Telemarketing – Pay Per Appointment v Pay Per Hour

The pros and cons of telemarketing and paying by results v pay by the hour

I can see why the idea of paying a telemarketing company per appointment is appealing. You know exactly the cost of each appointment and only pay for any generated. Junglebeat do not offer this, as we believe we would be doing our customers a disservice. I explain it this way to our clients.

Pay Per Appointment

A telemarketing company paid by result will focus solely on generating appointments. They will quite often provide the calling data ‘free of charge’ within your set criteria and charge a fixed fee for each appointment made. The information from the telephone calls that created appointments will be handed to you.

So what happens to the information gleaned from the other telephone calls?

As you have not paid to receive this information, you will have no idea what the prospective customer said or if they are interested in speaking again at a future date. It is unlikely that you will ever know the companies or personnel they contacted. So you are unable to build information for future marketing campaigns.

Worst still, what if the appointment is not fully qualified? – e.g. the prospect not having the budget or the authority to buy. This can happen because of the high pressure the telemarketing company is under to make appointments to receive payment. You waste your valuable time, chasing a created prospect that will never buy.

Pay Per Hour

Paying a telemarketing company by the hour changes the focus to appointments and generating sales leads. You still have the ability to set a budget for this telemarketing activity. And, the pressure on the telemarketer to make appointments without fully qualifying is removed. Telemarketing is really about building a business relationship.

Normally you buy or provide a database for a pay per hour campaign. This means you own the database and all of the information collected during calling. Each named record should have a note of how the call progressed and the next action. You will know the companies and personnel that have been contacted and can focus on those that have shown interest.

The pay per hour scenario will involve a decision to look at the wider aspect of what telemarketing can offer and maybe an acceptance that appointments may not be instant. It should, however, set up a sales pipeline and give you an understanding of what is happening in the market place. A good telemarketing company will continually review the campaign and discuss the daily results with you.

Conclusion

Paying Per Appointment will generate appointments but provides no market knowledge or assistance in building a sales pipeline.

Paying a telemarketing company per hour provides market information, sales leads and appointments. The client has a fuller understanding of their market place and can use this information for future marketing campaigns.