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What is the Best Time to Make a Business Phone Call?

Miguel Isabal 11th February 2021 Learn, Sales

Sales teams and telemarketers are finding it increasingly difficult to connect with potential clients and prospects. This is because there is a growing intolerance for business calls interrupting one’s already hectic workday. However, inside sales and customer care teams can be smart about this and find better ways to connect with customers and prospects. To do this, you must identify the best time to make a business phone call and then train your agents and employees to follow professional and considerate business telephone etiquette.

What is the Best Time to Make a Sales Call?

Picking the best time to make a sales phone call depends on a variety of factors. These factors revolve around who your core and target demographic is and what their daily schedules are like:

Do they work 9-5 jobs?
Are they parents who will be busy taking care of their children before 9 AM and after 5 PM?
Are they students who have classes at various times of the day?

Determining your customers’ schedules can help you identify the best times to call them regarding a past or present purchase. Not only should you call at the appropriate time, but you should also maintain professional business phone etiquette. By practicing professionalism and respect for your clients’ time, you will increase the chances of developing good relationships and more conversions.

Best Days of the Week to Make Sales Calls

According to a recent study on the best times to cold call businesses, Wednesdays and Thursdays were identified as the best days of the week to call potential clients and customers. On Mondays, buyers and clients are easing into work mode and preparing for their upcoming week. Similarly, on Fridays, people are generally already in weekend mode and not looking for new business opportunities. Cold calls and unscheduled calls during this time are often sources of frustration and can lead to immediate rejection.

On Wednesdays and Thursdays — the middle of the week — individuals have settled into the workweek and are prepared for all kinds of business. During this time, your call will feel less like an interruption. As such, calls made on Wednesdays and Thursdays have a higher rate of translating into actual conversions.

Best Time of Day to Make a Business Phone Call

When calling customers and prospects, you have to be respectful of their time. Most telemarketers and salespeople fail to connect with their clients by calling them at the wrong time and proceeding to take up a lot of their time. So, what is the best time to make a business phone call?

The best time to make business calls is between 4 PM and 5 PM. Clients and potential buyers are getting done with their work around this time and have the mental capacity to consider your business or proposal. Avoid making calls early in the morning or when buyers are just getting settled into their workday. So, how early can you make a business call? The second best time for business calls is between 11 AM and 12 PM.

Also keep in mind, what time during the day your business will not have as much success cold calling. As a general rule of thumb, avoid making calls between 1 PM and 3 PM. This is the time most people take lunch and are least productive. Therefore, you may not get an ideal response. Furthermore, do not call clients after 6 PM, unless they give you permission to do so. You will only frustrate them during their free time and lose their business.

Other Sales Call Etiquette or Habits to Keep in Mind

As you can see, the recommendations for the best day and time to cold call clients take into account their schedules so you are not bothering them during peak hours. Following this thread, your team should also practice other healthy cold calling habits to maintain professionalism and improve the way your customers view the business. Here are some good business phone etiquette points and habits to follow:

Always ask if they are available for a conversation; don’t jump right into the sales pitch.
Don’t interrupt your customer; wait for them to finish.
Don’t rush your prospect into making a decision or show frustration at the time they are taking.
Don’t be distracted or eat during business calls; your customer should be your priority.
Ensure there is no noise of conversations happening in the background.
Return calls and follow up as promised.
If you need to keep a customer on hold for a long time, ask to call them back instead of making them wait.
The best time to call a prospect or customer is within an hour of them reaching out to you (via phone calls, emails, query forms, etc).
Don’t call a prospect more than 6 times, if they have denied interaction.
Use a business phone system that has high voice quality to avoid any miscommunication or need for additional callbacks.

Upgrade Your Business Phone System

Global Call Forwarding’s virtual phone systems offer high voice quality and global connectivity for businesses of varying sizes. You can start by purchasing a virtual phone number or porting your existing business number to our service and then building a phone system customized to your communication needs. Call us today at 1 (888) 908 6171 or chat with us online to learn more!

Work from Home with These Virtual Business Options

Meryl D'Sa-Wilson 18th March 2020 Tips

Fears of the coronavirus (COVID-19) have put cities and countries on lockdown and forced businesses to shut down. Fortunately, most businesses and job positions have the opportunity and ability to use virtual business tools and ask employees to work from home. And this is made easy with the advancements in technology. So, what are some options your business can adopt during these uncertain times?

Virtual Business Tools

Whether you’re a small business or a large company, you may choose to allow your employees to work from home. At least, for the next few weeks as everyone keeps an eye on the growth and spread of the coronavirus. Virtual business tools can help your business stay on track even as employees work from home. These tools include virtual numbers with call forwarding abilities, management systems, chat tools, video conferencing, and more. The following article will include some options to consider:

Get a Virtual Phone Number

You can easily get a virtual number from a service provider like Global Call Forwarding or port your existing number to us today. Doing this will allow you to take advantage of other virtual communication tools that can help immediately. You can use call forwarding, call transfer, outbound calling, customized greetings, and more. This will help your business maintain communication with its customers and clients.

