Making successful sales calls can be very difficult if you or your employees aren’t performing well on the phone. You might be unintentionally undermining yourself on the phone, which will actually discourage your customers or clients from taking you seriously. To prevent that from happening, we’ve got a list of some bad habits that you should look out for.
What Not to Say on a Call
Here’s a quick list of some things you should try to avoid when having conversations with customers or potential clients:
- Don’t use pet names with them; use their name if possible, but not too often
- Don’t use phrases that include “always” and “never;” they make you seem less credible
- Don’t say “I don’t know; instead, tell them you’ll do research and call back
- Don’t leave things fuzzy; give definite time frames if at all possible
Though there are many more tips that could be useful to you, this is a good place to start.
Additional Phone Call Tips
Whether you or your employees are cold calling or if you only answer incoming calls from clients, you need to focus on being strong in tone, knowledgeable, and friendly. Knowing your material is critical to getting your customers to trust you, so study up!
When you’re talking with a client over the phone, try not to use “fillers” or frequent apologies. For instance, make sure that everything you are saying to the person on the other side of the phone is pertinent and important to them. Don’t let yourself wander. Additionally, if you are frequently apologizing for calling the client or asking them about something, they might stop taking you seriously.
Though it might seem like intuitive advice, don’t insult or criticize the customer, regardless of whether you are calling them or they are calling you. That is a recipe for losing a potential lead or a loyal customer. If it makes it easier, adopt the “customer is always right” mentality.
If you are anxious to improve the call quality of your employees and find out what your customers like, request a call recording and call scoring demo from Call iQ today!