Handling Inquiries

Here we are in Phase 2 of the sales process. Phase 1 could have easily taken months or years to develop, implement, and then finally generate a steady flow of leads and inquiries. Comparatively, this Phase will be done in a blink of the eye. And although this Phase is short, it doesn't make it any less important. At any Phase of the sales process you can positively or negatively influence your prospects. This one is no different.

In fact, you've probably seen the results of other company's poor handling of this phase on many occasion. The lazy, unenthusiastic "hello" of a telephone receptionist when you phone for more details on an ad or product in which you're interested. The company employees who are too busy talking among themselves to notice you enter their business. The sales clerk who turns his or her back on you to finish a personal phone call -- without even acknowledging you're there.

Any or all of these factors can kill a prospect in his or her tracks -- and drive them quickly back in the direction of a competitor who has a well-trained, enthusiastic staff. It can be deadly to assume that greeting customers by phone or in person, is such a "no brainer" that you need not spend your valuable time training your staff to do this. Surely anybody knows how to say "hello", don't they?

Believe it or not, the answer is "no" they don't. In the forward to John Caples book, Tested Advertising Methods, (an absolute must for serious marketers), David Ogilvy, one of the top experts in advertising in the world, cites an example of how a one word change in the headline of an ad caused a 19.5 times greater response. Yes, that's 19.5 times, not 19.5 percent better. Extraordinary to say the least. But how does that relate to handling an inquiry? Simple.

Think of the first line that comes out of someone's mouth on the phone or in your business, as the headline. Now, think about what they say.

"Hi, may I help you?" This greeting in retail stores has proven to be 12.5% less effective in ultimately closing the sale than greeting the customer with "Hi. Have you ever been in our store before?"

An "up" phone presentation that is professional, courteous, and informative is the best approach. In fact, some studies indicate that using the phrase, "Good (morning or afternoon), (organization name), this is (name). How may I help you?" has the most positive outcome of any phone answering message. One study found that this approach yielded nearly a 25 percent increase in sales for the organization.

When you're marketing without money, using the right greeting alone can make a huge difference to your bottom line. And putting this technique in place is virtually free!

But perhaps we've jumped the gun. Maybe it's not in your best interest to have your staff handle all the inquiries and sales from your promotions -- an outside fulfillment house may be a better resource for you.

These are organizations that exist to answer incoming sales calls, product inquiries, and to take orders. Anytime you call to order something from a TV commercial or other major media ad, you likely are being routed to a fulfillment center.

Depending on the nature of your products and services, these fulfillment houses, or call centers, may be the best choice -- even over staff. You'd consider using a fulfillment house when:

• you have widespread media coverage that generates lots of calls

• you have calls and orders coming in 24 hours a day

• you are short of staff

• questions are repetitive

• order processes are similar like all credit card transactions

Fulfillment houses will take calls, answer common questions, take credit card orders, ship products or literature, and often follow-up with outbound telemarketing.

They'll compile comprehensive management reports detailing how many calls they've answered, sales they've made, questions they've answered, etc. so you and your staff are free to handle other responsibilities.

Today's business environment offers a wide variety of media to generate interest in your products or services, and nearly as broad of a choice in how your prospect or customer may choose to respond to your offer.

Consumers have more and more choices in the way they do business. They are more concerned about efficiency, convenience, and customer service than ever before. And, today's consumer is trained to respond to media that didn't even exist when we were growing up.

That's why it's vital to understand your consumer and give him or her a variety of methods with which to inquire about your products and services.

There are the old standbys of course: business reply cards, telephone inquiries, and walk-in traffic. But there are many new methods of inquiring that may be convenient to a large enough group of prospects that it would behoove you to offer them. They include things like demand fax, interactive voice response systems, email, and Internet communications.

The easier you make it for your prospects to inquire, the more inquiries you'll get and the more sales that are likely to result.

Let's take a more detailed look at some of these technologies so you can decide on whether to use each medium in your business.

