Business development has a lot of moving parts. Appointment setting happens to be one of the most important components but also the most challenging with its demand of time and dedicated expertise. If you want that well-oiled machine you can leave to get the job done while you run the factory, you can outsource B2B appointment setting services to a service provider that matches your needs.
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Outsourcing to the right service provider will help you effectively move your company towards your goals while maximizing the strength of your staff.
As with anything that offers such value and growth potential for your business, it will involve a lot of work. However, you can always “hack the system” and streamline the process, which is what we will teach you below.
Outsourcing to B2B appointment setting services presents tons of opportunities for you to save. The more important question is how much more can you actually save and still get the results you want.
To answer that question, you need to figure out the right provider you should outsource to in the first place.
You can hire an agency if you need the manpower and resources immediately. when your in-house team is being burdened by the amount of work and you need to refocus asap. The right agency will also be able to help you discover more prospects or improve your marketing strategies.
You also have the option to assemble a team of independent contractors who will research, pre-qualify, and cold call prospects.
When talking about saving resources and time, outsourcing B2B appointment setting services now becomes all about where you should outsource. Location is one of the most important factors you will consider if you want to enjoy excellent returns at a much lower cost.
Obviously, going local translates to higher prices, but they will provide you with native speakers who will not throw a prospect off with the accent, lowering the risk of tarnishing your brand image. That, and you can also be in close proximity to your appointment setters if this is something that matters to you.
An hourly rate of a local appointment setter is generally between $25 and $99. There are several services that charge up to $149-$199 per hour. You are looking at a $1,000-$10,000 for a single project depending on the complexity.
These prices are two to three times higher than the rates in lower-costing outsourcing hotspots like the Philippines. With the prevalence of call centers in the country, you’ll find that a lot of Filipinos with a phenomenal command of the English language and a neutral accent.
Coupled with the high trainability and willingness to learn to improve their skill sets and the services they offer, a B2B appointment setting service partner based in the Philippines can be an asset to your team.
In addition, Filipino appointment setters also often receive training to improve their accent. They also have experience working with global companies so chances are they are already good at it.
Filipinos also have this thing called “code-switching,” which is when they change or switch speech to build better rapport with a certain group of people. Let me paint you a picture.
An appointment setter speaks in a near-native American accent with a client. The same person speaks English with a Filipino accent when talking to co-workers or as a way to show you he is educated and friendly. This has become the norm in call centers and business product outsourcing (BPO) companies.
Strategic Sales and Marketing
Established in 1989, Strategic Sales and Marketing offers a contact list for free. The company specializes in selling complex products and provides free “test drive” services for you to make sure the partnership makes sense before you spend money. It also offers marketing consulting services to improve the quality of your sales pipeline.
SalesRoads
Agents on SalesRoads are experienced and complete a rigorous screening process to ensure you only get top performers on your team.
Quality Contact Solutions
Focused on sales, lead generation, and appointment setting services, Quality Contact Solutions takes pride in their versatility and proven methods in setting appointments with executives who have the purchasing authority to ensure no time or money is wasted, and conversion is higher.
OnBrand24
OnBrand24 takes pride in its optimized call center methodology that involves frequent, regular reports to closely keep track of the progress, and constantly improve their approach as needed. The company also creates webinars to show off your products to prospects.
Magellan Solutions
This call center puts an emphasis on perfecting grammar and accent during phone calls while also providing extensive training for improved understanding and embodiment of the western culture and international etiquette.
Global Sky
The company emphasizes the importance of validating data to ensure that your contacts are up to date and authorized for an appointment and purchase. Its staff is also packed with degree holders with excellent spoken and written English.
They also have dedicated VOIP channels set up internationally to ensure voice quality during calls. Another great thing is that Global Sky is practically a Delaware corporation so business is done according to U.S. law.
Salesify
Salesify aggregates big data from multiple sources and millions of data points and takes advantage of B2B customer and business intelligence to discover and secure prospects and leads that best fit the products and services you have to offer so that every appointment set makes a big impact.
Cience Technologies
The company is deemed one of the best B2B appointment setting service providers you can find. It uses a “turnkey approach” that can be used by businesses immediately. This company is perfect for those who don’t have a list of prospects yet.
Cience Technologies will provide you a scalable team of two made up of a researcher and sales development representative who will search for prospects and connect with them through a multichannel approach. They will be the ones to qualify the leads as well before they set an appointment with them.
