NEWS

Using Telemarketing Scripts When Selling By Phone Is Bad

Do you use telemarketing scripts when selling by phone? If you are a telemarketer you probably do. Most telemarketing firms provide their employees with scripts to use when selling over the phone.

Do you think that telemarketing scripts are worthwhile or would an unscripted phone call produce better sales results?

Most telemarketers would agree that unscripted and natural sounding phone calls produce better results, yet many still use scripts. Why would this be the case? Perhaps it has something to do with fear - fear that, without a telemarketing script in front of them during their conversations, they wouldn't know what to say. This makes reading from a script a "safe" choice. Although the final sales results may not be as good, at least they will never fumble if they have a script in front of them.

Telemarketers that use this reasoning will never be able to truly achieve the success that they are capable of without abandoning their scripted conversations. Think of it this way - to be successful at selling, prospects must believe in you, the telemarketer, and believe in your products or services before he would be willing to buy. Someone using a telemarketing script doesn't sound believable, just as an actor in a motion picture wouldn't look believable if you saw him reading his lines from a movie script.

Yet another way to look at it would be to consider a telephone call to a friend or family member. Reading lines while conversing with someone that you know would seem strange. Yet, for many in the telemarketing industry doing the exact same thing with complete strangers seems perfectly acceptable.

It may be worthwhile to memorize a few lines from a script when selling by telephone just in case you are ever lost for words. But to base an entire telemarketing call on a script may be foolish. Do what increases your chance of success and you will be more successful.

The same could be said for anybody that uses cold calling to prospect for new business.

By Tino Buntic

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