Cold Calling Software

Cold calling is an outreach method used in telemarketing where the sales agents of an organisation call potential customers they have not interacted with before to solicit business. The primary objective of cold calling is to generate leads by getting prospects interested in your products or services.

Unlike the warm calling method in which prospects have previously expressed interest in your product or service, cold calling is for those with whom you don’t have any prior interaction. Typically, agents contact prospects using telephone calls and make a sales pitch, play pre-recorded messages, or leave voicemail messages.

Telemarketers usually use sales call software as part of their contact centre to contact more prospects in less time and boost lead generation. Such solutions offer tools to automate the calling process, deliver pre-recorded messages, track calls, record call details, and gain actionable insights from the call data, all in one place.

A cold calling system is a bundle of software solutions and tools that help sales agents make effective outbound call campaigns. It expedites the process of calling numerous customers and allows organisations to assess the success of their campaigns.

In addition to calling, a cold-calling system typically has call management and tracking capabilities. It often comes as part of business telephony or outbound contact centre software and offers extensive integrations with other sales tools and CRMs.

The top features of sales call software include:

• VoIP-based calling to make local and international calls;
• Local landline or mobile numbers to generate trust in local customers;
• Call tracking features to measure various metrics and KPIs;
• Easy integrations with business management tools;
• Intuitive dashboards;
• Analytics and reports for actionable insights;
• Click-to-call;
• Outbound automatic dialler;
• Automatic call data entry;
• Cloud-based hosting;
• Accessibility from anywhere;
• Call recording for training and feedback purposes.

Cold calling is when you call prospects with whom you have no prior interaction – i.e., you reach out to people who have not shown interest in your product or service or probably never heard of your brand.

Warm calling is when you call a prospect who expects your call. Either you have had prior communications with them, or they have shown interest in your product/service – for instance, they have filled in your contact form, sent you an email query, or interacted with your social media posts. The conversation is warmer because the prospect is familiar with your brand.

Agents use the cold-calling method in the early stages of marketing efforts to establish initial contact with prospects and book another call or meeting. Warm calling, in contrast, happens at the later stages of the marketing process to follow up with prospects or convert the initial interest into a closed deal.

Cold calling is when you contact prospects who are not expecting your call – for example, someone whose contact details you have sourced from public records or received through referrals. In this method, agents usually use scripts based on the context – whether the call is generic, for voicemail inbox, for gatekeepers, to set up a demo/meeting, to talk to a decision-maker, etc.

Here is a sample script for generic cold calling.

Hi, I am ABC calling from XYZ company. I have found that you are a leading company in the --- sector (mention the sector).

I am calling to talk to you about our product/service (name) and how it can help you overcome your current challenge (mention the challenge). Is this a good time to talk?

If the prospect agrees, you can tell them your product/service, its features, benefits, etc., and end the call by scheduling a follow-up call/ meeting.

Yes. Cold calling is one of the most challenging sales activities, so only a skilled agent can make successful cold calls. The success and failure of your cold-calling campaigns depend on the skillsets of your agents.

To make successful cold calls and drive results from them, agents should have the following skills:

• Have good communication skills to deliver lots of information in a short call.
• Be persistent and should not be disheartened when prospects hang up or don’t answer.
• Maintain a positive attitude and tone.
• Possess good research skills to gather relevant information regarding the person they are about to call.
• Remain calm amidst pressures.
• Know how to navigate gatekeepers, especially when calling directors and higher-ups.
• Have good note-taking skills to enrich the database.
• Have the ability to build rapport with prospects quickly.
• Know how to handle objections without escalations.
• Deliver sales scripts naturally.

Though you can manually track sales calls using spreadsheets, a more convenient option is call-tracking software. Since it automates call tracking and logging, you can save the time and effort you spend manually entering the details into your system.

Typically, cold calling software or outbound contact centre systems have sales call trackers as a built-in feature. It automatically tracks your calls and displays call activity metrics on an intuitive dashboard, thus offering end-to-end visibility of your sales call process.

