Outgoing calls processing takes one of the key positions in the duties of the administrator of a fitness club. Along with incoming calls processing, when a potential client calls the club, the administrator also obliged to make so-called “cold calls”. For what purpose such calls are made and whether they have a clear sequence of actions, we will find out right now.
Intro
In fact, work with outgoing calls is divided into three areas – these are calls to present club customers, calls to the potential club customers and cold calling. All these three types of communication are often lies in the field of responsibility of the administrator or sometime a sales manager of a fitness club.
In some fitness clubs, calling responsibilities can be distributed between several administrators, when the telephone database is divided equally between them, or between the administrator and the sales manager, if there is such a department in the club. In some cases, the distribution of duties can be designed so that the administrator on the reception works only with incoming calls, and outgoing calls are the responsibility of a sales manager.
Calls to present clients
An active client can be considered a person who, even if he wasn’t at the club, has already paid at least once for its services. For example, he could pay for a membership to a fitness club through a form on the website. The acquisition of a membership involves filling out personal data, which means that at least he has already entered his name, surname and phone number into the club’s database. Did he come to the club after paying for its services or he didn’t, it doesn’t matter. Your goal is to maintain a relationship with him. So in case if he didn’t, you will need to ask why and find out when it will be comfortable for him to come. If he did, ask is everything ok and what questions or suggestions there are. This is needed to show the client that you care about him. So, how often do you need to make such calls? The outgoing calls processing algorithm looks like this.
- You need to call to the client 1 week after he has purchased a membership
- You need to call to the client 1 month after he has purchased a membership
- You need to call to the client 3 months after he has purchased a membership
- You need to call to the client if he not visiting the club for a long time
- You need to call to the client 1 month before his membership will expire
- You need to call to the client at least on his birthday and on the Christmas
- You need to call to the client in order to invite him to the various club events
The purpose of all these calls is quite simple. All of them are committed to achieve one goal – to maintain relationship with the client. The first three calls – after a week, a month and three months are usually made with the same question: “Is everything ok?” Here it’s not so important to get an answer, but what really important is to make person feel that his opinion counts, that he is remembered, that he is cared about. Even if he refuses the conversation and says that he is busy and can’t speak, your goal will already be achieved – you called and showed interest in the person. The purpose of the remaining calls is traced in their purpose.
If during the conversation it turns out that the person is visiting the fitness club properly, that’s great, be sure to find out if he likes everything, whether he has questions or wishes, and end the conversation. If it turns out that he doesn’t attend the club, find out why, what caused it and, if possible, suggest solutions. Low motivation? Offer to book him for a consultation or briefing. Have no time? Offer to change the membership to morning, afternoon or evening hours, and possibly even to a “weekend membership”. Too long to get there? Find out what kind of transport he use and offer either an alternative transport or an alternative route.
TIP. The terms for outgoing calls processing given above are derived by many years of experience. As practice shows, a week, a month and three months are precisely the terms in which the likelihood that the client will “drop off” is greatest. The task of the administrator or sales manager is not to let the person cool down, figuratively speaking. His interest in visiting the fitness club needs to be warmed up all the time. That’s the main purpose of calls processing.
Calls to the potential clients
A potential client can be considered a person with whom you either didn’t agree about the meeting, or a meeting with whom didn’t end with closing a deal. I talked about how to correctly and consistently arrange a meeting in the previous article, “Incoming calls processing”, and about how the meeting with the client in the club should go we will talk in the following articles. Meanwhile, let’s dwell on the fact that both the first and second potential customers are doubters, respectively, they need to be taken in hands while they are still hot.
First of all, you need to focus on what you say and how you say. The script will tell you what to say. How to talk I already told you in the article about incoming calls (see link above). Focus on the emotional component of the club’s presentation, use speech turns like “Friendly and pleasant atmosphere”, “Professional trainers”, “Comfortable locker rooms and showers” and so on. People always make emotional decisions much easier. The more time you give a person to think, the more he begins to think rationally. He will begin to compare, look for flaws and come up with excuses. Make calls as quickly as possible and make appointments as fast as you can.
Anyway, you should always be guided by the circumstances. A meeting that hasn’t taken place or time taken for thought can be both a mild form of avoiding a decision (refusal) and a cause of real life circumstances. That is, the potential client has already decided that he can and wants to buy a membership, but his circumstances have really changed. Therefore, at the beginning of repeated calls to potential customers you always need to carry out the so-called “failure diagnosis”, that is, find out why the decision wasn’t made or why the client doubting. A person could simply forget, he could be distracted, he could leave the city on urgent matters and so on. In this case, you just need to re-arrange the appointment.
Cold calls processing
This way of outgoing calls processing is the most unloved among administrators and managers and literally in any profession where it’s required. However, if you develop a specific and systematic approach to making cold calls, the success of your actions will increase significantly. But for starters, let’s still figure out what causes dislike for cold calls. Most often, there are three reasons for this:
- High probability of failure
- Constant work with objections
- Unreadiness of the interlocutor to communicate
These are the factors that really have a place to be, and almost constantly, from call to call. And if the second and third points are more likely a matter of technique, then the first point lies in the field of emotional perception, because no one likes to hear a refuse. Often you even may be sent to hell, and believe me that is also not uncommon. So, how can you deal with fears and prejudices of being sent and rejected?
Making a cold call you never know what’s happening on the other end of the wire. Be aware in advance that the person you are calling at the moment can sleep, be present at an important meeting, drive a car, talk to his boss, or be on a date. Literally anything can happen. Remember the simple rule – tune in for the best, but be prepared for the worst. Call to make an appointment, but be prepared for the fact that your call may really be inappropriate right now. If possible, try to ask, “When can I call you back?”, and if the interlocutor quickly said “Thank you, I’m not interested,” don’t rush to delete him from the list, call him back in a few days, maybe it was said just in a hurry.
Working with cold calls certainly requires a systematic approach. You may get the refuse literally every time, and if every time you just hang up and dial the next number, nothing will change and the situation will be repeated constantly. Analyze everything. Record and analyze every failure, and even the whole conversation, if it succeeded. How went the dialogue? Did you manage to interest a person or not? Why did he refuse? All this needs to be analyzed in order to identify a certain tendency or manner of speech and arrangement of sentences by the method of working on errors, which next time will help turn the conversation in the direction you need. Try, try and try again and rather sooner than later you will find the right path.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I will give some statistics that will clarify the situation around cold calls. There is the so-called “10% rule”, which in the statistics of cold calls accurately enough reflects the real picture of their performance. It states that for any number of calls made, only 10% will complete successfully. That’s 1 from 10 calls. This is statistics, it reflects the global average indicator, which nevertheless can be adjusted in each particular case.
Now suppose you made 100 calls, of which 10 calls ended with an appointment, 5 people really came and 3 out of 5 presentations ended with closing a deal. That’s how it works. In the end, from 100 cold calls you received only 3 sales.
Now imagine that the value of 1 transaction is $ 100. You made 100 calls and ultimately closed 3 deals. It turns out that after making 100 calls, you earned $ 300. Divide the amount received by the number of calls made, and it will become clear to you that regardless of whether the call was successful or not, each of them brought you $ 3. This simple example is a good and clear motivation that demonstrates that even if you receive a refusal you still earn. Now working with cold calls will no longer be as much stress for you as before. The main thing to remember is that even just one closed deal already makes all calls made by you paid up.
Author – Felix Palmer
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