Six Ways to Encourage Prospects to Pick Up the Phone When You Call

Once you’ve got through to a prospect on the phone, your opportunity to give your pitch and draw them in is ripe.

Unfortunately, this won’t happen often if your calls aren’t answered. So what strategies can you use to overcome this obstacle?

Get the timing spot on

You probably realize that you shouldn’t be calling prospects at antisocial hours, but it’s also worth noting that there are actually quite narrow windows each day when they’ll be most receptive.

During the morning, the sweet spot lies between 10 and 11am. In the afternoon, it’s between 4 and 5pm. Avoid the average lunch hour, as this is when people tend to be less amenable to a phone conversation, for obvious reasons.

Leave a friendly voicemail message

Good communication is part of customer retention, and also helps when getting fresh prospects onboard in the first place.

So if your first call isn’t answered, leave a message which is both friendly and succinct. That means you’ll be laying the groundwork for a follow-up call, or could even encourage the prospect to return your call if you play it right.

Make preliminary contact elsewhere

With email and social media, it’s easier to get in touch with prospects as a primer ahead of a call. If they know you’re going to contact them, it won’t be out of the blue and the likelihood of them answering it will be multiplied.

Engaging with prospects on social media is an art, so hone your abilities here and it will pay dividends in your call answer rates, as well as your conversions.

Call from a local number

Plenty of people rely on caller ID to screen numbers from business lines, or from further afield. By using local numbers you can mask the specific location of your company, and instead appear as if you’re in the same region as prospects.

This is useful if your company serves a global base of customers, but doesn’t have a physical presence in every single state or country.

The other advantage of calling from a local number is that you’ll be able to allow prospects to call back without being charged a higher rate. Thus it’s a win-win choice, and one that will serve you well as your business grows.

Choose the right prospects

Another way of looking at the job of placing calls to prospects is that it has to be done efficiently, and that means avoiding any wasted time through proper research.

There’s no point calling everyone in the phone book just because you can, because even if you do end up getting a lot of your calls answered, every second you spend speaking with someone who is outside of your target demographic is holding you back. So before you pick up the phone and dial, ensure that your prospecting has been handled rigorously.

Work on your wider business reputation

Having a good reputation is important for organizations of all sizes, and is doubly useful in the modern age when smartphones are the norm.

Lots of prospects will be able to see the exact name of your organization on their screens when they ring, and if they recognize it because they’ve encountered it elsewhere or heard positive things from other customers, they will be more comfortable in answering.

Conclusion

A combination of tactics will help you to boost the call answer rate you experience when reaching out to prospects.

It’s also useful to learn from your mistakes, so if not enough people are picking up the phone, look at why this might be and try to fix it.