Keep in mind that when choosing an agency as your B2B appointment setting services provider, you will not have a direct hand at screening the agents who will work for your company. Only the agency does.
You will have to settle for their qualifications, so make sure they have a high standard. We are saying this because there are some that can be very loose when it comes to qualifying agents.
Second, agencies also tend to assign different people to your account. This is bad because a) they don’t have a good sense of intimacy and deep understanding of your brand enough, b) Sometimes agents come and go so the quality of service and approach can fluctuate, and c) an agency usually brings in new hires every single time and some will be assigned to yours.
Attrition can also be a problem with agencies. The work culture in the company you choose should encourage performance as much as comfort and wellbeing in order to keep your appointment setters engaged and in tip-top condition.
If you want to learn more about the wonders of outsourcing to the Philippines for B2B appointment setting services and other needs, we put together a guide that will help you build your team without leaving a dent in your budget. In this article we discuss:
You will also find it more difficult to keep track of progress and take immediate steps when needed. You might also end up with different output quality every time. So find a B2B appointment setting services provider that allows you to work closely with your cold callers, if not choose them yourself, which is a luxury you get when hiring virtual assistants.
This is no doubt the more cost-effective option that affords you the flexibility and control that you so often lose when working with the agency. You get to gauge their skills before you bring them onboard. You also get the chance to find out if they are culturally fit for your company. Over the years, it has been proven that the atmosphere of a company is just as important in keeping productivity levels than just incentives.
Check out our article on organizational culture where we discuss:
As we mentioned above, appointment setting agencies usually assign different people to set appointments for your company. Most of the time, they only brief them with the basics and barely scratch the surface.
This is where it pays to have an individual who can assimilate himself to your company and embody your principles and values. There are agencies that offer a one-on-one setup but it can still feel constrained.
A good way to increase your savings while ensuring commitment to your business is hiring a full-time independent contractor, who will be dedicated solely to your company, know intimate details about your business, and be able to communicate and directly report their progress to you or a project manager regularly.
You can find independent appointment setters on marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr. Both are global platforms that give you access to a huge talent pool.
Upwork has higher rates and transaction fees but unlocks a wide range of talent from around the world with different experience levels and rates. Hourly rates are definitely on the higher side on Upwork compared to other marketplaces. The good thing here is that you can find native English speakers. marketplace tailored to freelancing, the appointment setters here might be working for other clients as well.
Fiverr, on the other hand, provides services with a starting rate of $5, but it has the highest client fee among freelance marketplaces. Moreover, an appointment setter willing to perform ongoing work can be hard to come by here. Like Upwork, it is geared towards freelancing projects so the freelancers might be working for another client.
If you want lower cost and full dedication to your business, consider OnlineJobs.ph, a Filipino-exclusive marketplace home to the largest number of highly skilled appointment setters in the country that boast a proven track record for lucrative conversions and extensive experience with international companies.
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You can hire experienced appointment setters for as little as $3-$10 per hour. Most of the workers here are looking for full-time jobs or long-term projects too so you can easily get a dedicated appointment setter who can work for you as long as it takes for much less.
Unlike the above platforms, OnlineJobs.ph doesn’t charge you for every transaction. It simply connects you to a professional who can help you scale your business. You can post job ads and review corresponding applications using the free version. This is meant to help you gauge the talent you are looking at and whether it is right for you.
A $69 per month subscription will allow you to review resumes and hire contractors. You can reach out to a contractor you like. You can choose to pay through the payment method used on the website or a platform of your choice. Otherwise, you are free to transact with your appointment setter outside of the website.
If you fear that some agents with heavy accents may slip through the cracks, you can require an audio recording in the application. You can also get a feel for their English skills by how they present or “sell” themselves on their profiles and their score on an English test by OnlineJobs.ph displayed on their resumes. Here’s a quick side-by-side of the two:
| Type | Upwork | OnlineJobs.ph |
| Subscription | None | $69 per month |
| Salary markup | 5-20% | No |
| Transaction fee | 2.75% | None |
| Recruitment service | None | $500 |
| Payment method | Escrow with Dispute Resolution | Your choice |
| Contractor hourly rate | $20-35 | $3-10 |
| Rating system | Cumulative one-to-five-star score based on client feedback and “job success” rate based on completed gigs with positive output | Freelancer tests and self-rating from one to five stars |
| Work monitoring | Work Diary | TimeProof |
| Identity proof | None | ID Proof |
| Search system | Filter by specialization, hourly rate, job success rate, date last active | Filter by star rating of multiple skills, type of employment (part-time, full-time, freelance), expected salary, ID proof score, date last active |
Appointment setting is an investment that promises quick results and a long-term impact on your business. You need to have major facets of your sales and marketing strategies in place before refocusing your efforts to hiring people to set appointments for you. The rest, the things we enumerate below, will be handled by your B2B appointment setting services provider:
B2B appointment setting services could be anything from cold calling, making reminder calls a day prior to appointment, re-scheduling if needed to sending calendar requests and email confirmations and re-engaging when a prospect can’t be reached.
