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Education

StreetSmarts SM

“Starting in the Street

and ending at the

Merchant’s front door”
Steve Norell
How effective is third-party telemarketing?

By Steve Norell
US Merchant Services Inc.
In "Selecting the right sales model for your ISO: Five options," The Green
any of us receive unwanted telemarket- Sheet, June 12, 2017, issue 17:06:01, Aaron Nasseh described five sales
ing calls, commonly referred to as "robo- models being used by ISOs and MLSs, two of which were telesales and
calls," on our cell phones, a phenomenon we
M thought was eliminated or at least reduced appointment setting. The following excerpt from that article describes the
by the Do Not Call Registry. However, the Do Not Call pros and cons of these two options and how to make them work:
Registry, which was established by the Federal Trade
Commission in 2003, is more or less worthless when it Telesales
comes to the unending stream of calls we are all now get-
ting from overseas – where there is no way to enforce the This model often appears to be very easy, and thus it is the first
Do Not Call rules. choice of many agents. However, it quickly proves to be the most
challenging, because to succeed, it requires excellent sales team
These calls can now spoof phone numbers, so they ap- training and management.
pear to be local or from a valid caller, such as a merchant
the recipient knows. When you answer the call, you hear Merchants receive multiple calls throughout the week from
quiet for several seconds, then John from (fill in the blank) other agents, all of whom are offering them money-saving
Company tries to sell you something. Occasionally, a re- opportunities So unless you or someone working with you has
cording purporting to be an IRS agent says if you don't
send money to the impersonator, the sheriff will arrive extensive knowledge on managing and training a telesales team,
and arrest you. I strongly encourage you to think twice before making a large
investment in this model. The cost of telemarketers, phone lines
Significant downsides
and overall management of this model could be prohibitive. It
OK, so robocalls are a royal pain to people on the receiv- may be a simple model, but it's definitely not easy.
ing end of them, and if there were a way to stop them,
we all would subscribe to it. However, for quite some Appointment setting
time, numerous ISOs have used telemarketing to provide The appointment setting model is a hybrid of telesales and a feet-
leads for MLSs. Based on how annoying telemarketing/
robocalls are for most people, I think this method of lead on-the-street program. In this model, either a team of appoint-
generation is not particularly fruit bearing for ISOs and ment setters, or the sales team itself calls upon the merchants in
MLSs. Over the years, I've been approached by telemar- advance to schedule in-person appointments. I have seen many
keting companies that have promised to obtain all the agents and ISOs have great success with this model. Nevertheless,
leads I could handle if I'd let them make calls for me. I to succeed, this also requires excellent management and training
was tempted, but my one rule was that the calls had to
originate from inside the United States. As you can guess, of your team.
not one of them could promise that, so our conversations One word of caution: the success of this model has also led to the
went nowhere.
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