Does your trucking insurance agency leverage telemarketing to set up in profile appointments with demographically selected prospects in your targeted geography? If so, how successful are your initiatives, and is there anything your agency can do to refine them? For example, are they producing 10, 20 (or more) in profile appointments per month? And if your trucking agency is not leveraging an appointment setting
initiative, why are you ignoring this pipeline filling opportunity? Let's review some of the key tips, techniques and best practices to ensure an effective appointment setting campaign:
1. Call Script: It all starts with an effective and concise script. Synthesize your value proposition. Think of it this way, if you had a 30 second Super Bowl commercial, what would your agency tell the viewers? Why should truckers (whether they are owner operators, small fleets or large fleets) speak to you about their insurance needs? What do you bring to the table that is uniquely helpful to these targeted prospects? You may require multiple versions of your call script, especially if your prospects range from owner operators to fleets with 50 or more power units. And you should have a list of the 10 most common objections, with responses, to improve caller effectiveness. For example, do you insure tow trucks, ambulances, or cranes? These and other questions/objections and answers should be available to help the appointment setter(s).
2. Prospect List: Your agency needs to use an up to date DOT prospect list with fleet size and X-dates. If you don't have one, there are many sources which offer these (varying in quality from adequate to good). Scrub your clients and active prospects from this list, and note that it's often better to do this on a monthly or quarterly basis, than an annual pull, based on target geography, X-dates and fleet size.
3. Lead Handling: Even the best leads will fail to close if your agency lacks a formal lead handling process. This doesn't have to be automated, it just has to be followed and tracked! Once an appointment has been set up, which producer will manage that appointment, and how will they follow up to ensure the best possible close ratio? And of course, how will it be tracked.
4. Appointment Setter: Last but not least, is the appointment setter. Your appointment setter will make or break your lead initiative. And one of the challenges for some agencies revolves around hiring, managing and training this resource. Further, most agencies will only hire one appointment setter, and industry standards show that only one in three callers are likely to succeed in this challenging position. At a minimum, your appointment setter should have:
* Telemarketing experience
* Trucking insurance experience (or training)
* Call script training and practice
* Lead handling training
* A professional demeanor
* Ability to consistently deliver your call pitch (20 plus times per hour)
Trucking agencies with sufficient time, tools and talent can bring this lead generation initiative in house. Those agencies that cannot, should consider outsourcing this opportunity to a proficient trucking lead generation firm.
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