Business Appointment Setting Services Guide

Appointment Criteria

Before considering a third-party for your business appointment setting services, you should invest the time to formalize what are the business appointment criteria required. This process of definition serves to delineate what your company will require as a business appointment for your internal sales staff.

The better the definition, the clearer the expectations to the outsourcing service provider and your internal sales staff. This results in higher qualified business appointments and higher conversions to new customer sales, which is your ultimate goal.

Some basic business appointment criteria include:

Prospect List

The success of your business appointment setting services will be greatly influenced by the quality of the prospect list.  Better the quality of data, the more efficient the process of contact, and filtering of prospects.

Using a third-party outsourcing provider to “filter” a universe of potential customers to generate pre-qualified prospects is an expense that needs to be monitored and controlled. The smaller the “universe” of potential sales prospects, the more efficiently the outsourcing provider can dedicate its resources and lower the cost of identifying a potential new customer.

A good quality appointment prospect list is worth the investment to help lower the cost of the of the appointment setting outreach process of the service provider.

Appointment Ranking

To paraphrase George Orwell, “All business appointments are equal, but some business appointments are more equal than others.” That is, some business appointments are more important than others and need to be ranked and prioritized.

Why? Most companies have limited sales resources and need to prioritize how they are used to maximize their return on investment.

Each company’s criteria for ranking business appointment leads will be different. Your business may prioritize time to close, the value of the account, level of urgency, etc. For example, an urgent interest may require a “live transfer” from the outsourcing service provider to your internal sales staff.

Alternatively, a long time to close may be periodically contacted by the outsourcing service provider until its status has changed.  This frees up your internal sales staff for higher-ranking business appointments.  This is a dynamic process that is constantly in flux.

You should balance the complexity of your ranking system of business appointment leads versus the effort required to manage and administer.  If it has more than five ranking types, reconsider.

Service Provider Selection

When outsourcing to a business appointment setting services provide your company can leverage its resources and experience to increase the efficiency of operations. Generally, there is a cost reduction versus dedicating the appointment setting activities internally.

This is due to the business appointment services provider’s investments in equipment, technology, training, and staffing that most companies can not justify since that is not their primary business focus.

Depending upon the complexity of the sales process, your internal sales personnel can focus on converting qualified sales prospects to customers rather than searching and filtering for prospects. This streamlining of your company’s internal sales process improves sales conversions and lowers the cost of customer acquisition. Additionally, your internal sales team can dedicate more resources to your existing customers to increase average revenue and referrals.

Your service provider should have the experience and quality that aligns with your company’s expectations.  A benefit of working with a business appointment services provider is the real-world experience gained by dealing with a history of multiple clients.

Your internal sales staff will benefit from this knowledge to improve their productivity and efficiency by focusing on pre-qualified sales prospects to new customer conversion.

Coordination Between Parties

Coordination and transparency of communication are key elements to the success of a relationship with a business appointment setting services provider.

Once your company has decided to use a third-party outsourcing provider to generate sales prospects’ appointments, you have created a virtual extension of your internal sales staff. Your management philosophy should encompass both internal and external sales groups to work as an integrated team with complementary goals.

A service level agreement (SLA) defines the responsibilities and expectations of your company and the outsourcing service provider. It is often a working document, subject to change as the business experience evolves.

Each party in the business relationship has its responsibilities and each receives corresponding benefits. To be a long-term relationship, both parties need to be satisfied.

Technology allows for communication between parties to be virtually instantaneous and transparent to distance. Whether a telephone call, chat, or virtual conference, the communication method and frequency should focus on results versus expectations and what needs to be changed to align them better.

Service Provider Compensation

Your company’s decision to use a third-party business appointment setting services provider reflects various business goals. Two basic ones are increased revenue and profitability by reducing the cost of sales prospects appointments and new customer acquisitions.

The service provider compensation plan you negotiate needs to reflect these two fundamental business goals.

First, the compensation plan needs to be balanced and profitable for both parties. Otherwise, the relationship will be short-lived with losses for both. Second, the level of risk assumed (opportunity and financial) should be shared and minimized. Third, the metrics that govern the compensation plan need to be transparent to ensure trust.

Listed below are a variety of options for a business appointment setting services compensation plan: