Upgrading from Hosted E-mail to a Unified Communication Suite Telesales scripts This document provides recommendations and sample scripts that could be used to target customers for upgrade from hosted e-mail to a Unified Communication Suite offering with outbound telesales efforts. As with any script-based telesales activity, the sales representatives must be fluid and dynamic in their responses to customers to be effective. The scripts provide guidelines, but the representative must react to each specific situation. Target Audience Telesales Sales Managers Sales Executives Usage Used as content for outbound telesales programmes and (potentially) inbound telesales response. Used to train sales executives and telesales on the top benefits and features to emphasise based on specific customers, industries and reported needs. Used as content for follow-up phone calls and e-mails to direct sales engagements. How to use 1. Review and incorporate Recommendations for ideas on creating effective marketing communication materials 2. Select relevant components that suit your needs from the Ready Scripts to utilise in your own telesales scripts and customer presentations 3. Finalise and customise with your details (company, service offering, positioning, special offers) as needed for your branding and sales objectives. Recommendations Language and tone: All sales calls and communications should be customer-focused, from the customer point-of-view, addressing customer concerns and conveying customer benefits. Consider the So what? factor as you engage in a customer dialogue. Courtesy and brevity are key be mindful of the person s time see if there might be a better time to call if needed. Thank them for their time. Telesales requires multiple impressions. Consider first calls successful if prospects agree to receive your follow-on information or you otherwise succeed in warming them up.
Key elements: Every sales situation is unique in that the time, interest level, knowledge and awareness of each prospect will be different. Regardless of the sales situation and status of the prospect, as many of the following elements should be incorporated as possible into the call, as thoroughly as possible: Background: Who the prospect is Business name and industry Contact name Contact e-mail and phone Information about the prospect s current connectivity and e-mail account usage. Positioning: Who you are Minimum your 10-second statement that s customer-focused More time one or two key aspects that are special about your company things like certification or unique capabilities. Value proposition: Why they should care about you Minimum your 30-second, one statement value proposition, sometimes known as the elevator pitch More time relevant advantages that express why a prospect should consider you instead of other available options. Qualifying questions: Why you should care about them Minimum what kind of opportunity they represent; how many mailboxes; what communications applications do they already use and who supplies them More time uncover interest, decision-making drivers, budget, timeframe, executive sponsorship, current needs, current issues etc. General information on how to engage with prospect: Build a Relationship. People buy from people, so get to know the person you are selling to People buy from people that they like and trust and building personal relationships helps build business and repeat purchases Most people feel good when someone takes interest in them and their interests. (if they are sincere, and the situation is appropriate, of course.) Use CRM to keep track of the little personal details e.g. hobbies, birthday, family activities as well as the key business information such as how the business is run, what their specific needs, wants, and objectives are. Ready Scripts The following ready-to-use scripts may be incorporated into your own telesales calls and customer presentations. We recommend that each sales representative use the essence of this scripting in a way that feels natural to their style and the requirements of each sales situation.
LEAD GENERATION CALL PROSPECT TYPE: Customer takes hosted e-mail from the company, but no other hosted communications services CALL PURPOSE: For telesales staff to qualify prospect for interest in upgrading to the full Unified Communication Suite. Step 1: Introduction Hello, this is [NAME] from [PROVIDER], who provides your hosted email service. We help companies to increase business productivity by using hosted communications solutions. As well as hosted e-mail, we offer three other hosted services that help customers to save money and reduce their carbon footprint by improving collaboration and productivity. Are you familiar with any of these? Recommendation: After this question you will probably need to clarify what the additional three hosted services are: instant messaging, online meetings and shared workspaces, accessible via Microsoft Outlook. Could you spare a small amount of time for me to explain how new communications technology might help you save time and money? If positive, go to Step 2. If negative, go to Step 6 Step 2: Discovery questions First I d like to understand a little bit more about your environment so that the benefits I show you are related to how you work today 1. How do your teams share project information, such as documents and spreadsheets? 2. How do your team members most commonly communicate with each other? 3. Apart from e-mail, are your communications applications delivered online, or do you manage them inhouse? 4. Are you confident that your IT team has the technical expertise and time to manage and maintain all your communications applications securely? 5. What budget is put aside for information sharing and communications applications? 6. Do you know how much you are spending on business travel and telephone calls? Recommendation: If possible, question 6 would be well supported with data giving examples of the scale of savings made by other clients
