Samir Sampat

For today’s busy customers, speed is everything. When you’ve got a lead on the line, the last thing they want is to wait around endlessly to hear from you. And of course, if your team can improve the speed of your follow-up, you can also spend more time and effort on other tasks that deserve your attention.

Automation is everywhere these days, especially in the world of sales. Companies are looking at different ways of doing things to streamline their efforts and sales automation tools are quickly filing in to take their place in the sales funnel and elsewhere throughout the business. Of course, you can’t automate everything. There’s still a definite need for people in your business.

Call answer rates are a big metric in customer service and call centers. Businesses need to answer calls and make sure people are getting what they need. However, even with the best strategies, there are some instances where calls still slip through the cracks. Technology is great, but it also comes with its potential barriers, including the fact that your low call answer rates might be your carrier’s fault.

STIR/SHAKEN is a standard that was implemented in September 2022. This new standard has impacted outbound call answer rates. Many companies are facing challenges with high call volumes and this new requirement for communications. But what is this new standard and how does it affect your business? Here’s what you need to know.

Small businesses are unique in many ways. The lack of limited resources and staff, however, is a uniqueness that you don’t want to face alone. The good news is that whether you’re the only employee or you’ve got a small team, your small business can still manage to succeed with sales lead generation the same way big companies do.

Outbound calling is much more effective (and less stressful) when you have a strategy in place that includes scripts your team can use to connect with prospects. And despite the increasing number of people who are thriving on self-service technology to find the information they need, as many as 71% of consumers report wanting to hear from companies early in the process.

Mastering the art of the sales call is a lifetime journey for many. The evolving nature of customer needs and expectations, along with a constantly changing business landscape, forces us to be continually learning and exploring opportunities for improvement. Knowing how to elicit the response(s) that you want from the person on the other end is an essential skill for all sales reps at every point in their career.

Now that companies are competing in a much bigger landscape, it’s essential to focus on setting your business apart by delivering top-quality customer service. You don’t have to spend thousands on customer service training or try to reinvent the wheel here—something as simple as improving your response times can do wonders for your customer satisfaction ratings. And when customers are satisfied, they’re more likely to become lifetime customers and refer you to others.

Personalizing cold outreach might sound like a contradiction to some. Cold outreach, by its nature, is designed to reach new prospects that you’ve never connected with before. So how can you possibly personalize your communications to attract the right audiences?

There’s been a lot of taking sides and fiery debate about AI and its role in marketing (and the world as a whole) in light of the popularity of tools like ChatGPT. What people aren’t saying is that there’s a balance to be found, as with anything. While there are always some efforts that will require the dedicated attention of a human, there are also plenty that could benefit from automation or AI.