Appointment Scheduling Quotient

Appointment Scheduling Quotient (A.S.Q.)

In this article I’m going to address the frustrations canvassers will experience at the door in an effort to improve their lead capture conversions to appointments.  There are a number of objections and stalls a homeowner can give you at the door.

What can we do to increase the appointment scheduling ratio (A.S.Q.) of scheduling appointments at the door?  Understand first that not everybody is going to be able to schedule an appointment due to real circumstances.  These are likely still good leads, but they will have legitimate reasons for not being able to set an appointment.  However, it’s my intention to address what the quotient should be for a canvasser scheduling appointments.

A phone confirmer will often prefer to call a tentative appointment to confirm as opposed to trying to get them into an appointment.  The difference is that setting even a tentative appointment you have them into a soft commitment.  So when the confirmer calls the tentative appointment back they’ll likely know their actual schedule by then.  Even if the appointment has to be rescheduled at that point, it’s easier than trying to get them into an appointment because in their mind they’ve made a commitment.  Whereas walking away from the door without some commitment it’s easier for the homeowner to avoid committing to an appointment over the phone.  So the key is to schedule some type of appointment at the door even if it’s only tentative.

The order of appointment setting when you get the lead

Those using my system always transition with, “Great, we’ll get you that information” and then move directly into my Rule of 6 getting the homeowner into the agreement pattern, which makes it easier to schedule the appointment.

To recap, my Rule of 6 uses the following to put the homeowner into the agreement pattern:
1.      House street number
2.      Street name
3.      Road, avenue, boulevard, etc.
4.      City
5.      Zip code
6.      Phone area code

And then you move into asking for more personal information such as the rest of the phone number, spouse’s name, etc.  Even when a homeowner gives you a ‘layup’, someone who immediately says yes I’m available for an appointment and you get excited, you should follow my rule of six.  If you don’t follow my rule of six you run the risk of them bailing on the appointment along the way and you get shut out of getting their contact information.  Especially if you get caught in the ping pong game of bantering back and forth on trying to find a day and time that’s convenient for them.  You’ll go back and forth and eventually the prospect will throw up their hands in frustration and they tell you they’ll call you when they get some free time.  If you try to get their contact info at this point you’ll most likely get resistance and lose the lead… I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

You have to stick to the order, stay disciplined to going down the contact sheet to capture all their information.  The formula is to stick to the system.

Now you have control of the lead

Now that you have the prospect’s entire contact information take a breath before you move on.  You have all their information so if some reason they can’t schedule an appointment you can follow up with them.  Just relax at this point and your voice and body language will reflect your comfort and increase the percentage of converting them to an appointment.

Think about the prospect’s mindset at this point.  What was the prospect doing or thinking about before you knocked on their door?  I can assure you it wasn’t about replacement windows, financial planning, siding, gutters, pre-need funeral services, Internet-T.V. services or anything else you’re there to talk to them about.  The following list is the reality of the prospects mindset.
1.      You’ve only been there about a minute before you’re into trying to tell them who you are and why you’re there.
2.      They’re trying to catch up to you by the time you’re into a presentation and they’re still trying to grasp who you are and why you’re there.
3.      No one ever wants to be sold.  Once they catch up with you they realize they may be into a selling situation.  Their defenses may go up.
4.      Even if they accept your offer right off the bat they don’t know what the process will be, so they still have a lot of questions and these question will prevent them from committing to anything.
5.      And lastly, you’re generally only talking to one person and they don’t or won’t know what their schedule is, let alone their spouse’s schedule.

It’s no wonder I see so many canvassers getting hung up on trying to schedule appointments because often the canvasser never considers the canvassing experience from the prospect’s point of view.

Once you get to the point of scheduling the appointment, what can you do to lower their guard?  The following are typical stalls I hear from prospects to avoid making an appointment.
1.      I’m really busy, you’re lucky you caught me.
2.      My schedule’s always changing.
3.      I just don’t know or I have to talk to my spouse.

