Have you thought about accepting call transfer leads? Have you been pitched them recently but are unsure how to best accept them in and organized fashion? Call transfers are probably the best form of lead you can get, yet are rife with challenges to be able to use them effectively and profitably. Over the next couple of articles, we’ll look at the call transfer business and start to explore the future of the medium and best practices. The Top 5 things you should know to maximize your use of call transfers are:
1. Have a good call routing system that routes the calls to the next available agent and not a hard stop at an operator bank. Many great companies have lost countless customers keeping them on hold in an operator bank when an operator is on the other line.
2. Once the agent doing the call transfer (or if you got a ring directly from the web) connects to your line, regardless of whether you answer or not, you have 20 seconds to have someone answer the call before the customer starts getting impatient. An impatient customer is a low closing rate customer or a customer no more.
3. When making a hand off between operators, the first operator should introduce the customer by name and not just by ID number. Personalize the experience.
4. Do not rush. If you are talking to a customer live, have the operator keep the conversation paced, not rushed. A rushed customer is one likely to change their mind later or charge back their purchase. A Call transfer, especially one generated via outbound telemarketing is a delicate experience as the customer has not really had time to interact with the product and thus should be carefully walked into purchase.
5. Do not say the person found you on the Internet unless you know its true. Many a client have complained about ‘bad leads’ because they would start talking to the customer as if they filled out an Internet form, which would then freak the customer out, because they didn’t. Make sure your operators know the origin of the leads if you want the leads to be successful.
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