Appointment setters will collect feedback and metrics based on your target market. They can also help you maximize the results of your digital marketing strategy through marketing automation and provide you with a contact list that matches your demographic if you don’t have one.
Before telemarketers start reaching out to your prospects, they need to familiarize themselves with your products and services and should be able to fully embody your brand values to be authoritative and genuine on calls. To achieve this, B2B appointment setting services will intensively study who you are.
A good service partner will sit down with you however long it takes to make sure they cover everything about your brand in order to be prepared for any call scenario and talking points. Between this and creating a tailored program for your qualifications, it could take up to two weeks.
Your chosen service provider will prepare scripts based on what they learn. You can request to make any tweaks as you see fit in order to make sure it stays true to your business. You can also initiate role-playing activities with the telemarketers who will handle your account to get a feel for their approach and how the campaign will translate on the phone.
When the appointment setting program is implemented, your B2B appointment setting service provider will give you the chance to listen in on the calls or read transcriptions to find out if the current approach is working and whether or not changes have to be made.
The majority of appointment setting agencies and contractors can assist you in filling up your sales funnel quickly and bring your business out there by communicating the basics of your products and services to your prospects.
If you are in a competitive market, they will know how to set your offerings apart from the rest. On the other hand, there are service providers that specialize in niche-specific and complex products as well as businesses that target large purchases and high-ticket sales.
Per hour or per appointmentAppointment setting usually comes in a per-hour or per-appointment arrangement. There are services with an agreed-upon flat fee for a specific number of calls.
It is recommended that you produce a prospect list of your own before you outsource. Why is that? You see, you know your business better than your B2B appointment setting service provider ever will.
You know the right businesses that have the most potential for conversion. In turn, every cold automatically has a better chance of success since your prospect list is well-filtered based on your criteria and vision.
When provided with a list, your appointment setters will then simply inform you of the realistic and profitable number of appointments you can get out of it, and then get down to business.
If you don’t have the prospects to begin with and don’t want to do the dirty work, your service provider can produce this for you as we mentioned. You simply provide a profile of the prospects you want, but it won’t come cheap. Expect an additional charge of $100-$1,000.
Buying a contact list when outsourcing B2B appointment setting services is often recommended to companies that simply want to keep their pipeline full regardless of their location in the sales funnel.
B2B appointment setting services providers can also give you a competitive edge by having access to technology that will optimize the sales process such as integrated team calendars, email follow-ups, progressive dialers, and time zone check.
Pay-per-appointment always seems to be the most cost-saving setup offered in B2B appointment setting services. You’re looking at $5-$100 per appointment depending on your requirements and the level of difficulty. This arrangement also prevents any surprises because you know exactly how much the invoice will be. However, predictability might come at the expense of quality.
Some service partners simply just take whatever appointment they can get, even if it is with a lead that barely meets your qualifications. This is because some appointment setters tend to measure their success by the number of appointments they set as opposed to how each one can contribute to the big picture. There are also appointment setters that just don’t have a full understanding of your business to be able to differentiate a good lead from a bad one.
To avoid cases like this, get a B2B appointment setting services provider that works hard to understand your criteria. To ensure high-quality appointments, be clear about:
The pay-per-appointment approach is usually reserved for firms that already have a repeatable tried-and-tested process in prospecting calls. If your company has done it in the past with success, you likely have a clear idea of the time and effort it takes to set up an appointment, putting you in a confident position to set a price for every appointment.
If you are a start-up or a small business owner trying B2B appointment setting services for the first time, make sure you have a complete understanding of your sales approach. How else do you expect someone to get your message across if you yourself can’t?
Be highly specific in your messaging and call to action. Make sure telemarketers know the unique selling points of your products and services as well as the best techniques to attract your market. Establish the speaking points and fill them in on expected objections and how they can be handled.
