Telephone sales training tips and advice

Are you in the midst of a telemarketing training programme? Then, you have come to the right place. Learn how to be genuine and helpful on the phone while sounding pleasant. Before jumping into say, the 'telephone sales skills' training videos that you have, prime yourself with this quick read.

The voice with a smile

Your smile can be heard What is the purpose of smiling when you are on the phone if the other party can't see you anyway? Well, your smile is not meant to be seen in this case but it is meant to be heard. Intuition aside, a smile can be detected over the phone. In fact, an insincere smile can also be known by the other party. Try this experiment Try putting on a smile and sounding displeased at the same time. Is it a challenge? Now try being really pleased but keeping a straight (neutral) face. Just as challenging, wouldn't you agree? The easiest thing to do is to be congruent in both voice and facial expression. Keep smiling Let your default voice be the voice with a smile.

This is not only in keeping with good customer service (and good telephone/telesales training), but it also makes your working days so much brighter and happier.

Pay attention and be helpful

The standard voice message The standard voice message may be courteous and even sound pleasant except that it can be annoying. Why? Because it is neither paying attention and is in fact, often perceived to be rather unhelpful. It just goes on until the recorded message is done playing or you put down the receiver, whichever is first. Do you think you can do better? A real human response Listen first. Then, respond specifically to the caller. Avoid generic answers that do nothing to help. Ask (for more information) if necessary but not otherwise. If you can't answer, pass the call to the right person who can. Don't let this be the start of a vicious cycle of call transferring.

A final tip

(Online) business sales training courses and ideas are good but only if you make your sales quota. There is a balance between persuasiveness and courtesy. You want to be the former while maintaining the latter. Start practicing this and experience will naturally come.