The business of inbound telemarketing poses quite a number of challenges. One of the challenges of every inbound telemarketer is dealing with irate customers. Crossing paths over the phone with this group of customers is inevitable. Reasons why they turn ballistic are varied. Some have valid demands, others are just easily angered, some unintentionally lash out their frustrations in life in general.



Inbound versus Outbound

You have two choices on how to operate your telemarketing business. You can go for inbound telemarketing is also known as soft-selling. This is mainly incorporated in the call metrics of the customer service department. The agents are on standby and wait for the calls to come in. Only after that the customer's concern has been resolved can the agent make a transition to sell a product or service that is fit to the customer's needs. Also, a maximum of two attempts to sell is required for inbound telemarketers.

Outbound telemarketing, on the other hand, involves the agent making a call TO the customer. Coined as hard-selling, this type of telemarketing has earned a lot of negative perception mainly because they are unsolicited calls whose aim is to sell.

Emotional cycle

But before we lay out the strategies that can be done to ease the tension on irate callers. I deemed fair to dedicate a section on what inbound telemarketers experience when handling irate calls.

On the first day at the floor, an inbound telemarketer has been given points to take by heart on every possible call that'll be coming in. At the very first irate caller who'll be cursing and saying all those nasty words and threaten to sue and track the agent down. The calls ends with the caller hanging up and your agent all flustered and they end up crying or disoriented. As time flies, they get used to the angry callers and develop ways on how to handle them without being too emotional and end up frustrated. Some tend to become overly defensive and unintentionally argue with the irate caller, which is a big taboo in inbound telemarketing.

Recommended mechanisms

As a telemarketing merchant, you will agree that to some extent, irate calls eat a large of percentage of the daily calls that come in. So, how do owners of telemarketing merchant accounts who run telemarketing businesses proceed in calming down this irate callers? Below are some of the ways you can take note and teach your agents.

Instill in your agents' minds that it's nothing personal. When a caller gets angry and goes on saying nasty things, it's not because they're angry at the person they're talking to, but at the situation. Tell your phone receptionists to not be rude, never hang up on the caller, and remember, it's not personal. They have to treat it in a business-like way.

Teach them the ASAP technique. This is a way to calm the angry caller's nerves. Apologize for the inconvenience, Sympathize with the feelings, Accept responsibility for the error, and Prepare to help.

Let them know that they can satisfy most people most of the time. Nobody can please everybody all the time. So, if after every effort has been done and still fails to calm down the angry caller, then that's it.

Make them use the swear stopper. The situation gets really heated up when the caller is already swearing non-stop. Your agents should not panic nor answer back. Once this ranting begins, teach the agents to interject immediately, calmly reassure the caller, address directly the main concern, and ask follow-up questions immediately.

It's just a call

This may cold-blooded to some merchants. But, what this means is just for your agents not to take the emotional baggages of that irate call to the next one, which may be a very different scenario, which can be a good call at the most. Make them realize that after the call, it's over. It technically impossible that they will ever speak to that customer again, except if you have like two inbound telemarketers employed. But then again, tell them to not get too deep for this might jeopardize their handling of the next call.

Inbound telemarketing is serious business. You can get a good amount of profit from inbound sales. More valid sales, the more money will be coming to your offshore merchant account.