How Telemarketing Uses Alternatives To Deal With Bad Gatekeepers

It is popularly perceived that when it comes to pitting telemarketers against gatekeepers, there is a tendency to demonize the former. Given the negative reputation that telemarketing has received, it is expected. However, it is still unfair to believe that gatekeepers are infallible.

On the contrary, they can make mistakes that can be just as frustrating as the mistakes that telemarketers make. And whether you are employing telemarketers or outsourcing them, you should try employing additional channels so that these mistakes do not stand in the way of your marketing campaign.

But first, just what are the mistakes being discussed here?

• #1 Ignoring decision maker - Some gatekeepers can be so tough and so adamant that they forget what it is they are keeping your callers from. The problem with this is that they also shut out other parties who have a right to call their decision maker. This is not just limited to your telemarketers either. It could also include workers in the same company!


• #2 Exploiting their position - If you think telemarketers have a bad image, gatekeepers are not that far off the hook either. There will always be that one person in the company who aims for the top but does so in the worst possible way. These are the schemers, the backstabbers, and in other words the people who exploit their position even though it will always be their boss who has the final say.


• #3 Being too lax or gullible - Unlike the previous two, a gatekeeper who just lets callers pass by does not seem so bad. However, it is still a mistake when your call winds up as yet another that the decision maker automatically rejects because he or she is too busy. Such gatekeepers are not doing their job (if not that, then maybe they are just a little gullible and your agents should avoid exploiting them).

Now that these bad habits have been covered, here are just some of the alternatives that can be used to bypass them and improve your B2B telemarketing success rate:

• Email - Engage with a prospect via email first and get them to give you the go signal. That way, once your agents shift back to the phone, they actually have a foothold waiting for them on the other side. This can expose hardheaded gatekeepers who are not paying any actual attention to the people they are guarding.


• Inbound website - Think of it as like your customer ordering a pizza but and they tell off whatever guard they have who gets in the way of your delivery guy. A marketing website can function in the same way. Should a badly behaved gatekeeper hold up your agent, you now have a gatekeeper who will find their attention drawn to it because it is delaying an expected call.