The advantages of outsourcing your “scheduling an appointment” service

While it is a particularly time-consuming task, scheduling appointments is essential for your marketing department to progress! Here, the ability to convince, speed, organisation, concentration and good time management are the pillars, so much so that the slightest grain of sand in the mechanism can put your company at risk. This is why you should seriously consider the benefits that outsourcing offers.

Scheduling appointments: definition

Scheduling appointments is a real business card through which the company shouts a first impression at the prospect. Indeed, it is a matter of convincing the prospect to meet a salesman whose mission is to transform the trial into a valid agreement which is essential to the company’s growth.

A pillar for the development of the company

A key element in a company’s business development, particularly startups and SMEs, scheduling appointments can quickly become an obstacle to its growth. Indeed, how can a company increase its sales, and thus be profitable, without contacting its prospects directly in advance?

The essential role of the direct seller in scheduling appointments

The goal of making an appointment is to turn prospects into interested buyers. To achieve this, the direct seller must know his job:

• Contact potential clients to introduce the company and discuss its products or services. The agent must have training in corporate marketing and be familiar with the company’s subject matter, specifically its products and/or services.
• If making an appointment is facilitated by the use of detailed contact sheets or prospect lists, the direct seller must also be technical and precise. He must have a good command of computer tools, be able to keep his records and respect the etiquettes related to telephone exchanges.

Why outsource scheduling appointments?

The original role of the sales team is to focus more on closing sales, supported by direct sellers, who in turn contact prospects to convince them. By giving this second task to your sales team, they will simply not be able to concentrate effectively on their core task! There are so many more reasons to outsource this service! These are:

Save time for your sales people, who will be able to focus on developing strategies to keep your business running.

Cost and management savings: hiring direct sellers is a cost to the company, not to mention the stress it can cause. This is why the most appropriate solution is to turn to an outsourcing provider specialised in the management of appointments.

Visible and quick results: managing in-house scheduling requires not only a recruitment process, but above all finding the right person(s) who can handle such a task. If not, you risk jeopardizing your growth goals, not to mention the time it might take to find the right way forward. By assigning your appointment to an outsourcing provider, you will see the positive results quickly, especially when they provide you with accurate reports on a regular basis.

Regardless of your business configuration, it is always important to note down the requirements that must be met with regards to scheduling appointments in black and white.

Outsourcing of scheduling: 5 ideas to think about

1. Many companies think that the outsourcing of their scheduling appointments service will obstruct the gain of prospects in their demographic market or that it will prevent their conversion into engaged customers. An outsourcing provider offering such a service has all the system necessary to engage prospects, to nourish conversation and arouse interest during phone calls.

2. Many companies are afraid that appointments will never be converted if they entrust this service to a third company. However, by choosing its supplier meticulously, by discussing the process of qualification of prospects, for example, the BANT criteria (Budget, Authority, Needs and Timeline) and the set of guidelines to respect, the average conversion rate can reach 60 %!

3. If the conversion of an appointment may seem simple, in reality, the process can take several commitments and a millimetre script. Save time and resources by choosing a company whose sole purpose is to hire prospects and qualify them for your company.

4. For many companies, it is the commercial who is responsible for making appointments. However, this position is time-consuming, affecting the quality of the initial work they were hired for. By outsourcing the scheduling service, the company frees up time, but most importantly, they can focus on the prospects hired by your provider’s agents.

5. It is easy and fast for a company to set up an internal sales team. In reality, however, such an operation can be exhaustive, time-consuming and costly. It calls for the acquisition of additional equipment, the hiring of qualified resources to be trained and the hiring of managers and supervisors. We can add to this the departures and the arrival of new resources that will also need to be trained.

By outsourcing your scheduling service, you will save time and money on creating and training an in-house sales team. You will also save on the operating costs of the team and its training, which must be ongoing in order to achieve the objectives, and in the best case, exceed them. Choose a specialized service provider that has proven itself with many satisfied customers and present a positive face to your future customers, a face synonymous with successful partnership.