Appointment Setters are in charge of ensuring that all visitors to an organization are appropriately booked. They might work entirely with electronic files or use hard copies with a spreadsheet or CRM program to list appointments made, update the system with new data like new phone numbers or take notes on meeting minutes, create a filing system for client lists, or print out reports at meetings. Here are a few things about appointment setters:
Businesses often have appointment setters to handle appointments and client communication. This is because most companies have large volumes of incoming phone calls. For this reason, a business might require more than one appointment setter to handle calls and appointments. In addition, some businesses are able to hire in outside setters, as well.
Businesses that are on the phone constantly with prospective clients, on the Internet, or in face-to-face meetings with their clients need to have appointment setters who can work quickly and efficiently. The more employees a business has, the more potential clients it has who call during specific times of the day. If there are only a few potential clients or if the office only provides face-to-face meetings, the employees might be able to book an appointment using the computer, but the staff might not know how to proceed when faced with multiple calls at once.
As previously mentioned, appointment setters have to deal with busy phone calls during regular business hours. Some employees might be able to use the computer, but many won't. This can leave the office with a large volume of leads--and no way to sort through them or even identify who is calling. Businesses usually have their own phone systems or outsourced PBX systems. However, some offices are trying to find ways to implement their own CRM or customer relationship management solutions with these existing systems. This is a huge step backward.
One of the largest problems facing appointment setters today is that they are not able to get as much CRM solutions integrated into their system. The reason for this is because of the costs of integrating CRM systems with every type of business. Businesses don't want to spend thousands of dollars on purchasing call capture equipment, software, and staff to set up call capture centers. On top of that, most of the small to mid-size companies can't afford this kind of capital expense. That means most businesses have to turn to IT contractors to provide them with call capture systems and other CRM tools.
When an appointment setting company provides lead management services for call capture data, they generally focus on helping business managers create appointments and then help prospects understand what those appointments mean and when they need to be contacted. They are not capable of handling appointment setting tasks. Appointment setters must be capable of handling appointments and prospect communication. Otherwise they will not only fail to improve the quality of service provided by their sales representatives but also put their own professional reputation at risk.
Most appointment setters understand that prospects will be more likely to buy from them if they feel that they are treated like a real customer. With this in mind, they make it a point to treat each client as such and address all of their needs. Some sales reps will use tools such as appointment setting templates to speed up the process. Others may create a special phone greeting for each prospect to ensure that they are always taken seriously.
One of the most common objections that appointment setters encounter is resistance to changes. Sales representatives may not fully understand the objections that their prospects are raising, so they may not be able to completely eliminate these objections when communicating with their clients. To combat this, many sales representatives begin their sales meetings by offering their clients a'side activity' that they believe will help their prospects become more accepting of any changes that they may want to introduce. If this process begins to work well for the sales rep, then the next step is to offer the same side activity to clients that are raising objections to any of the changes that have been proposed.
