Outgoing calls processing occupies one of the key positions in the official duties of a fitness club administrator. Along with incoming calls processing, when a potential client calls the club himself, the administrator’s duties also include making so-called “cold calls”. For what purpose such calls are made and whether they have a clear sequence of actions, we are now going to figure it out.
Outgoing calls processing
In fact, work with outgoing calls is divided into three areas – calls to active club clients, calls to potential club clients, and cold calls. All three of these types of communication are often the responsibility of a fitness club administrator.
In some fitness clubs, calling responsibilities may be divided between several administrators, when the telephone base is divided equally between them, or it may be the responsibility of sales managers if there is such a department in the club. In some cases, the distribution of responsibilities can be structured in such a way that the reception administrator works only with incoming calls, and making outgoing calls lies in the area of competence of sales managers.
TIP. This article is a logical addition to the previous article “Incoming calls processing“. For more complete coverage of the topic, I recommend that you also familiarize yourself with it.
Calls to active clients
An active client can be considered a person who, even if he wasn’t in the club, has already paid for its services at least once. For example, he could pay for a membership to a fitness club through a form on the Internet. The purchase of a club card implies filling out personal data, which means that at least he has already entered his name, surname, and phone number into the club’s database. Whether he came to the club after paying for the services or didn’t come, it doesn’t matter. Your goal is to maintain a relationship with him. If he hasn’t yet visited the club, you will need to ask why and find out when he is planning to come. If he has, ask if he liked everything and what questions or suggestions he has. This is needed to show the client that he is being cared for.
So how often should you make these calls? The outgoing calls processing algorithm is as follows:
– You need to call the client 1 week after he purchased the membership;
– You need to call the client 1 month after he purchased the membership;
– You need to call the client 3 months after he purchased the membership;
– You need to call the client if he doesn’t visit the club for a long time;
– You need to call the client one month before the expiration of his membership;
– You need to call the client at least for his birthday and for the New Year;
– You need to call the client for an invitation to various club events.
The task of outgoing calls processing is pretty simple. All of these calls are committed to achieving one goal – to maintain a relationship with the client. The first three calls – a week, a month, and three months after he bought a membership – are usually made with the same question: “Do you like everything?” Here it’s not even so important to get an answer but to show that you care so that a person feels that his opinion is important, that he is remembered, you know about him and care about him. Even if he refuses to talk 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 rest of the calls can be traced in their wording.
If during the conversation it turns out that the person visits the club regularly, well, great, be sure to find out if he likes everything, if he has any questions or wishes, and end the conversation. If it turns out that he doesn’t attend the club, find out why, what caused this and, if possible, offer solutions. Low motivation? Offer to sign him up for a consultation or instruction. No time? Offer to change the membership for morning, afternoon, or evening hours, and perhaps even for a “weekend subscription”. It takes too much time to get to the club? Find out how he gets to you and suggest either an alternative transport or an alternative route.
TIP. The terms for outgoing calls processing, given above, are derived from many years of experience. As practice shows, a week, a month, and three months are exactly the periods in which the likelihood that the client will “fall off” is maximally high. The job of the administrator or sales manager is to keep the person from getting cold. His interest in visiting a fitness club needs to be warmed up all the time.
Calls to potential clients
A potential client can be considered a person with who you either didn’t agree on a meeting or the meeting with who didn’t end with the closing of the deal. I talked about how to competently and consistently make an appointment in the previous article “Incoming calls processing”, and how a meeting with a client in a club should be held I will tell in the following articles. In the meantime, let’s dwell on the fact that both the first and the second potential clients are doubters, respectively, they need to be “taken into work” while they are still hot.
When processing outgoing calls, you first need to focus on what you say and how you say it. Focus on the emotional component of the club’s presentation, use phrases like “Friendly and pleasant atmosphere”, “Professional coaching staff”, “Comfortable changing rooms and showers” , and so on. People make emotional decisions much easier. The more you give a person time 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 early as possible.
Anyway, you should always be guided by the circumstances. An unsuccessful meeting or time taken for reflection can be both a mild form of avoiding decision-making (refusal) and the 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 clients, it’s always necessary to carry out the so-called “failure diagnostics”, that is, to find out why the decision wasn’t made or why the client is doubting. A person could simply forget, he could be distracted, he could leave on urgent matters, and so on. In this case, you just need to re-schedule the appointment.
Cold calls
Cold calls are the most disliked among administrators and managers, and literally in any profession where it is required. However, if you develop a specific and systematic approach to making cold calls, the success of this event increases significantly. But first, let’s figure out what is the reason for the dislike of cold calls. Most often, there are three such reasons:
– High probability of failure;
– Continuous work with objections;
– The lack of readiness of the interlocutor to communicate.
These are the factors that really take place, and almost constantly, from call to call. And if the second and third points are more a matter of technique, then the first point lies in the field of emotional perception because no one likes being scolded or sent to hell, and this, believe me, is also a common thing. So how can you deal with the fears and prejudices of being sent and rejected?
When you make cold calls, you never know what’s going on on the other end of the line. Be aware in advance of the fact that the person you are calling at the moment may be sleeping, attending an important meeting, driving, talking to the boss, or being on a date. Literally, anything can happen. Here the saying comes in handy – tune in for the best, but be prepared for the worst. Call in the calculation 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?”
Dealing with cold calls certainly requires a systematic approach. You can be refused literally every time, and if every time you just hang up and dial the next number, nothing will change at all and the picture will be repeated all the time. Analyze. Write down and analyze every refusal and even the whole conversation, if it happened. How did the dialogue go? Did you manage to interest the 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 placement of sentences using 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 sooner rather than later you will find the right way.
Conclusion
To conclude, I will provide 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 reflects the real picture of their effectiveness. It states that for any number of calls made, only 10% are successfully completed. That is, for every 10 calls, the exchange of contacts ends with only 1. This is statistics, it reflects the global average indicator, which, nevertheless, can be adjusted in each particular case.
Now suppose you made 100 calls, got 10 contacts, 5 of them signed up for a meeting, and 3 of them made a deal with you. That is, in the end, from 100 cold calls, you made only 3 sales.
Now let’s imagine that the cost of 1 deal 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 you will understand that regardless of whether this 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 get rejected, you still earn money. Now working with cold calls will no longer be as stressful for you as it used to be. The main thing to remember is that even just one closed deal already makes all your calls paid.
Felix Palmer – author of the blog crusfit.com
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