One of the most frustrating parts of selling is leaving voicemails that are never returned.
You just figured out who to call next, picked up the phone, dialed the number, and now you have to wait through their message to leave your’s. Its a big time drain that does not provide a big return on the investment of your time.
Many agents simply don’t leave a message because of the lack of response.
Dialing systems almost always have some functionality to “automatically” leave a message, allowing you to move on to the next call. But these messages cannot be personal and for that reason don’t get many call backs.
So here are the 7 secrets to help you improve your success with voicemail:
- Give a Hint to Create Interest – Don’t go into an entire spiel about why they should call you back, think about how your service benefits your prospects and give them a quick hint and then your name and number. Something along the lines of “I specialize in _____ insurance and can save you money with one of the 12 carriers I work with…”
- Be prepared! No ums, like, etc. – Use a script or know exactly what y
ou are going to say to avoid this mistake.
- Present the benefits to the customer – speak of ideas or results. This is an either or from item 1 – if you have a specific metric on results (I save my customers an average of $500 a year) then use it.
- Be specific – especially with a time in which you will call back or give them a time-frame when you are available.
- Give numbers slowly and always repeat your phone number at the conclusion of the message.
- If it will be a brief message, tell them that up front and they are more inclined to listen – And I strongly recommend that your messages are brief – how do you feel when you get a long winded voicemail?
- Test, test and test – Your voicemail message is a part of your marketing campaign to your prospects and all good marketing campaigns test. So, write up two or three variations and see which ones get better results – just make sure you have a way to track back your messages to call backs.
So sit down and come up with a plan to improve your voicemail success using these proven techniques.