Step 3: Identifying pain points Recommendation: Callers should be able to quote existing customer examples around these areas in case asked by the customer. In addition a short answer needs to be available to describe what is meant by communication and collaboration applications. Are you looking for ways to reduce the amount you spend on communications and travel? Are you concerned about the security of your communications technologies and file or data storage? Do you have the ability to centrally manage all of your communication and collaboration applications? Do you feel that your communications applications are easily accessible to all your people, in the office and on the road? Are you able to share and manage documents from a single location, even when you re out of the office? I think our enterprise-class Unified Communication Suite might be of value to your organisation. This is a hosted suite of solutions which gives you a set of applications at a lower cost than if you were to take the four services separately. You get all the benefits of business-class communications technologies with simple, centralised management, zero up-front investment and enterprise-class security. Step 4: Outline value proposition Considering the customer s response to the questions in Steps 2 and 3, choose the most suitable of the below value propositions. Option 1: Customer manages SharePoint, Live Meeting and/or Instant Messenger in-house We have found that many of our hosted e-mail customers are struggling to find budget and resources to manage their other business communications and collaboration solutions in-house. Apart from the initial investment in infrastructure and software, it can be challenging to manage the entire set of applications consistently and securely. This can make it difficult to realise the productivity benefits that justified the investment in the first place. Because of this, [COMPANY] now offers Unified Communication Suite a suite of centrally managed unified communications applications based on industry-leading Microsoft technologies, which can be delivered online on a subscription basis. This simplifies management and enables our customers to maximise the productivity gains these technologies offer. Option 2: Customer has other hosted communications services (e.g. SharePoint) from a different supplier We have found that many of our hosted e-mail customers recognise the value of online delivery for other communications tools, but they ve fallen into the trap of taking different applications from different suppliers. This can increase overall costs and make it difficult to manage all of the applications consistently and securely, and to ensure compliance. Because of this, [COMPANY] now offers Unified Communication Suite a suite of centrally managed Unified Communications applications based on industry-leading Microsoft technologies, which is delivered online and costs much less than if you were to take each of the applications separately. Option 3: Customer doesn t use tools such as Live Meeting, Instant Messaging and SharePoint Many of our hosted e-mail customers are realising that business communication has evolved to include a variety of channels. They want a cost-effective way to empower their people to get more done by sharing documents, hosting real-time meetings on the Internet and connecting with each other instantly wherever they are. Because of this, [COMPANY] now offers Unified Communication Suite a suite of centrally managed Unified Communications applications based on industry-leading Microsoft technologies, which is delivered over the Internet on a low-cost subscription basis.
Step 5: Confirming interest Recap to the customer the areas you believe are of most interest to them before looking to close on a follow up call or meeting. May I get one of our specialists to call you back tomorrow to discuss the solution further, or arrange a meeting or online demonstration? What time works best for you? End call. Recommendation: Getting a specific time for a meeting is critical as the best action for this telesales call. The follow-up from this meeting will then be the attempt to close. Step 6: If not interested Of course, I understand and won t take up any more of your valuable time. Normally I like to send you a short overview about the suite of Unified Communication Suite we offer so that if a need does arise you know what we offer. Would you be interested in a call in a few days when you have more time? Recommendation: If sending information to customers as follow up keep it short and if sending via email ideally keep all of the content within the email. Studies show that people are more likely to read email content than open attachments. Recommendation: If sending emails as follow up to the calls create a series of templates to ensure consistency in the response. Include areas in each template so that specifics from each call can be included. Recommendation: Always ask if the customer would like to be added on to your regular company newsletter. Be ready to explain the benefits and types of information which would be included e.g. Customer Case Studies, Technology and Business Hints & Tips If still negative: Well I appreciate the time you have spent with me. Please visit us at [www.provider_url.com] to learn more about Unified Communication Suite any time you are considering implementing business-class unified communications applications. Thank you. End call.