Demand Fax

If you're doing business with other businesses, they virtually all have a fax machine anymore. That means that you can provide detailed product information, newsletters, order forms, press coverage, and any other document that will help you get your message across, on a Demand Fax system. These systems simply store your marketing communications information on a system controlled by the user. In other words, someone wants information, they simply enter in a number or code for the products or information they're interested in, enter their fax telephone number on a touch tone phone, and voila, the information is sent to their fax machine automatically. They have the benefit of detailed information, you have saved staff time in feeding the fax machine. And, it works for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

There are a couple of ways you can have access to this type of system. You can buy the software (about $800), and load it on a PC in your place of business, or you can utilize a service bureau. Depending on your expected volume, you'll want to investigate both options and do an analysis.

Interactive Voice Response

Some companies have found it valuable to use a very sophisticated voice mail technology to offer product information by phone through an automated system. Again, the caller would request an automated response to questions like, "where's the nearest dealer", and, "what colors do your widgets come in?" These automated systems may provide a solution to certain inquiry management situations that aren't easily handled through other, more traditional means.

Email & World Wide Web Inquiries

Virtually all inquiries that come to you electronically as a result of your World Wide Web home page, are sent via email. But, not all email originates because you have a "home page". Many people have access to email, and may wish to communicate that way without ever seeing your website.

There's no question that this is one of the most efficient, and fast growing communications mediums yet. But if using email is not already habit for you, it may take a concerted effort to just build in a system for checking for email inquiries and handling them promptly. Once you start using email regularly, you'll want everyone you do business with to start using it immediately it's so efficient!

This is the phase of the sales process that requires personal selling skills. As we mentioned earlier, just greeting your prospect is a science. The rest of the sales process requires as much or more work on personal selling skills.

Before you start your lead generation phase, you should define how inquiries are going to be handled. Then, you must be sure that you have procedures developed to make your inquiry management system effective.

There are five key points that are vitally important to your success at this phase.

1. Respond to all inquiries immediately! Nearly 50% of the people who respond to your marketing communications are serious buyers and will purchase a product or service like the one they inquired about within one year.

2. Be sure you have assigned the right staff and the right amount of staff to handle inquiries. Don't give prospects the impression that you don't have time for their business.

3. Determine exactly what information should be collected (the more you know about a prospect the more business you'll likely garner from them), and have your contact management program up and running to capture data and schedule follow-up activities.

4. Determine what method of response you'll use. What tools do you have available? Do you need to develop additional tools for your sales staff, phone receptionists, or others to use so inquirers questions are answered quickly and succinctly?

5. Establish a policy that every inquiry is handled immediately. Never accept excuses from staff, and use your contact manager's management functions to track staff performance and be sure inquiries are handled promptly and properly.

There are whole books on team building, and getting optimum performance out of staff at all levels. I can't begin to cite studies or give you all the background for developing a positive selling environment in your business. But I will share with you the key things that I learned from managing top producing sales forces, and working with clients.

1. You must believe in your product or service, demonstrate excellent sales skills, and follow the sales process in the same fashion as you require of your sales staff. In other words, be a role model and absolutely practice what you preach.

2. Encourage the process each step of the way with ongoing praise for a job well done.

3. Provide regular training to keep your staff sharp and working at their optimum performance.

To be sure you will be able to analyze your ongoing results, then fine tune your program to continually improve its performance, you'll want to track everything you and you staff does to communicate with prospects and eventually turn them into customers. This is easily accomplished by using your contact management software program religiously and taking some time before you start using it to be sure you'll capture the correct data, and know how to get the management reports out of it that will really do you some good. Then USE those management reports to spot problems, refine your sales process, and ultimately reduce sales costs and increase sales.

Some of the things you'll ultimately want to know are:

• How long is the sales cycle in time?

• How many contacts, on average, does it take to get an order?

• What promotional materials were used in the process?

• How many phone, in-person, and mail contacts are in a successful sales process?

• What scripts were used?

• What prices were quoted?

Table of Contents l Next - Chapter 4: Prospect Service: Phase 3 of the Sales