During a semester break, I answered a newspaper ad looking for telemarketers to promote a holiday resort in Cameron Highlands.
After qualifying the phone interview, I went up to a hotel room at Merlin Hotel (now Dorset Hotel) in Penang and met a friendly 30-something year old American in a business suit.
The two adjoining hotel rooms had cubicles flanked against the wall and around 15-20 young men, young women and middle-aged women sat or stood chatting in clusters around the rooms.
(Photo from here)
A tall, middle-aged lady with a bouffant hairstyle called out,
“Rick, I need coffee! Where’s the coffee???”
She mimicked the shivering hands of a drug addict suffering from withrdrawal symptoms and burst out laughing.
“Coffee coming right up, Dayang!”
Turning back to me, Rick passed me a application form to fill and then gave me an overview of the job scope:
“We are promoting membership packages for a new holiday resort in Cameron Highlands. It’s a fantastic package with great discounts for early bird sign-ups. It’s such a great package that YOU may even want to get yourself one! (winks at me.)
All you need to do is call up prospective customers, tell them about the deal and then sign them up. Because this deal is only for customers with credit cards, I’m afraid we’ll have to tell those who’s only got cash ‘I’m sorry, ma’am or sir, but we can only process credit cards at this moment.’
OK, let me show you to your cubicle where you can review the brochures and the telephone script. Then, we’ll let you try out a few warm-up phone calls. When you need a break, feel free to help yourself to water, coffee or tea and cookies set up over there.
If you have any questions, I’ll be right around the corner, ok? Now, ready to start your first sale? Alright, let’s go and get them!!!”
(Sample telemarketing script from here.)
Infected by Rick’s enthusiasm, I went to my cubicle and surveyed the telemarketer’s tools:
- a push-button telephone;
- a telephone script printed out in 40 point fonts that summarized the benefits of the package;
- a stack of postcard-sized cards to fill in the buyer’s details;
- a list of effective telephone skills;
- a list of possible reasons/excuses the prospect may give along with the suggested answers to each of them;
- a note pad and a pen and
- a telephone directory with a marker on the pages starting with CHE- .
After reading the brochures, I read aloud the telephone script and pretended that I was talking to a prospect. Bored with the role-play, I decided to call my first prospect especially when the rooms came to live when the other telemarketers started burning up the phone lines…
I took a deep breath, smiled and waited for Prospect No. 1 to pick up the phone.
“Hello! My name is Christine and I’m calling to tell you about an exciting new holiday in Cameron Highlands…”
“Hewwo?” a child’s voice piped up.
Oops! The training manual didn’t include ‘how to handle an underaged prospect’ (grins).
“Hello! Is your Mummy home?” I asked.
“MAAAAAA…MEEEEEEE”
the child yelled into the phone. A lady, who sounded as if she had been sweating over a boiling pot, took over.
“Hello?”
“Hello! My name is Christine and I’m calling to tell you about an exciting offer for a new holiday in Cameron Highlands…”
“What? Who are you? How did you get my number?”
In the early 90s, telemarketing was still in its infancy in Malaysia. The lady sounded annoyed and worried but we were trained to say that a good friend recommended them but I doubt she bought the story.
Although I tried pitching the package as a great family holiday, she wasn’t in the mood and quickly ended the call.
Ugh…telemarketing isn’t easy and getting my first rejection was deflating but it prepared me for the next calls. After calling a few more, I finally got a man WITH a credit card who WANTED to buy the package!
Getting my first sale was like getting a Grammy because Rick made a big announcement and everyone clapped and cheered enthusiastically and then added my name with a single / (stroke) next to it to the list of successful salespeople on a flipchart.
As the days passed, calling prospects got easier but getting sales wasn’t. Soon, another uni student and I learned that the successful telemarketers e.g. had their own list of prospects and would make at least 10 sales a day.
Listening to them banter, charm, cajole, chat and joke with their prospects taught me that a bubbly and likeable personality was key to connecting with customers. Also, speed is essential in the art of selling (i.e. hesitation will save you lots of money!).
Dayang turned out to be a really nice old lady although she looked imposing (probably due to her height, bouffant hairstyle and piercing eyes). When she saw me hang up with yet another “I’ll think about it”, she told me,
“You’re doing fine…don’t chat with them too much. Go straight to the sale” and flashed me a big smile and a thumbs-up sign.
I appreciated her encouragement but by the fourth week, my new uni friend and I were prepared for the BIG TALK from Rick who said that we needed to make at least 20 sales a week to stay on (and enjoy the cookies). All in all, I earned RM450 plus the commission from my sales.
Thankfully, my new uni friend roped me in to join a market research company where we earned between RM5-RM50 for each interview. We only had to find the targeted demographics. Market research was more up our alley as we enjoyed interviewing people (minus the pressure of sales targets) and getting paid for it :-)
In case you’re up for telemarketing, here’s a list of telemarketing tips. Good luck!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you know of any jobs going in Brisbane that do telemarketing for holiday resorts? I have previous experience in this and am interested in acquiring another position. Thanks Heather
Heather – I’m afraid I have no idea about such vacancies. Have you tried looking through the newspapers or job ads online?
Try typing “telemarketing jobs Brisbane” in Google and I’m sure you’ll find lots. I found this through the classifieds section of our local newspaper. Good luck!