FOLLOW UP SALES CALL PROSPECT TYPE: Customer uses hosted e-mail and has responded positively to lead generation questions about Unified Communication Suite. CALL PURPOSE: For sales managers and executives to close the sale. Step 1: Introduction Hello, this is [NAME] from [PROVIDER]. You spoke to my colleague recently about Unified Communication Suite and expressed an interest in finding out more. Is this time still convenient for you? Before we begin, are there any particular questions you wish to address since you spoke to my colleague? Recommendation: Wait to try and get the customer to engage with a specific interest area. The telesales team needs to be fully equipped with the FAQs and answers such that they can be responsive to the most common questions. Successfully answer as many questions as the customer has. Step 2: Addressing customer s specific pain and building value When you spoke to my colleague you indicated: That you want to empower your people by giving them business-class unified communications capabilities, but you re concerned about the cost of implementing and managing these. Unified Communication Suite can actually help you save money while increasing productivity. It is delivered online and hosted by us, just like your e-mail is, so there is no need for upfront investment in infrastructure and the suite will cost less than if you were to take the applications separately. You get industry-leading Microsoft e-mail, SharePoint, Office Live Meeting and Instant Messaging capabilities. Hosting real-time meetings on the Internet can significantly reduce travel cost and, your mobile workers can access documents and scheduling information wherever they are directly from Outlook, while Web-based voice communications mean you can cut your telephony bills too. In addition, centralised management and a single user identity across the suite means that you can minimise the resources needed to manage the applications. That you need to maximise productivity for your people both in the office and on the road, but you re worried that adding new applications might increase hassle. Our hosted Unified Communication Suite makes it easy for your people to get more done by enabling them to share data and scheduling information and to communicate with each other instantly wherever they are. We look after the delivery and maintenance of the services and your people can access all of them via Outlook, so they can get straight into using the latest Microsoft unified communications applications without having to log into different applications. Training needs are minimised because most users are already familiar with Outlook, and Office Live Meeting, which is part of the Unified Communications suite, also lets you deliver recorded or live training content over the Internet so you can make sure everyone is up to speed. That you do not feel confident that your current team has the technical expertise and time to ensure compliance and manage your communications consistently and securely. With Unified Communication Suite, you get all the features of in-house Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting and Instant Messaging applications with none of the operational hassle. The bundled service is cheaper than buying individual applications, and deployment is quick and simple. Centralised management means you can administrate the services easily while being sure that your critical data is backed up and auditable. We also give you 24/7 local support in case any issues arise.
That you would lose revenue if your data or communications services were ever unavailable. Like all our services, Unified Communication Suite has very high levels of uptime with a robust service level agreement to give you peace of mind. As well as being protected against Internet outage, you can rest assured that our secure, state-of-the-art data centre will keep all your data safe using professional security solutions. Multi-layered anti-spam and anti-virus defences also minimise any threats to your network, and because your data is centrally hosted and backed up regularly, you will be able to retrieve any data that you lose by accident or theft. That you re concerned about your ability to ensure regulatory compliance across a range of different communication and collaboration technologies With Unified Communication Suite we offer auditing and archiving solutions to help you meet your compliance needs without expensive internal solutions and infrastructure. Hosted solutions will also evolve with the changing regulatory and legislative requirements in your market. That you use a file system solution for employees to access shared files. Do you every have trouble with employees that are travelling or sitting behind customer firewalls having difficulties accessing shared information and applications? File system-based solutions often don t scale to support mobile workers, but Unified Communication Suite, based on Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Server, does. In addition to the advanced protection of anti-spam, anti-virus and archiving/backup solutions, you benefit from enhanced business features like shared calendars, document folders, tasks and mobile access to e-mail, Instant Messaging, real-time meetings online, and shared documents. Because it is a hosted solution, all of this is available wherever you are. That you want to maximise productivity while reducing your business s carbon footprint. Unified Communication Suite is delivered online, so you don t have to purchase or house infrastructure for it. You can get up-to-date, industry leading communication technologies and support mobile workers without having worry about housing extra servers or keeping them cool. Have I answered all of your questions about Unified Communication Suite? Recommendation: Further questions can be answered in conjunction with the Frequently Asked Questions document Step 3: Demonstration, trials and pricing If all questions are answered and the customer is interested, arrange for a demonstration of Unified Communication Suite and/or a 30-day free trial, and explain pricing options. Step 4: Confirm Customer Value Confirm with the customer the value of the benefits they would get from implementing a Unified Communication Suite in their business. Once value is established within the customers mind move on to discussing the price of the service. Step 5: Close the sale If all questions have been addressed and the customer is ready to buy, follow [COMPANY] procedures for closing the sale and placing the order.
Step 6: If not interested I understand. Would [INSERT DATE AND TIME] work for you to call in case your situation has changed by then? Recommendation: If sending information to customers as follow up keep it short and if sending via email ideally keep all of the content within the email. Studies show that people are more likely to read email content than open attachments. Recommendation: If sending emails as follow up to the calls create a series of templates to ensure consistency in the response. Include areas in each template so that specifics from each call can be included. Recommendation: Always ask if the customer would like to be added on to your regular company newsletter. Be ready to explain the benefits and types of information which would be included e.g. Customer Case Studies, Technology and Business Hints & Tips.