David Cummings on Startups

Outsourced Appointment Setting in Startups

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David Cummings

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We recently started the process of researching outsourced appointment setting to get a feel for the options and how it might help us accelerate our growth. After a few meetings I’ve developed a grasp of the different options and strategies. Here are a few notes so far:

  • Dials per day per rep is typically 80-100 using an automated dialer technology
  • Success percentages are in the 3-7% (e.g. call on 1,000 companies and get 50 appointments for a 5% success percentage over a comprehensive campaign)
  • Pricing styles include per call costs (~$2), per hour costs ($30 – $50), and per completed appointment costs ($500 – $1,000) or a hybrid of these
  • Training typically takes 4-6 weeks to get started
  • Reviews weekly of recorded successful calls is a best practice

I can readily see the value these organizations provide and we should be making a decision shortly. I’m looking forward to learning more about what does and doesn’t work.

What else? Have you tried outsourced appointment setting and what did you learn?

Comments

2 responses to “Outsourced Appointment Setting in Startups”

  1. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    For some reason I just hate cold calls (from a consumer and business perspective) and the idea of this important sales and business process being outsourced, or the idea of dialing for dollars, just makes me cringe. My petsonal experience is that these customers are more skeptical and not as high value as customers acquired through less spammy approaches.

    Reply
    1. David Cummings Avatar
      David Cummings

      Great point Dave. I agree that it many cases it isn’t the way to go. There are certain missionary sales times where there’s a lack of market awareness for the product and in order to get in front of customers that don’t know about your product, but need it, the phone is the most useful medium.

      Reply

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