Buyers Cringe as Telemarketing Numbers Rise

I talked to a manager in one of the leading telemarketing agencies today. He told me of new offices opening worldwide and the addition of hundreds of new telemarketers. Needless I wished him and his team well. It was the only polite thing to do. However, privately I shuddered. Here is what I was really thinking – 'great another couple of hundred cold calling telemarketers is exactly what the world’s buyer DON'T need!'

At the same time many of our clients have been very slow to wean away from their dependence on traditional lead generation methods and in particular cold calling. That is in spite of the fact that response rates for the past 12 months have been falling beneath the floor.

The reality is that those who are depending on cold calling and telemarketing to generate new prospects and new customers are in for a world of pain. To those managers we say ‘take the next cold call that comes into your business and see how you like it!’

Like it, or not the telemarketer is the first causality of the buying revolution. The good news is that there are lots of alternatives that are much more effective and much more buyer friendly. Also there are a great number of ways to warm up even the coldest of calls.