New Debate- To Leave a Voice Mail or Not
Posted on Aug 28, 2009 by Kathy Rizzo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Voice mail has been around for twenty-five years and yet today there is a new debate as to whether voice mail is worthwhile anymore. Articles published in the Boston Globe and NY Times, which question the use of the seemingly outdated technology, have ignited this debate. However, I believe voice mail is valuable to b2b tele-prospecting.
According to the statistics quoted in both articles, more than thirty percent of people do not check their voice mail for 3 days or longer. Although that is a large percentage, the statistics do not seem to differentiate business vs. personal voice mails (specifically stating “Verizon Wireless and other cellphone carriers” in the NY Times article, which in my opinion, is likely more heavily personal focused). If the study were conducted exclusively on office voice mail systems and cell phones of business professionals, I believe that the percentage of those who do not check voice mail would shrink considerably. From my personal experience, I find myself checking my business voice mail several times a day, however, I must admit that I let my personal voice mail go unchecked for days. Also, as I read the articles, I was more focused on the opposite percentage – those who do check voice mail. Even if only 50-70% of the voice mails, that we leave as tele-prospectors, are indeed played, I consider that percentage worth the 30-second investment in time. Lastly, particularly in the Boston Globe article, the people interviewed tended to be either very young or small business professionals, who may not have the same voice mail habits as our target market, which is comprised mainly of Fortune 1000 organizations and large enterprises.
Surprisingly, the benefit of leaving voice mails during tele-prospecting, is not the obvious returned message. While a small percentage of your voice mails will be returned, it’s typically not a staggering statistic. Thus, in my experience, the benefit of leaving a voice mail is that it acts as a 30-40 second advertisement to your prospect. Considering that the hardest type of sales call to make is a cold-call, if you leave a memorable voice mail, you are actually “warming up” your prospect. Therefore, when you are able to finally reach your prospect, he/she is more likely to know your organization and why you are calling. Suddenly, your cold-call has turned into a warm call. And that is the true benefit!
The key to success is understanding how to leave an effective voice mail. For our tips on leaving a “Critical Business Issue” voice mail, read Jon Plant’s blog on the topic: How to Develop a Telemarketing Critical Business Issue Voice Mail Strategy
Tagged: b2b telemarketing, lead generation telemarketing, telemarketing lead generation, lead generation, voice mail telemarketing, voice mail strategies
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Comments
Anabel said:
As you mention Kathy…key words are “memorable voice mail”. On one of my long-running campaigns, there is a great agent who leaves on average around 30-40 Voice Mail messages per day. She often couples the voice mail message with an email, and she gets around 3 callbacks a day. On most days, those call-backs turn into leads, and most of the time the contact makes mention that they had read her email and had also received her voice mail. This blended approach regularly yields leads for the campaign. She is not offering anything “on sale” and she is not using any gimmicks. Just a good solid message about the product and how it can benefit the prospect; when delivering that message in a professional, genuine and warm fashion she gets results. Folks never, ever forget her sincerity and she’s effective in peaking curiosity. Warming up the prospect is exactly what is happening!
Huey C. Lindsay said:
On the most recent nurturing campaign I was on, contacting C level executives of financial institutions, I did feel that I was providing an advertisement, and because of that I wanted to create message that conveyed someone who is resourceful and informative, yet short of the expert who I’m uncovering the opportunity for. Generally over the course of 5 days of calling, I would invariably receive return calls requesting further information and thus increasing the odds that the prospect will take my call the very next time to follow up. Without knowing my actual statistics on voice messages returned vs. voice messages left per campaign, I seem to obtain a fair amount percentage wise, to the point, I understand the need to be strategic in the frequency and quality of the voice messages I leave. The type of messaging left is also dependent on the quantity of previous messages already left. I would agree with you Kathy, that office voice mail systems and cell phones of business professionals are checked with more frequency, so that even twenty-years later leaving voice messages is clearly worthwhile.