The actual cost of a sale, which is the cost of the call center person’s hours and his bonus, can easily be over $200 and even as much as $300.
It may be interesting to note that there are often as many people making calls at the call center as there are salesmen.
The U.S. based call center person gets a minimum wage of about $80 a day plus the bonus of maybe $100 if he's good. His boss gets a six figure salary plus performance bonuses.
The purpose of the call is to get the salesman in the door, whatever that takes.
The telephone call can be as varied as the manager’s imagination. The script used has been polished and honed over weeks and months to near perfection and is designed to push every possible button with the fewest words and in the least amount of time.
Every word in the pitch has been purposely selected for its impact. The fewer words uttered to get the appointment the better. Remember, these people will call 1,000 to 2,000 people a day and talk to about 200 of them.
The “pitch” can have nothing to do with the product being sold. “Hello Mr. Jones, I’m calling to see if your electric bill is too high. The City Power Company is offering a rebate on your electric bill only for this month and you might qualify for that rebate. We’re sending out someone to check your house and see if you can get that $600 rebate for an efficient home. How about 11AM tomorrow?
In reality the rebate is maybe $3.00 — three dollars — and only if you buy something to replace something you already have and there is no real time limit on it and the salesman will be doing everything he can to sell you windows or exterior coatings — for $20,000 — or more. And he has about one chance in three or four of doing exactly that.
Canvassers
Some companies use teenagers to prowl the streets in sophisticated gangs to ring doorbells and to then get people to take a brochure. These leads are better than call center leads because there was someone who actually cased the house and who has learned quite a bit about the house and the interior and the homeowner. As stupid and smiling as this teenager may have seemed, he had a job to do and he did it. All of his information is then computerized and sent to the sales office. The canvasser will tell the homeowner whatever he has to tell them to get an appointment for the salesman. The
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |