Telemarketing Tales

From the March 2003 issue of

The success of a telemarketing campaign depends on various factors. Professional callers and a highly targeted prospect list are pretty much a pre-requisite …and it helps of course if your interviewees haven’t been bombarded by similar calls prior to your approach. So how do UK CAD/CAM managers feel about the telemarketing calls they receive? We interviewed managers at 248 UK companies to find out.

Calling All Managers

When asked how often they receive telemarketing calls, the answers ranged from two or more calls a day (13% of the sample) through to none (11% of the sample). The spread across the different frequencies is fairly even, with around half of our sample receiving at least one call a week. 

Although sample sizes are relatively small, there are some indications that managers at smaller companies (less than 50 employees) receive telemarketing calls more frequently than those at larger companies. This is probably because of the increased likelihood of being blocked by a ‘gatekeeper’ at larger firms.

New Suppliers Getting Through

We asked our sample what proportion of the telemarketing calls received comes from suppliers that they have never used. A third of our sample said that between 75-100% of telemarketing calls are from such suppliers - and a further three out of ten said that between 50-75% fall into this category.

Wide Of The Mark?

We questioned our sample about the relevance to their business of the telemarketing calls received. A third said that the calls tend not to be very relevant, with a further 15% saying that they are not at all relevant. Only 3 people in the sample feel that they get calls that are highly relevant to them.

Smooth Operators?

We asked our sample how professional the telemarketers who called them were - and again the response was not particularly positive. Forty four per cent said that the callers tend only to be quite professional - a further 18% commented on the variable nature of such calls.

Conclusion

These findings only relate to the telemarketing calls that have actually got through to our sample of managers - no doubt they will have been targeted by many more that failed to connect due to absence from the office, or fiercely protective gatekeepers. However, around half of our sample receives less than one telemarketing call a week - hardly a major burden. A target market where decision makers are not suffering from telemarketing/sales fatigue should increase the chances of success.

Nearly half of our sample said that the telemarketing calls they receive tend to be of limited relevance to their business - a waste of everyone’s time. No telemarketing campaign is a guaranteed success; but a precisely targeted one, conducted by professional, well-briefed callers, will hugely increase the chances of meeting the desired objectives.

CAD Spaghetti is a free monthly newsletter published by the Business Advantage Group Plc

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