To give participants an insight in how the telephone can be used as a powerful sales tool, this one-day programme, with follow up sessions, is for people who use the telephone as a part of their every day customer communications; those that have a need to follow up and develop new business opportunities, plus, understanding the telephone’s importance in improving and maintaining a profitable customer relationship.

Objectives

At the end of the course participants will be able to:

• Respond effectively to incoming calls and recognise sales opportunities
• Deliver a totally professional and consistent image of their organisation
• Use a range of questioning techniques to develop more and better quality business from existing customers
• Plan and prepare for outbound sales calls
• Target and call cold prospects effectively
• Be able to identify the needs of the key decision makers
• Apply the stages of outbound sales process to convert more leads and quotes
• Handle objections and know how to close the sales conversation effectively
• Deal positively with customer complaints and use them as opportunities to reinforce relationships for future business

Content

Topics to include:

• Being familiar with the telephone environment and how to organise it
• First impression skills and recognising the importance of verbal body language
• Developing a diagnostic questioning approach and listening skills
• Understanding why people buy
• Knowing the different types of customer and how to deal with them
• Following-up potential new business enquiries
• Planning an outbound call
• Overcoming gatekeepers and maximising prime time
• Matching needs, and using questions to develop a problem solving approach
• Anticipating and dealing with objections
• Using the trial close and closing a call to secure business

Training Methods

A combination of formal content, recorded role play activity, workshops and exercises. Duration and Numbers The programme would feature one day of intensive skills activity followed up by two half days of reviewing application and adding additional techniques as required. The ideal course size would be six people, but with a maximum of eight.