These are typical stalls people will use to put off making a commitment for the appointment.  And keep in mind we’re at the point we’ve already gotten their contact information.

I use a transition to get them set up for scheduling the appointment.  The way I do it is using alternative choice questions.  A key point of influence in moving people in the direction you want them is in giving them alternative choice questions that are acceptable to you regardless of which they pick.  For example, if I were to ask my child if he wants vegetables with dinner his choice is yes or no and I’m probably going to hear no. However, if I change the question to do you want carrots or broccoli the option of having vegetables or not is off the table, he has to choose between the two I offered.  Yes, he can still say I don’t want any, but he, like the prospect, will be fighting instinctive tendencies to pick between the two … it’s just how the brain works.  I don’t care which he picks as long as he eats his vegetables.  I don’t care what day or time a homeowner picks for an appointment as long as they pick one and I set the appointment.

When I get to this point in the presentation, I use an alternative choice question.  Understand something when you read this question,  I’m presenting the question as if we’re already out there talking to people and meeting on appointments already.  I’m conveying that I’m already going to be in the area and not making a special trip just for them. Remember, your job as a canvasser is to get a sales person into their home to make a presentation.  Regardless what the prospect thinks or says at this point is not important.  It’s more common than not for a sales rep to go into a home and the homeowner’s telling him or her they’re not in a position to do anything right now and two hours later they’re signing a contract and they are as happy as can be.  The sales people have their skill, but they can’t apply their skill unless they get in front of the prospect.  They can’t do their job unless you do yours.

Here’s the scripting:

“We’re going to be out here (doing work or meeting with many of your neighbors) the rest of this week and next.  So with that in mind, are you generally around during the evenings, day times or weekends?”

Notice that the times are very general. I keep the times open and vague because I don’t want them to feel pressured into a specific day or time yet.  This first alternative choice question is the first step; it’s very easy for them to pick a general time during an entire week, and not feel they’ve actually committed to anything yet.  At the end make sure you ask for a commitment.  You can help them along by saying, “you’re home now in the evening would it be safe to assume this would be a good time for you?”

Let’s say they pick evenings, now you have a general commitment.  Next you pick the next three days in the evening when you have appointments available.  For example, “we have appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, which of those days would be best for you.”  Now you’ve narrowed them into a specific day.  If they don’t like any of your choices, give them the next set of choices.  Typically by the second set of choices they’re picking a day.

Now that you have a commitment to a specific day you want to narrow into a time.  In my example for an evening appointment I’ll ask when they generally get home.  For example if they pick Wednesday evening as convenient and they say they usually get home at 5:30pm I’ll start with times at least 30-minutes after they say they arrive home so they have time to get in and not be rushed into an appointment.  So I’d say, “Ok, Wednesday evenings are good for you and you get home at 5:30, I have times available at 6 or 7pm, which would be better for you?”

Let me recap the steps for setting an appointment:
1.      Start with general times
2.      Pick 3 specific days for appointments
3.      Give 2 specific appointment times on the day they picked

You can encounter objections as you go through the 3 stages for scheduling the appointment.  When this happens, use the following script.

“I understand you may not know, but if you had to take your best guess, when do you think would work best?”  Here are the 3 key phrases you can interject into the question to soften it;
1.      What would be your best guess
2.      If you had to take a shot in the dark
3.      Out of curiosity – Which one would be the best day to catch you?

This makes is sound like you’re not trying to pin them into an appointment.

The skeptical ones

I’m a big proponent of validation.  I expect every lead set in the day to be followed up and validated by a third party, someone other than the canvasser.  There are several ways you can do this.

At this point I challenge you to go back and practice and roll play getting the lead, capturing the contact information and going through the steps of setting the appointment.

I encourage you to go back and review the audio CD from my Silver Level Telecoaching call (May 15, 2013) to hear more details and additional examples of each step that I discussed in this article for increasing your Appointment Scheduling Quotient.