The Importance of Data in Telesales

Many telesales teams struggle to improve closing rates – they increase targets, improve their lead generation and invest in training their staff to get better at closing.

Yet those closing rates often remain stubbornly low.

The root of the problem isn’t technique or effort – rather, it is in the data that sales teams have to work with.

Using old or poor quality data is inefficient and expensive, as your sales teams waste their efforts chasing irrelevant or defunct leads.

Qualified Leads are Key

This article by Jeffrey Bussgang highlights three B2B sales approaches: enterprise, telephone and developer-driven.

In particular, it was what he had to say about the importance of qualified leads in telesales which caught my eye – here’s why:

Telesales techniques typically involve hiring large numbers of young, inexperienced professionals who conduct large quantities of sales calls every day.

This ‘boiler room’ approach relies on tight coordination between sales and marketing to give them a constant stream of qualified leads. Leads that are handed down to the telesales team, therefore, need to be well-defined and watertight to ensure that efficiency is maintained.

These qualified leads could be gained either from inbound marketing such as webinars, blogging or white papers, or from a carefully developed list of prospects.

And it’s that last point that is vital – a company’s database of prospects is likely to contribute to the majority of its telesales calls, and so the information provided needs to add value to count as a qualified lead.

Static vs Real-time Data

Most businesses will purchase a database to support their telesales team; however, static data begins to go out of date the moment you buy it and only has a limited shelf life.

This often leaves you with a CRM full of irrelevant data, forcing your sales team to waste time on unsuccessful calls and requiring that they regularly update the database manually.

This leaves a company with a choice – spend more money periodically on new data or make do with old information.

Time is money and while you can set targets to make X number of calls in a day, if you are using bad data then the chances are that you will be operating inefficiently.

Bussgang makes it overwhelmingly clear that qualified leads are the key to any telesales team reaching its full potential.

However, generating such leads is a task in itself – anything that can provide a head start and point you straight to those better leads is only going to improve performance. And that’s what good quality, real-time data can allow you to do – here’s why:

The Business Landscape is Constantly Changing

This is certainly the case across all B2B sales, but is particularly true when selling to SMEs where there are changes all the time – businesses grow, they experience financial distress, directors move, liquidity improves, and so on. These events are happening in the UK at a rate of 100,000 per day and can present perfect sales opportunities depending on what product/service you provide.

Take, for example, an insurance provider. If a prospect’s annual accounts show good growth then the company may be seeking to adjust its cover – so this might be a good opportunity to get in touch and offer a free insurance review.

Red Flag Alert Provides a Better Way

Successful sales teams don’t just focus on the perfect opportunity; they also make sure that they are selling to clients who are in a position to buy using the 5 telesales tips from Red Flag Alert.

By creating customer avatars, companies can identify themes in their current client base and work out what kind of company will be likely to buy its services.

This allows you to segment customers based on a wide range of characteristics, such as industry, financial performance, size and location.

Selling to the right clients will not only improve sales rates but by targeting customers that are financially secure, you can avoid credit risk and gain a client that may be in a position to spend more in future.

This is where Red Flag Alert comes in – we provide business intelligence on 6.5 million UK businesses and this information helps you access the most up-to-date business information. So instead of relying on old, static data, you get access to real-time information every single day – plugged straight into your CRM.

This means your sales team don’t need to trawl through bad data or spend time manually updating the system – they have a daily stream of high-quality leads.

There is no better way to make sure you get the qualified leads that Jeffrey Bussgang emphatically outlines as critical to telesales success.

Red Flag Alert is a telemarketer’s dream:

• 20 million key decision-makers.
• 100,000 data updates every day.
• 100+ indicators of financial health.
• 50+ filters of key business data.
• 7 detailed financial health ratings.
• 2.6 million telephone records.
• 100+ indicators of financial health.

To see how you can benefit from Red Flag Alert’s B2B Prospector Tool , request a free trial today.