Need some insight..

Hello BHW, I need a little advice..
I currently work at an outbound telemarketing company for newspaper subscriptions.
We use an outbound dialer to cold call people in SC,NC,VA, and PA.
Anyways, I have been working with this company for about 4 months and I do fairly well.
These are the weekly requirements we must obtain by the end of the week:
-100% SPH (sales per hour)
-75% DS (Daily Sunday - which is they signed up for all 7-days of the week)
-35% PPD (The customer has provided a credit card, debit card, or check by phone)

Now, at first I was able to 'rock'em out' as they say.
I would get about 160-190% SPH and my supervisor adored me.
Well recently, My PPD has been well below 35%,
reason being, I seem to never just any customer actually WANTING the subscription,
I usually have to get them to at least TRY it, and 95% of the time, they will use the old excuse
"I don't have a credit card" or "I don't give out my credit card over the phone"
Now the technique I use for such a rebuttal is "I completely understand, but let me assure you, you are under the 'Fair Credit Act' which means you have the right to dispute any charges you are NOT familiar with, You also get 3 forms of verification; Your paper will start within 3 - 5 days, you also get a receipt in the mail, and the charge that will show up on the card will be [Newspaper name here]."

I have requested from my supervisor if I could listen to recording of other agents that have successfully gotten the credit card number but she seems to always put this request off.
Now, she is leaving a paper trail, ie write-ups , to (I think) terminate me in the near future.

I honestly thought the management was pretty good, and the co-workers are an awesome team to work with, they're very lively and all around good folks. I just don't see why instead of just complaining to me about my sales, my supervisor doesn't use any training or even constructive criticism rather than just say "I don't know if you're going to be here much longer if you don't pick up your prepaid sales!"

We focus more on quantity rather quality of our calls.

Our companies turn-over rate is through the rough!

Any tips on what I should do? I am open to any suggestions and feedback. Thanks!

Hi RabiLulz,
I'm new here myself, so I'm sure someone else will weigh in on "tips" to help you out on how to improve your sales. One thing that crossed my mind when reading your post though was the fact that there's just been a natural decline in newspaper subscriptions in general. At least for the hard copy, I can't speak for digital subscriptions. I was just telling my husband the other day that I was going to cancel one of our subscriptions because the papers literally stack up at our front door everyday. We hardly ever read them. It's just too easy to get news on the net and now a news cycle is 24 hours, so you can always get it on one of the 500 cable channels.

qualcomm

About 100 of my calls a day are exactly what you say;
-"I can just read the paper online"
What I say: 'Well, you don't get the whole article online, plus you also don't
get to the store coupons and advertised sales in the Sunday paper!'
-"We don't hardly read them, It just stacks up on our porch"
What I say: 'What we can do is just sign you up for our weekend or Sunday only paper that way you could at least enjoy all the great savings of the store coupons we provide, or if you are a comic reader you can experience nostalgia reading your favorite calvin and hobbes comic strips!'

But you're right, we're now in a new day of age where paper copies are almost obsolete.
We sadly do not provide any digital 'online' subscriptions..

It also does not help that we call these same people every single day until they request to be removed from the DO NOT CALL list..

I'm new here, so forgive me for just jumping in...but I have to start somewhere!

My background is cold calling/training others for over 8 years. We also employ others and have trained them on Sales calls and normal Appointment calls.

My first suggestion is to LEARN from this. Call centers tend to have a high turnover rate for the reasons you've cited. They enjoy you while you're hot, don't give you any "real" training, don't allow you to give insight on what the issues are and could care less if you are looking for solutions...they want you to shut up and dial, and when they have enough of those people in one room, they reach their goals for that client.

It's not about developing things for the client, it's solely about reaching the original, superficial goal. Tell me, if you are telling these "potential" customers on the phone that they can cancel BEFORE they've even signed up, do you think that's a genuine, interested party? NO! The difference is that the call center is just looking to hit the main goal of ____ sales - that's what the client paid for, and the call center doesn't really focus on the fact that most of those sales will fall through.

I didn't come to bash call centers, they are all different, and all accounts are different, however what you described is standard fare.

Unfortunately, because of the reasons above, you're not going to recover from this unless you just shut up and dial. It's a numbers game, if you don't get an interested party (one that you don't have to convince for 2 minutes), then hang up and dial the next one. I'd love to speak with you about working with us if and when you get terminated, as it seems you DO have the insight to be a caller and actually could become amazing if you were working with the right people. We are a small company, but we train you and allow you to learn and grow.

OfflineMaster,

Yes, I do fully understand it's all about making the clients happy.
Like you said, It's just about making those sales to impress the clients.
I do use a rebuttal with the whole relevancy of 'trying it out'.
This is what I usually use:
"Mr./Mrs. [NAME] , I fully understand where you're coming from. We're asking you to just try our paper, and if you feel totally unsatisfied you can receive a complete refund right back."
-Then I get the "well, I don't want to pay today"
That's where all my billed orders come in;
"I understand sir/ma'am, what I can go ahead and do for you is send you a statement in the mail that way you can start getting the newspaper delivered before you even pay, if you're experiencing any issues or just don't feel like it's right for you then you can just call the customer service number on the statement and cancel the subscription without even purchasing, if you do feel like you would like to continue the service, you just need to send a check or money order within 14 days of receiving the statement."
I use that ALOT.. But like said, They are getting on me about my prepaid..
Also, PM me some details on what your company services are all about, I'm very interested.. Thanks!

Can't PM, but there are ways get in touch if you look at my profile. I don't want to say too much, not sure of rules here.

Prepaid isn't really your fault, but unfortunately, like I said, your company isn't really paying attention to what the problem is, they want to see results...and they want you to do it, or they will find someone new to do it.

OfflineMaster said:

Can't PM, but there are ways get in touch if you look at my profile.

Click to expand...

I found your company, and I think this may be an option for me soon! Thanks.

Sounds good, we're here to help!