The oft-expressed idiom “good things come to those who wait” dates back at least as far as a 19th century poem (and probably much further than that), but that’s not exactly good advice when it comes to customer service and telephone lead generation. Instead, the optimal strategy can be summed up with a much more modern and less eloquent cliché:
“You snooze, you lose.”
While those words are hardly profound, they do accurately express the importance of taking a proactive approach to communicating with your customers and prospects. In today’s ultra-competitive market, it’s no longer enough for businesses to sit back and wait for their customers or potential customers to reach out with issues or questions. Companies that anticipate the needs of their buyers and take the initiative to address business gaps before they become major problems are emerging as leaders in their industry.
VSA has seen the benefits of this proactive approach to prospecting and customer service for both our B2B and B2C clients. Here are five of the ways this mentality is making a difference for clients and helping them grow their business:
1. Building meaningful relationships
Cold calling prospects to ask about potential pain points isn’t easy, but done right, it can be an extremely effective way to establish a sense of trust and reliability early in the customer journey. Sure, it’s tempting to wait for “hand-raisers” who show a cursory interest in your product or service via web forms, downloads, or other responses to your marketing content. After all, warmer leads theoretically have a better chance of converting.
But successful businesses don’t just sit back and wait for leads to pour in. Developing a list of qualified prospects and proactively reaching out to them to learn if your offering might fill a need can become the first step in establishing a mutually beneficial business relationship.
2. Positioning yourself for future sales
Some of the most common objections during lead generation cold calling campaigns involve timing: “We’re too busy to undertake a project like this right now”; “We’re under contract with another company for the next six months”; or simply, “This isn’t a good time.”
Which is the perfect opportunity to schedule a no-pressure conversation. Even if your prospect isn’t looking to buy a new product or make major changes now, they might not be opposed to learning about alternatives for when they are ready to consider a different path. Reaching out to them before they have a pressing concern might not yield an immediate sale, but it does help establish your company as a viable option if the need does arise. And if both sides know the prospect isn’t in buying mode, the conversation becomes that much more relaxed and casual, and less of a sales call, which can also help solidify the relationship.
3. Increasing customer retention
Contact with your customers shouldn’t end after you’ve made the sale. And it definitely shouldn’t wait until your customer has a problem.
Periodically reaching out to existing customers to see how they’re faring is a great way to make them feel appreciated and cared for, reduce frustrations, and improve brand loyalty. They’ll be much less likely to want to change providers if they know you’ve got their best interests at heart.
4. Gaining market knowledge
The more you reach out—whether to prospects, existing customers, or former customers—the more knowledge you gain about common obstacles within your market, and the better prepared you’ll be to understand and accommodate the needs of future customers. The goal should always be to learn as much as possible about your audience, so you can best put yourself in their shoes.
On some client programs, it can take dozens of conversations (or more) before a universal pain point emerges. But once it does, future conversations can be geared in that direction, instantly improving results. This scenario has played out on multiple VSA programs over the years as we—and our clients—learn more about the target audience and their needs.
5. Staying ahead of your competitors
Relying on incoming leads to fill your funnel or waiting for customers to come to you with their problems isn’t the best business strategy, but it can be especially harmful to your bottom line if your competitors are taking a more proactive approach. Perhaps a customer you’ve neglected the past few months has been contacted by a competitor offering a comparable solution at a lower cost. And just like that, boom, you’ve lost their business.
A proactive strategy doesn’t guarantee you’ll reach your prospects and customers before your competitors do, but it keeps your company top of mind and lets them know you value them at least as much as anybody else does.
Conclusion
In a crowded market filled with companies hawking solutions to seemingly all business challenges, the businesses that are the most proactive will be the ones who separate themselves from the pack and enjoy the greatest success. The only problem with that strategy is that it takes a lot of time and effort, and can put a strain on sales reps’ already-hectic schedules.
Having an experienced call center partner like VSA to handle this type of outreach for your company can produce the results you’re looking for without taxing your internal resources.
If you’d like to learn how VSA’s lead generation and customer service programs can help grow your business, be proactive and give us a call. We’d love to have a quick conversation.