Increase Cold Calling Productivity With Skype

Not only is Skype useful for the day to day calls made as part of your business, it also has an even more powerful application whereby it can increase the productivity of your cold calling - particularly if you are a large volume user. Certain features of the Skype service make it an advanced solution for completing those cold-calls even more quickly than using a standard telephone. Read on to find out how to increase your marketing team’s productivity by utilising Skype…

As I mentioned in one of our previous telephony blog posts, Skype is a Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) telephone package which can be used wherever you have a broadband internet connection and a headset/microphone combo, or with a handheld USB phone. With many airports, service stations and even trains now featuring Wireless Access points, you can even access it when on the go.

One-Click Dialling From Your Browser

The Skype Add-In for Internet Explorer (or Firefox for that matter) is a simple toolbar that installs into your web browser, and any numbers that then appear on the website you are viewing are highlighted with a little Skype icon. Rather than having to type each number into your phone, or into Skype, if you click the phone number on the website then Skype will automatically call that number. This does however, require you to have SkypeOut credit, as described in a previous article. The add-in also allows you to display your Skype contact list on the left-hand side of your browser, so when you are visiting a website you are just a click away from calling your contacts as well.

Skype As A Cold-Calling Time Saving Tool

If like me you prefer not to be cold-calling, then why not reduce the time you spend doing it not by reducing the amount of calls, but by increasing your productivity. Alternatively if ‘distance selling’ is your thing then you can use the time saved to make even more calls, and hopefully get more sales! So how exactly is Skype useful as a cold-calling tool:

1. Call History Log - Rather than having to log all calls you make into your CRM system, Skype records these in its history log, which can be filtered to show either outbound or inbound calls or voicemails. What’s more, this history is ’searchable’.
2. CRM Integration - If you prefer to go one step further, Skype can be integrated into your CRM package. Salesforce.com is one example of a CRM solution which offers Skype integration. See http://www.skype.com/business/skype-in-salesforce.html for more details about the integration. I’m sure that other CRM providers will also offer these plugins, but Salesforce is the most well known.
3. Low Call Rates - Whilst this one won’t increase your productivity, it will definitely save you money - with extremely low call rates with SkypeOut, you will probably save money with Skype rather than your existing landline telephone provider.

Skype Add-In for Your Browser & Spreadsheet Cold Calling :: The Golden Egg

If you currently call new leads or prospects from an Excel spreadsheet, and are manually dialling the number into your standard telephone keypad then you really should pay attention now. This little tip could potentially save you hours over the course of a cold-calling day!

In your Excel spreadsheet, go to “Save As” and then choose “Single Web Page” as the file type, and save it somewhere memorable such as your desktop. Then go to your web browser and click “File” –> “Open” and open the file you just saved. This will appear as a web page, and once you have installed the Skype Add-In for Internet Explorer as described previously, even if you have 1,000 numbers row after row, they will all light up with the Skype symbol, meaning that you can just click on them and Skype will connect the call.

This really does have the potential to save hours of time, and hopefully take some of the drudgery away from cold-calling. If you have any comments or experience using Skype for business applications then please feel free to leave a comment and let us know.

Download Skype now and start making productivity gains!

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Tags: cold calling, skype cold calling, business phone, phone productivity, voip