What does a typical cold call look like today?
Your sales rep is reaching out to a potential buyer who has never interacted with your company before.
However, if you still believe your only focus should be to sell on a cold call, you’re thinking about a time in the past. This was when a cold call meant making intrusive calls, delivering your message, and hoping it resonates with your prospect.
That’s no longer the way to do it. Not only does it waste your time, money, and your sales reps’ energy, but it also leads you to face frequent rejections, resulting in high attrition. Your purpose, on the contrary, should be to move your prospects to the next step in the buying process. A cold call does that best when it’s paired with strategic prospecting. Of course, you focus on conveying your value proposition, but you must do that in your prospect’s context.
The scripts you’ll see here are refined to cover almost every scenario a cold call today comes across, making them effective cold calling scripts. The post also gives you actionable steps to take after each scenario to optimize your outreach.
Effective cold calling scripts examples
There are a lot of plain cold call scripts out there that let you reach out to prospects but end up in them hanging up on you. Recent studies indicate that approximately 90% of buyers do not respond to unsolicited inquiries, while 88% of buyers actively avoid engaging with cold callers.
This is also not a good look for your brand in the long run.
The scripts you see here are in line with today’s cold calls that have a high success rate, ensuring your cold calling scripts are effective across various industries.
Now, circling back to what we said about ‘prospect’s context’: How do you consider the context when you have an extensive list of contacts?
Solution: Branching Scripts. A branching script helps your reps say exactly what they need to at every step of the cold call, acting as an automated real-time guide. It is an interactive script that populates their screens with appropriate questions or answers based on your prospects’ responses.
Cold calls aren’t always linear; your scripts shouldn’t be either. That’s why it’s crucial to have effective cold calling scripts that adapt to various scenarios. Not every one of your prospects responds the same way to your sales pitch. Creating your scripts to accommodate every possible scenario and every response in each scenario will do the trick.
Here is one such sample cold calling script.
Cold calling script 1
The script is broken down into multiple sections, each of which is triggered based on your prospect’s response.
Pro tip: Highlight important parts of your cold call script that your agent should focus on.
Section 1
Agent: Good morning! Is this {prospect_firstname}?
*If you’ve reached the right person, i.e., prospect, mark the call disposition ANSWER, go to Section 2.*
*If it is not the prospect, go to Section 3*
*If the call was not answered, was busy, or was answered by a machine, leave a voice message (go to Section 14 for the template)*
Pro-tip: Automate the complete navigation between sections based on responses using Branching Scripts. Below is a screenshot of the interface to give you an idea.
Section 2
Agent: Hello, {prospect_firstname}! I’m {agent_firstname}, from {company_name}.
I’m calling about our [Mention your product or service] that helps you with the [Mention the value proposition of your product/service]. I have your contact because [Mention how you have their contact information]
I’ve been doing some research on {prospect_company} and found that [Mention the challenges the prospect’s company is facing as you found from your research]. I’d like to show you how {product/service} will change that.
Can I go ahead?
*Allow the prospect to answer*
*If the prospect says this isn’t a great time, go to Section 4*
*If the prospect says they’re not interested, go to Section 5*
*If the prospect says they already have the product/service from one of your competitors, go to Section 9*
*If the prospect agrees, go to Section 10*
Section 3
Agent: Oh, may I know what’s the best way to get in touch with {prospect_firstname}?
*Note down the details they give you.
- If they say the contact number doesn’t belong to {prospect_firstname} anymore, mark the contact with the call disposition DO_NOT_CALL.
- If they ask you to reach {prospect_firstname} on a different number, note down the contact details and ask the callee if you should be reaching {prospect_firstname} on the shared number henceforth.
- If they say yes, update the contact information with the shared details.
- If they say no, ask them for more details, such as who they are and if you should be expecting them to pick up the call on this number.
The second scenario is with the possibility of a gatekeeper such as a receptionist handling the cold calls, instead of a decision maker. Note down the details against your contact.
- If they ask you to call back on the same number, mark the contact with the disposition CALLBACK.
Once you get in touch with the prospect, start from Section 2.*
Section 4
Agent: What time can I call you back? I’ll be showing you how {client/customer_company} achieved [Mention a success your client/customer achieved with your product/service].
*If the contact gives you a time to call back at, mark the contact with the disposition CALLBACK and schedule a callback for the requested time. Otherwise, go to Section 7.*
Section 5
Agent: Could you tell me what the obstacle is? Is it that you don’t have time? Or do you not have the budget?
*If the prospect says they don’t have the time, go to Section 6*
*If the prospect says they don’t have the budget, go to Section 8*
*If the prospect says they already have the product/service from one of your competitors, go to Section 9*
Section 6
Agent: We can get you going in {no._of_minutes/hours}, and I can even call you back at your convenience, whatever time works best for you!
Please give me {no._of_minutes}?
*If the prospect agrees, go to Section 10*
*If the prospect doesn’t agree, go to Section 11*
*If the prospect says they aren’t sure what a good time is, go to Section 7*
Section 7
Agent: Is it okay if I check back [Mention a specific time and day]?