• A sales call tracking tool will let you and your agents:
• Define the metrics and KPIs you want to track and measure.
• Automatically log call information, such as time, date, call duration, customer details, etc.
• Enter call notes and summaries.
• Record calls for training and quality control.
• Share data for effective collaboration among agents and managers.
• Access call reports and analytics.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to a software system that serves as a centralised location for storing your cold calling data. Usually, your cold calling software or sales call software integrates with your CRM software, thus creating a unified platform.

CRMs give you access to a large body of data, including past conversations, customer details, buying history, and others. It throws insights into where your cold-calling campaigns are failing and enables you to take appropriate remedial measures.

Further, integrated CRMs let you:

• Make calls directly from your CRM using the details of prospects entered in the system.
• Line up and prioritise calls using the CRM data.
• Log your sales calls automatically.
• Track your sales calls and measure all crucial KPIs and metrics.
• Record conversations and measure the effectiveness of cold calls.
• Create a repository of customer information and sales notes.
• Design your agent training modules using the CRM data.

Your sales call software usually has built-in features that let you automate cold calls. These include:

• Automatic Diallers or Power Diallers: Auto dialler tools help you reach out to prospects without manually dialling their numbers. It automatically dials numbers from a predefined contact list and connects active calls to your agents based on some established criteria.
• Click-to-call: It is another tool to help you dial numbers without manually entering them. Once integrated with your CRM, it makes the prospect numbers in your CRM clickable. Your agents can call these numbers at the click of a button.
• Voicemail Drop: This feature lets you drop sales voicemails into the answering machines of your prospects. You can create well-scripted voicemail messages, and if a customer does not answer the call, you can drop the message in their voicemail, thus increasing the response rates.

Cold calling is a marketing practice where sales representatives contact prospective customers who have not previously interacted with them to solicit business. You can use this method to generate leads from people who have not expressed a prior interest in your product/service.

It is an effective sales method for organisations selling software and software solutions. Cold calling in software sales is a B2B interaction since your customers are other businesses, not individual customers.

While making a B2B software sales call, you must use the right cold-calling tools to reach more prospects in less time. It also helps to use a well-written script that talks about the features and functionalities of the software, the pain points it aims to solve, and the outcomes of using it.

Agents engaged in software sales must also have the skill to navigate gatekeepers before they can talk to someone at the decision-making level.

• Get your mindset right
  Business owners and entrepreneurs, however much they believe in their product or service, can sometimes have emotional resistance to cold-calling. Ask yourself honestly if this applies to you. To get over your internalised resistance, remind yourself why you’re doing this. Your prospect needs what you have to offer, they deserve it, it will make their lives/businesses/outcomes better.
  Go on a course, read a book, watch a training video: The best sales agents definitely seem to have a natural flair for it. Good training courses will include active role-play, letting you practise in live conversations, and work out effective responses to real objections that you might encounter.
• Call the right list
  If you are buying or renting lists, pay attention to the broker’s understanding of their responsibilities under GDPR and local data protection laws — you can learn a lot about this from how they handle your own data, incidentally. Remember that if you are making the contact, it’s your responsibility to do so compliantly. If you are operating from your own CRM, make sure you cleanse it regularly, against gone-away lists and bereavement registers, before making unsolicited contact, particularly if it is after a gap of some time. This is far more important with phone calls than with email, which will probably just go unanswered, rather than reaching the wrong person.
• Get into a rhythm
  Using a tool like Ringover’s Power Dialler, set up your list to call right in your phone software. Import a CSV list from your broker or CRM, so that each call is automatically dialled for you, a fixed period after the previous one, whether that is successful or unsuccessful — preset according to your preference to ensure time for notes etc, but avoid the interruption of having to find and manually dial the next call.You can analyse what works in your organisation, with your product, and develop an appropriate blueprint for your call, which needs to cover:
  • An introduction — to quickly create context and build rapport.
  • Qualification questions — are they in the market, where are they at right now, etc.
  • Your pitch — once you know you’re pitching the right person!
  • How to manage objections and questions — with these prepared in advance, they won’t throw you off-balance.
  • A call to action, or close. The ultimate endgame of the sales call is to ask for the sale, and that is your first priority. If you cannot do that on this call, your next best call to action should include arranging for a follow up.
  Don’t believe anyone who tells you that cold-calling doesn’t work any more. The very fact that some people believe this and no longer do it opens the field for you and your business, to gain the attention of new prospects.