What is the Appointment Setter Position? Types of Appointment Setters

What is the Appointment Setter Position? Types of Appointment Setters, Responsibilities of Appointment Setters

What is the Appointment Setter Position?

An Appointment Setter is a professional who schedules consultations between sales staff and prospective clients, ensuring that important meetings are booked for the sales team. Appointment Setters use telemarketing skills to support the sales function of a business. They initiate telephone conversations to engage leads (potential customers) sourced from a database.

An appointment setter will work closely with one colleague or a team of other employees to ensure that the company’s clients are happy and receive the best service.

Types of Appointment Setters

Since inbound and outbound appointment setting calls both have the same objective, you might believe they should be handled the same. After all, the only real difference is who is picking up the phone and making the call. The fact is, however, that these calls are very different, and the difference comes down to one important factor: motivation.

Another factor that can create is if the appointment setter is working in the office as an employee of the company or as a Remote Sales or online as a commission-based position.

Inbound Appointment Setter

Inbound appointment setting means that a prospect is motivated to act. This means you need only to take advantage of this motivation if you want the caller to set an appointment. Provided you don’t say anything that turns the caller off and you handle any questions well, an appointment is practically guaranteed.

Commission-based setter works with social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, emails, etc and they have their leads through the company’s Facebook groups, Social media followers, advertising leads, etc. An inbound setter contacts the ready leads that are provided and they contact these pre-motivated prospects to set an appointment with the closers/sales team.

Outbound Appointment Setter

Outbound appointment-setting (Cold Calling) calls are, of course, considerably more challenging but that doesn’t mean that they have to be less successful. The key is to help outbound prospects move from neutral to positive.

The best way to do this is to make the appointment relevant to the prospect. Let them know how this appointment will ultimately benefit their business. In other words, inbound callers are already motivated to set an appointment whereas prospects who are receiving an outbound call need motivation to be created for them.

Commission-based outbound setters have no leads and they need to generate leads themselves. Some companies provide training for this. They expect you to create a profile for yourself on social media platforms, or even do cold calls to generate leads for yourself and set appointments with their closer/sales team.

Responsibilities of Appointment Setters

Appointment Setters may follow a script with the objective of arranging appointments for company sales representatives, obtaining sales, or otherwise creating interest in the products or services on offer. They also process and arrange the dispatch of sales materials such as product samples, information kits or brochures.

Appointment Setters may be required to determine the strength of a lead, and to create periodic reports on their activities and results. They may work with printed documents or work with computers using a spreadsheet or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to document calls made and successes, update the database with new information such as updates to customer status or make notes requiring follow-up action. They work in sales teams for a broad range of companies across many industries.

• Creating interest in goods and services and seeking a sale or agreement to a sales appointment.
• Working from scripts and lists of contacts to promote goods and services by telephone.
• Arranging processing and despatch of product samples, information kits, and brochures to customers.
• Recording notes for follow-up action and updating marketing databases to reflect changes to the status of each customer.
• Reporting issues raised by contacts to managers.
• Maintaining statistics of calls made and successes achieved.
• Submitting periodic reports on telemarketing activities and results.
• Receiving calls and providing information and basic customer support.

Sources:

Workable https://resources.workable.com/appointment-setter-job-description/#:~:text=An%20Appointment%20Setter%20is%20a,booked%20for%20the%20sales%20team.

Seek https://www.seek.com.au/career-advice/role/appointment-setter

Upwork https://www.upwork.com/hire/appointment-setters/job-description/

Tactical Telesolutions https://www.ttstechnique.com/how-to-handle-inbound-vs-outbound-appointment-setting/

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