Sales trainers often ask the question: what actually matters on a sales call?
Now we have the answer.
What things can an employee say that make a difference? And for sales trainers, which elements of your training are most important?
LogMyCalls discovered the answers to these questions.
The Methods of the Study
A year ago we partnered with some statisticians at a local university to analyze over 4400 recorded and scored phone calls. We wanted to, once and for all, answer the question: what matters on the phone? Are there certain things that, if said on the call, can make a sale more likely.
We found that there were things that make a sales more likely. We wrote about one of those things earlier today. Specifically we learned that persistence and attempting to overcome the first objection makes a sale 12.6x more likely.
LogMyCalls recorded and scored 4400 phone calls in industries where an inbound call is considered a GREAT lead. In this case the calls were in the hotel industry. But our data shows, clearly, that similar data is true of any ‘local’ type business. The data holds true for tire dealers, auto dealerships, auto shops, home services businesses, dentists, lawyers, etc. etc.
LogMyCalls recorded the calls and then scored the calls based on a pre-determined set of critieria. We measured, for example, whether or not the employee persisted after an initial rejection AND whether or not each call ended in the desired outcome. Of course, depending on the industry, the desired outcome might be a booked appointment, a booked room, or an over-the-phone purchase.
Then the data was crunched and analyzed by statisticians from a local university.
These findings specifically show that directly asking for the business increases the likelihood of a sale substantially. In the 4400 calls analyzed, a direct relationship was established between the employee directly asking the caller to purchase and the caller actually buying. Asking for the sale led to significantly more sales. Directly asking for the sale makes the sale substantially more likely.
The findings are:
When the employee directly asks for the sale, the caller is 4.4 times more likely to purchase.
When an employee uses direct phrases such as: “May I go ahead and reserve that room for you?” or “So, are you alright if I go ahead and book that appointment for you?” a caller is 4.4 times more likely to purchase.
Directly asking for the business led to a measurable and statistically significant increase in sales.
Statistical analysis in previous studies indicates that most employees , often, do not ask for the reservation in a direct way…or at all.
Front Desk or In-Location Staff
Front desk staff and in-location staff ask for the business approximately 52% of the time. The remaining 48% of the time they simply gave basic information about the property, products, pricing or services. They failed to directly ask the caller to buy anything.
Call Centers
Call centers directly ask for the business even less frequently than front desk or in-location employees. Call centers only ask for the business 42% of the time. This means, 58% of the time they simply quoted a price or provided basic information, and failed to directly ask the potential customer if they’d like to reserve a room, book an appointment, or buy over-the-phone.
In summary, this vital selling competency that makes a caller 440% more likely to buy is only practiced around half the time.
That means call centers are not even asking for the business half of the time. Callers are never directly asked to actually buy. This is stunning for a couple of reasons.
First, the caller called the business! This is not an outbound phone call. This is an inbound call. The caller wants to buy from you…and yet most employees don’t even ask if the caller wants to buy.
One wonders why employees aren’t directly asking for the purchase 100% of the time.
Wow.
