

Are you running a campaign or promotion that isn’t gaining the traction, interest or buy-in you were hoping for?

The solution is often pretty simple.

First you need to identify WHO within the target company would be the most interested in the offer. The right Title and then the right Contact Name. It’s really the key to success for every effort.

Illustrate WHY the offer is good for them — in a concise, easy to understand message.

Then deliver that message unilaterally to all the companies you have selected as your target audience.

This part is strategic and requires one-on-one messaging. Yes, by actually TALKING to the target audience.

Helps if you start out with some creative direct mail first to get their interest (even just a little bit) before you call.

On numerous occasions we have been invited to help ignite or get a promotion off the ground.

In the discovery phase, invariably the issue is that the message has either not been received OR it was simply sent to or delivered to the wrong person.

A good old conversation will bring you not only promotion participation, but a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t work within the framework of your promotion.

Here’s an example.

A Customer of ours chose to mail a brochure (multi pages) to a specific target audience. The brochure had a 1-800 number as a call to action if the prospect wanted to take advantage of the offer and also a website where you could enroll.

Once the mail went out to some 10,000 targeted companies, less than 40 people called or logged in to express interest.

That’s a pretty low response rate and hard to produce and ROI.

To prove a point, we took a small sample of that list (100 companies). We called to say: we noticed that you saw our brochure and went to our website. Can we help you with something?

43 were not the decision maker

29 went to the website but couldn’t use the required form

28 did not respond

That means 43% of the target audience was sent to the wrong contact, and 29% couldn’t take advantage of the offer because of technology issues.

The math says to me that had this effort been properly targeted, the response rate would have been fantastic.

If your promotion is not running the way you want it to, try the subset example and see what you can learn that will help you turn your effort into a WINNER.

ABOUT IDEA FACTOR

January 30, 2023 by Cheryl Cappellano

Is your Customer Service Super Hero Cape a little tired?

Customer Service and the pandemic

Now that we are more than 2 years into this pandemic, I find people to be TIRED.

Almost everyone I talk to is dealing with some sort of work/home challenge.

Sick…
Want to work from home…
Don’t want to work from home…
Quarantined…
Gas prices…
Emotional strife’s…
Cash flow…

The list goes on, and of course some have much bigger challenges to face.

My advice to you when you are unhappy with the service you are getting is to try and find a little kindness in your heart. ‘Catch more flies with honey’ and all that stuff, because what I have learned is, all that person did was show up for work today, and who knows what challenges they are facing at home.

Make your point, but maybe a little sweeter than you really want to.

I’m not preaching, just listening to our Customer Service Reps take the brunt of all of this Tiredness, and saying I could learn from these words too.

Just sayin’.

Have a lovely day.

ABOUT IDEA FACTOR

January 17, 2023 by Cheryl Cappellano

Globalization. Progress? Or Regress?

Globalization.

A word I have heard and experienced numerous times over the last 15 years.

At first glance, I can see the potential benefits of consolidating numerous offices and vendors to reduce interactions and have one cohesive presence.

In reality, what I have seen and experienced is a complete breakdown of PROCESS. To the extent that most things that were easy on a branch level, are so steeped in bureaucracy that they are at a complete standstill. Rather than a few weeks to market, it’s 6 months. Lost time. Lost opportunity.

As a mid-size entrepreneur, the amount of manpower required to climb these global-legal, master-contract-agreements far outweighs the ROI associated with working in a Global Environment.

The Stakeholders are frustrated because they are tied to performance — a performance they know they can get, if only they could get a Purchase Order (and that, my friends, is a tall order in a Global Environment).

I must tell you, that the move to Global has given us numerous instances where we were paid for work we didn’t do. We have been paid twice for some work, or we have not been paid at all.

Perhaps the most disconcerting is being paid for work that other Vendors did, and checks in their name were sent to us. Imagine!

As a company with integrity, we raise our hand immediately to right the wrong. Does that happen across the board? I doubt it.

In a recent transaction where we are months in to launch a very simple lead generation effort, I have to ask myself – is this progress or regress?

I think I know the answer.

ABOUT IDEA FACTOR

June 4, 2019 by Cheryl Cappellano

Why EXCELLENCE in Customer Service Matters!

customer-service-thumbs-down

The other day I stopped at a well known North American Donuts Shop on the way in to work.
We were celebrating the soon-to-be birth of a new baby at our IF Family.

Every now and then, we get together as a Team to thank and honor a Team Member — babies, birthdays, service awards. A great way to chat, catch up with each other as people, discuss our business goals. A mini-State of The Union, if you will.

June 4, 2019 by Cheryl Cappellano

Omni-Channel Customer Service for Your Contact Center

Omnichannel-customer-service-image

The way that companies handle customer service has changed dramatically in recent years. More than a decade ago, there were only two ways to contact a company – by phone or by fax (remember fax machines?). Today, you can take your pick; phone, email, live chat, snail mail and social media. The list appears endless. The challenge for many companies is not only to be accessible in these channels, which is important, but for those channels to deliver consistent and an integrated service quality. Companies that provide a consistent service quality across multiple channels retain 89% of their customers, whereas companies that do not provide a consistent quality are only able to retain 33%. A consistent service quality across multiple channels will significantly impact company revenue. And this is why more companies are investing in Omni-channel customer service.

June 4, 2019 by Cheryl Cappellano

Cost Conscious Reasons for Global Companies to Work with Single or Small Groups of Vendors

Typical multi-vendor pain points are the ability to service customers efficiently and effectively.

“The more vendors that are in the kitchen, the harder it is to cook a meal.”

The preference is to work with companies that have a consistent service delivery model and the same predictable quality of service.

While some may see multiple vendors as decreasing risk, it can actually increase risk and complicate the management of SLAs and responsibilities when an issue needs to be managed. Not to mention the complication of multiple vendor touching key components of Customer Service, particularly if there is possible risk of litigation involved.

June 4, 2019 by Cheryl Cappellano

How to know that Your Strategic Vendor Partner is a KEEPER

vendor-partner-relationships

1. Go for quality, not quantity with your vendor
The old procurement-driven advice on managing vendors was to have a huge portfolio of potential vendors, and put every procurement out to competitive bid, playing vendors against each other and applying pressure until you got the absolute lowest cost. While this can be effective in the near term, there are two risks. The first is rather obvious: if you always seek the lowest cost, you’ll always get the minimum acceptable output. This may be fine for commodities like connectivity services, hardware, and some IT services, but puts more complex endeavors at risk.

For an analogy to our personal lives, finding the cheapest gasoline is fine (as long as you don’t spend an hour driving to save a few pennies), but you probably don’t want the cheapest brain surgeon poking around between your ears.

June 4, 2019 by Cheryl Cappellano

The Power of a Thank you

grateful I received the most wonderful gift. It was a card.

The front of the card had one word : GRATEFUL

And the inside of the card was thanking me for being a mentor and a person to look to for comfort and advice. It was from my friend’s 25 year old daughter who I adore but really don’t see all that often.

She has just begun her teaching career and spent some time travelling. Last summer I managed to snag her for a day and took her to some of my favorite shopping/eating places.

We shopped, laughed, cried and told each other some terrific stories. I watched her grow up and make s’mores in my backyard, and now I am watching her make a difference in the world by offering them the gift of ‘learning’.

I can’t begin to tell you the power of that small card with the words THANK YOU inside. It really meant the world to me.