Reading scripts and pushing buttons
Hiring phone salespeople and giving them a script used to make sense. Throw enough human spam at the population and sooner or later, you might make a profit.
The person who responded to my web query the other day was doing a great job of working with his script. It didn’t really sound like him, but he was grabbing bits and pieces and pushing hard.
What he wasn’t doing was listening.
He hadn’t been empowered or trained to ask questions, and he used every gap in the conversation to read another part of his script.
And when I spoke up, it didn’t matter what I said, it was back to the script.
This is a waste. A waste for me, a waste for him and a waste for the people who hired him.
Sales have been around a long time. They’re not going away. But they work best when they are a transfer of emotion, an actual human connection and a dialogue.
If all you’re going to do is read a script, best to put it on your website instead.