It is important that your appointment setters take the time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of your products and services so they aren’t backed into a corner when the conversation starts to get to uncharted territory. This is why it is important to do test runs before greenlighting the script.
The script will usually be provided by your service provider. If you prefer to write the script yourself, keep it concise. Keep in mind that you will be reaching out to busy, on-the-go decision-makers.
Being one, you know you wouldn’t be too thrilled about an unwanted interruption by a cold caller reading out a 10-page long pitch to you, right? You will probably hang up before they reach the second page. The key is to get straight to the point. Establish why they need your services and move on to the next.
There is a wide variety of service providers who can help you with the basics for the purpose of filling your sales funnel. However, if you are after hot leads that can go down the sales funnel fast, look for a service provider with the knowledge relating to your specific industry or niche.
First-hand experience will fuel more thoughtful conversations and a deeper connection with your prospects. Your appointment setters can easily anticipate any call scenario, dig deeper, and find unique ways to highlight your products and services from the competitor.
Their thorough understanding of your industry will also help them gather more specific and personalized information. It can then be used by your salespeople can use as a foundation for their pitch in order to effectively resonate with your target market.
When they know their stuff, it will show. It will project credibility and genuine empathy, ultimately giving appointment setters better chances to convince prospects that what you bring to the table is what they need.
Taking prospect readiness into accountConsider B2B appointment setting services with a strategic plan for all levels of prospect readiness. While the goal will be scoring meetings for prospects ready to meet face to face, there could be some potential leads that just aren’t there yet. So look for B2B appointment setting services that have a lead nurturing strategy in place.
Keep in mind that only 3% of your market is actively looking to relieve a pain point of your specialty. That means the majority of the prospects you will come across are either happy with what they currently have or are not ready to switch yet even if they are not satisfied with what they currently have. Both types of prospects should be given equal attention.
It can be easy to discard these prospects right away especially if you are all about setting that meeting or raising the numbers, but your appointment setter should be able to recognize the potential of each prospect. When they identify where they are in the sales funnel, they can keep them interested until they are ready to take the step to buy.
How do they do that? An appointment setter should make the effort to find out when is the best time to reconnect and when to follow up all while being on the lookout for any “trigger event” that you can use to refresh your prospect’s mind of your products and services.
Appointment setting is not a one-size-fits-all type of approach. If you are in the business of account-based selling, you want a B2B appointment setting service provider prepared to implement unique prospecting methods besides cold calling and securing meetings for your sales team.
Some service partners enrich their appointment setting programs by integrating outbound marketing on social media, inbound marketing campaigns such as content and email marketing, and arranging a role-based list to validate the roles of your contacts to ensure you can have a productive meeting with them.
According to recent trends, the majority of buyers feel like their meetings with salespeople provide no value because they are unable to reconcile the problem with the solution they have to offer. One major culprit for this is the mismatch between sales and marketing strategies.
You’ve probably heard your sales reps complain about the irrelevant leads provided by your marketers, who rebut that the salespeople just aren’t doing their best. This is the classic case of sales and marketing misalignment.
This might be happening because you forget to involve your sales team in the prospecting process, which a lot of companies do. Since your sales reps will be the ones to sell the products and directly connect with your target market, it is only right for them to be integral in the selection of your B2B appointment setting services as well.
The truth is, much of the success of a campaign hinges on the leads. So it is important that your sales and marketing teams work in harmony first. Make sure they have a clear definition and understanding of what a quality lead for your business truly is.
Avoid the mismatch by ensuring the quantity and the proven quality of the leads from your marketing team increase steadily along with the leads worked and close rates of your sales team. Every now and then, have the sales team provide feedback on the leads and the marketing team listen in during calls.
Sometimes, not every appointment will be a win. The cheaper targets won’t be as good as the higher-value ones when you get down to brass tacks. So before you outsource B2B appointment setting services, reflect on the costs of each lead.
No, it is not just about how much you spend on getting the appointment itself, but the time, energy, and financial resources that went into qualifying the leads in the first place. This will include, for example, the creation of a lead magnet you offered for free in addition to the social media ads you ran to promote it and get opt-ins.
Ensure that your sales process remains efficient and every step is handled by fully capable personnel. Reflect on your needs and quantify your desired results by determining your ideal return of investment. All this will lead you to the right service provider that can deliver.
How is your search for B2B appointment setting services so far? Sound off in the comments below!
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