Getting or porting your number with us is quick and easy. You can have the number ready to use in a few minutes. And you can then have business calls forwarded to your home office or personal line, or have it directed to your customer support team members’ phone lines. In fact, our Simultaneous Ringing feature enables you to have all incoming calls ring on multiple phone lines. This could be your number, your sales team’s home or personal lines, and so on. This ensures that someone will answer the phone and business can still continue. And so, sales and customer support teams can continue to serve existing customers thereby not degrading the quality and standard of your service.

You can set up interactive voice response (IVR), an automated system, to answer calls and greet customers by offering them company updates revolving around the coronavirus. Or, simply add a custom greeting that lets callers know your business is still running and you can still provide them the service they need. Additionally, you can transfer calls to other team members or have calls forwarded to them during specific times of the day. There are many cloud communication tools available, but which ones your business needs depends on what services you want to offer.

Video Conferencing and Chat Tools

Video chatting and conferencing is another virtual business tool that can be used for remote working. You can stay connected with your employees and track their progress or conduct online meetings with video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, and so on. You can schedule meetings, share screens to demonstrate the material, share important files, and documents, and more.

Online Content and Project Management Systems

Take your tasks online. Use online project management systems or apps to remain connected with employees as well as track tasks and projects that need to be completed. You can have different team members work and collaborate on a task and watch its progress. Set deadlines, due dates, and log time for important and prioritized projects. Some popular systems are Teamwork, Slack, Monday, Trello, etc.

Be Productive and Efficient Even When Working Remotely

Most businesses worry that remote working will decrease productivity and slow down the overall success rate. This can be countered with virtual options which ensure that employees can stay on task even outside the office location. For more information on how our cloud communication tools can support your work-from-home days, call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 to talk to an expert.

Credibility & Your Small Business: How to Ensure Your Company Maintains Trust from Customers

Magaly Fuentes 3rd June 2019 Tips

How to Ensure Your Company Maintains Trust from Customers

Nobody is going to consistently invest in a company that they do not trust. It is easy to build trust in a business relationship as long as you follow a few steps and commit to these steps for the long haul.

Below are some tips/steps with regard to credibility & your small business.

Always Be Genuine

Practically every person on the planet has had some type of unpleasant experience with a salesperson. In fact, many may have even abruptly walked away from a sales situation where they felt manipulated. Rather than acting or sounding like a salesperson, be genuine. Act the same as you would if you were meeting with a colleague.

Place Value on the Relationships

If you want people to value a relationship with you, then you must truly believe that the relationship is important to you and treat it as such. You must also have confidence in the fact that you have something of value to bring to the relationship.

Show Interest in Your Customers

Another tip regarding credibility and your small business is to be curious. People are drawn to those who show they have an interest in them. Having curiosity is a crucial element when it comes to building relationships. Having a steady interest in others opens the pathway to learning new things and making new connections with people.

Credibility & Your Small Business — Source: Stockphoto.com – O#23559 ID#4756320

Develop and Demonstrate Consistency

A customer or client’s ability to trust your business depends on whether you and your staff show this customer or client that your behaviors as an organization and as a person are consistent over time. People trust consistency. When a customer is able to predict your behavior, that customer is then also more likely to place their trust in you and your organization.

Be Truthful

Trust emerges when selling is approached as a way of helping someone. For a company, making it your quest to discover the areas where you and your customers can work together is important. Also, being able to point out when your company’s services or products are not the right fit for a customer or a situation is the epitome of honesty and forthrightness.

Stay Open Minded

Keep the customer’s best interests at heart and openly discuss options with them. Being narrow-minded and adopting the idea that your product is the only right choice for the customer may give a customer the sense that you do not have their best interests in mind.

Have Real Conversations

Every time you meet with a customer, have a conversation rather than slapping them with a sales pitch. Spend some time listening to your customers. Make sure the conversation has substance and is about real business issues, not just small talk.

Keep Things Professional

Customers tend to trust organizations and individuals within organizations who are serious about what they do and are willing to take the time to achieve a deep understanding of their particular tasks and overall work. Taking the time on a daily basis to learn more about your customers, their industry, and whatever challenges they have is important.

A final tip regarding credibility and your small business is to show real integrity. This means that you are willing to take a stand even when it is unpopular to do so with your customer or with your company. This does not mean you need to be adversarial, but you should have the ability to make decisions based upon what you know is right. Another way to show real integrity is to never promise what you cannot deliver.

Gaining trust and credibility is only part of the equation to success. You should also have a product or service that customers really want and need, as well as the ability to show how you are adding value, solving problems for them, etc. It’s important to remember that if you don’t earn the customer’s trust they will probably go elsewhere, even if their offering isn’t as good.

People want to feel secure in the company they are doing business with. In this regard, building trust is key to getting to any of the next steps in building a solid relationship with your target customers. This will foster the relationship as they invest in you and your brand for the long-term.

After you have already established a trusting relationship with your customers, retain it by encouraging customers to leave reviews. It will be important to avoid shortcuts, emphasize customer service, and offer loyalty programs to keep the flame burning strong.