Outbound Calls: All Your Questions Answered

Have you ever thought about how many outbound calls per day are made by a sale rep? On average, a sales rep makes around 52 calls per day. Of which nearly 15% of the time is spent over leaving voicemails!

However, at the end of a month, it doesn’t matter how many outbound calls per day you have made. All that matters is the number of conversations or hot leads you have got. But as you start making outbound calls, you might have tons of questions that need answers.

And, not everyone is lucky enough to have a mentor who can answer them all. That’s why we have created this fun question-and-answer session related to outbound calls. This post will answer all the questions you will ever have about outbound calls.

1. How many outbound calls per day should I make?

The industry average is 52 calls per day. As long as you meet the average or exceed it, you should be in a good place. Also, remember - it all boils down to the quality of your calls and the conversation rate. Quantity is just a secondary factor.

2. What are the prerequisites for your outbound calls?

Outbound calls help you connect with prospective customers to identify whether they have a genuine need for your product or not. Before you make an outbound call, you will have to develop a game plan - how will you determine if additional conversations are warranted and whether the prospect is a good lead or not?

It would be best if you look at outbound calls as a way to build relationships with prospects. Have an open conversation with them, and kickstart a consultative review. Instead of using the initial minutes of your outbound calls to get into the head of your prospects, use them to assure your prospects that you respect their time. This will make them open up and eventually give you more time to pitch your products or services.

3. What are the key things to keep in mind while making outbound calls?

An outbound sales call is a process where a rep gets in touch with someone whom they have never spoken to earlier. The rep is going to build a business relationship just out of that call. 

If you’re one of those new sales reps looking for ways “how to make outbound sales calls” here are our tried and tested tips curated just for you - 

1. Always have an objective for every sales call - something that you hope to achieve out of that outbound sales call. 
2. Without exception, look for ways to leave a positive impression of your business irrespective of the fact whether or not the prospect is interested in your product or service.
3. Have a call guide and script ready. However, avoid reading directly from the guide or script.
4. If you encounter the gatekeeper, be polite and respectful. Remember their name and instead of leaving messages, identify a convenient time to call back. 
5. Once you have ensured that you’re speaking to the right person, pique their interest without sounding salesy.
6. Listen carefully to your prospect’s objections and ask probing and clarifying questions to determine your prospect’s needs. 
7. Rather than focusing on selling your product or service, make your conversation focus on the problems that your product/service solves.
8. If you encounter an unappreciative prospect, don’t rush ahead or push them forcefully to listen to you. 
9. If your permission to go forward is denied by your prospect, stay polite, apologize for the hassle, thank them for the time, and close the call politely.
10. Remember not to take any rejections personally. Try to move past it by talking to your colleagues or reminding yourselves of previous successes.
11. Ensure that you have the right attitude for every call. 90 percent of everything in life is attitude.
12. Believe in what you are selling. Sell your product or service to yourselves before you sell it to others.
13. Be persistent and bring that into every call you make. Your prospects may start respecting your dedication and become more receptive to what you have got to say.
14. Identify your goal for the call and tailor a pitch that fits it accordingly. Don’t just stick to your script; keep improvising as the situation demands.
15. Never depend on a single call. It takes a lot of calls and practice to succeed.
16. Treat all your prospects with respect and don’t let your previous failed attempts affect a new prospect.
17. Remember that every call offers you something to gain (experience, revenue) and something to lose.

While this is not an exhaustive list, the above tips will help the SDRs to get going in the right direction and learn the nuances of outbound calls quickly. 

4. Why track outbound calls?

Outbound calls remain an integral part of any sales process. Similar to all other aspects of the sales cycle, it is vital to track outbound calls and ensure that their quality is up to par. 

Especially when outbound calls are new territory for your SDRs, it is better to track their progress and offer constructive feedback rather than letting them get the hang of things on their own.

The process of tracking outbound calls is not just useful for quality testing and training purposes, but it gives the management a clear view of the experience their prospective customers receive. When you track outbound calls you can pinpoint the weak points in your sales process, understand the strengths and weaknesses of your sales reps, and measure sales metrics effortlessly.

5. How to track outbound calls?

Most salespeople don’t track outbound calls because they have no idea where to start. Initially, you can just start by recording the conversations of your SDRs and get them reviewed by their managers or trainers. While manual analysis might seem easy when your sales team is small, it can quickly get out of hand as your team expands.

Manual tracking and analysis of outbound calls can be time-consuming and expensive. What’s more - the process is neither transparent nor consistent, leaving room for ambiguity and biases. As a result, organizations often end up making predictions and decisions based on erroneous and inaccurate sales data.

Moving away from manual sales conversation analysis to a conversation intelligence platform like Rafiki can be a lifesaver for any sales team. Tools like Rafiki will enable businesses to consolidate all sales conversations in a single cloud database and slice and dice through the same to get actionable insights. 

How does Rafiki help you track and measure outbound calls?

Rafiki’s intelligent AI engine transcribes and understands every sales conversation that happens and analyzes it based on the metric preset by their business. It helps them to spot deal risks, improvement opportunities, and upselling chances in the click of a button.

Rafiki also captures talk ratios, breaks down different triggers regarding topics within calls, and deciphers questioning strategies of SDRs to derive a pattern that will help your SDRs succeed and close more deals. What’s more, Rafiki can inform you how your top performers go about their calls, and their sales strategy, and understand every little nuance involved in their sales process.

Its built-in feedback feature enables the sales team to learn from each other’s wins and mistakes. The interactive feedback feature fosters team collaboration and helps sharpen skills and prepare for future calls.