*If the prospect agrees, mark the contact with the disposition CALLBACK and schedule a callback for the requested time. Otherwise, go to Section 13*
Section 8
Agent: Our {product/service} lets you start with zero credits. [Explain how they can get started with a minimum budget.]
*If the prospect agrees, go to Section 10*
*If the prospect doesn’t agree, go to Section 11*
Section 9
Agent: Awesome! I know that {competitor_product/service} is great for [Mention one major problem your competitor’s product/service solves].
But, what they lack is the [Mention your USP (Unique Selling Point) and how your product/service is better in comparison with the competitor your prospect is referring to. If they don’t mention a company, stick to your USP]
*If the prospect is interested in hearing more about your proposal, go to Section 10*
*If the prospect is not interested, go to Section 11*
Section 10
Agent: Great! I’m going to set up an appointment for [the next step in your sales process- take a demo, talk to the product/service specialist, etc.]
Pro tip: Ask them a few qualifying questions to understand their problem and objective to create a personalized experience.
For instance,
- What are the biggest challenges in your role right now?
- What tools/services do you use right now to [Describe the problem]?
- What does your current process look like?
- What results do you expect to achieve in the next [Mention a timeframe]?
- What did you like the most about your current product/service and hate the most about it?
*Schedule an appointment and mark the contact as MEANINGFUL_INTERACTION. Tag the prospect as ‘Potential_client’*
Section 11
Agent: I understand. Is it okay if I send you a follow-up email with more information about what you gain from working with us? You can have a look, and I’ll follow up with you tomorrow.
*If the prospect agrees, go to Section 12*
*If the prospect doesn’t agree, go to Section 13*
Section 12
Agent: Great, I’m sending you the details right away.
*Tag the contact with their reason for not considering the offer right away and send the details*
Section 13
Agent: No worries, thank you for your time, {prospect_firstname}.
*Mark the contact as NOT_INTERESTED*
Section 14
Hello, {prospect_firstname}! I’m {agent_firstname}, from {company_name}. I’m calling about our [Mention your product or service] that helps you with the [Mention the value proposition of your product/service]. Please call me on {phone_number}. Thanks!
*Mark the call disposition as NO_ANSWER, USER_BUSY or MACHINE and LEFT_MESSAGE as relevant. Also, mark them as CALLBACK to schedule a callback.*
| Note: All these call dispositions need to be added to your campaign while you create the campaign. CallHub offers a set of default call dispositions you can choose from and lets you also create custom ones. |
Cold calling script 2: Scheduled callback
Agent: Hello, {prospect_firstname}! I’m {agent_firstname}, from {company_name}, calling you back as you asked me to. I hope now is a good time to talk. Did you get a chance to check out my email?
*If the prospect has seen your email*
Agent: Awesome! As I told you, this is a quick call to understand how best we can work together to achieve your goals.
[Continue by asking qualifying questions to understand their problem and objective before you get to the next step in your sales process]
*If the prospect has not seen your email*
Agent: No worries! Do you want to take a look now while we’re on the call? I can send you the details via text, too.
*If the prospect agrees, send them the details via a text from your call center software*
*If they say they don’t want to take a look, then ask them for a time you can check back in. Mark the contact with disposition CALLBACK and note down the time and day they’ve requested.*
| Note: CallHub’s Call Center Software lets you send a follow-up text message from right within the platform. You can save text messages that your agents can send your prospects based on their responses. |
How to create effective cold calling scripts
In this section, you’ll see 3 industry-approved effective cold-calling tips to create the most effective cold-calling scripts.
- Categorize your contacts by common attributes
Look for common attributes and create separate lists of contacts segmented as per those attributes. For example, categorize all your prospects by their industries. This helps you narrow your targeting and, therefore, personalize your sales pitch to the maximum capacity, thereby getting the prospect’s attention.
- Research your prospect
Check out each prospect’s profile on LinkedIn to personalize your approach. A buyer persona helps too. Jot down details such as
- Prospect’s role in a company
- If you’ve had a similar company as a customer/client before
- How that company has seen success with your product/service
- Get Directors on the call
If your contact list contains C-level executives, it’s better someone with a senior title gets on that cold call. A C-level executive may be more receptive to “Hi, this is the Director of…” than “Hi, I’m the sales representative at…” Then, if the conversation takes off well, you can transfer the call using your patch-through tool to your sales experts.
Next steps
80% of consumers are more likely to buy from people who provide them with a personalized experience. This is your opportunity to invest in personalization strategies and tools that accommodate those strategies.
For instance,
- Collecting more information from your prospects using surveys
- Getting a 360-degree view of your contacts while reaching out to them
- Using automated personalization tactics and features such as merge tags
Branching Scripts on CallHub’s Call Center Software helps you accommodate all of this, along with the scripts we saw above. Personalize your cold calls to improve the effectiveness of your outcome with scripts that address every direction your cold call can take.
Featured image: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
