Call Principles

Contrary to what you may think, your job is NOT primarily to set evaluations; it’s to act as a gatekeeper, to protect the Eval Pro from wasting time with prospects who aren’t qualified or ready to get started. If you do that, then the Eval Pro will ONLY spend his/her time with the dog families looking to get started immediately and who are qualified.

So, this job is about fielding questions (how young do you start training a puppy? How much is it? Do I have to have good credit to use the Train Now-Pay Later program?), qualifying the callers who think they want to work with us and setting expectations for the evaluation and the training program.

All 3 components are mission-critical, or else it’ll result in lots of wasted time, confusion, lost deals and refunds. We know because we’ve been there and have built our system to prevent all of these mistakes that we made early on.

Prioritization. It is easy to get bogged down with lots of incoming calls and new leads. When starting your work day prioritize this way: Incoming calls are always most important. Call the new leads. Then call the missed calls from the day before.

Book ASAP. Book people as soon as possible because the faster we can book them in, the higher the likelihood they decide to work with us.

Use The Proper Area Code. ***** If you are making a Nashville call, use the Nashville Number. If you are making a Memphis call, use the Memphis number. Always line up the service area and the the phone number!!!!!!!***** People get so many spam calls these days people will not answer a call from a 1800 or 888 number. So use the local area code. If you need help with identifying which is which, please let a manager know.

Smile on the Phone. Smile while on the phone because they can hear it. If you aren’t in the mood to smile, then force a smile on your face for 10 seconds and you’ll naturally smile after that.

Searching for People in the Database. Its ok to take a moment to search for an prospect or client in our database so that you don’t have to ask them for all of their info, but if they aren’t in there, don’t make new callers wait as you fumble around adding them to the database (unless you are fast at it), but simply write it down and type it in later. The shorter the call, the better.

Background Noise. If there’s noise in the background of your house - barking, kids, sirens, construction, etc - JUST FACE IT. Simply apologize and let them know that you’re working from home tonight. It makes you sound more real and personable to say so, but if you ignore it, it can actually cause disrespect and doubt as if we are a shabby hole-in-the-wall answering calls from our living room with the TV on. Make sense?

Fumbling Over the Scripts. If you keep fumbling over the script, JUST FACE IT. Just apologize because we’ve just given you a new process to ensure that the dog evaluations are set up correctly, and then just ask if you can ask that question again. Acknowledging it makes it so much better and makes you more personable.

Assertive People. No matter what they say, take it like a wave taking a punch: we answer their question and then we get right back on script, not letting anything distract us from the process. Sometimes you’ll have a driven or very assertive person ask question after question. It is ok to go with them for a while, but at some point you’ll need to tell them to hold their questions so that you can go through the process. Most of them will understand and submit to it.

Practicing to Create Brain Grooves. Practice the script over and over and over 50 to 100 times by yourself in the quiet, creates neural pathways in your brain so that when it comes time to do it live, you will find yourself falling on those words like you cut a trench or like a record is cut.

Put Everyone in the database. When people call in, we may only have a name and number, but we need to put everyone in the DB. The reason for this is because it helps us track marketing and it also puts them on the call list if they didn’t book.

Control The Frame & Pace. When people are calling in, it is up to you to set the pacing and the frame of the call. Do this by referencing your script.

Never Make Calls From The Car or In Busy Areas. If you’re on the clock, you need to be by your computer and ready to work and take incoming calls. You should not be away from your computer. If you do somehow find yourself on the clock and not at your computer (not a great look, btw), you should 100% not be taking calls from the car or in busy/loud areas. We say this for a couple reasons. One, you won’t have the script pulled up and your tools available. Two, they can hear you’re in the car and it isn’t professional. Three, it isn’t safe. Four, you aren’t giving your 100% effort which is unacceptable and going to cost the company money and opportunity.

No Second Evals. If someone has already had a Free In-Home Eval and did not buy the training the first time, they do not get a second free evaluation. If you find yourself on the phone with someone who has had a free eval already and didn’t buy the training, we need to pass them off to the Eval Pro so he/she can talk to them over the phone and do a phone evaluation. So you can book them in for a 30 minute phone Eval or if the EP isn’t busy at the time you’re chatting with the person, you can have him/her call then!

When They Just Want Price. Always start by trying to get some more info about them and direct them back to your script. If they continue to interrupt or just ask about the price, then stop them and ask in a diplomatic way and tell them “I can give you a range of our program prices. It is tailored to the dog, your needs and level of training. But before I do that, are you just basing your decision on price? Or do you care about the quality of the service? Because we aren’t the cheapest and if that is what you are going for, we probably aren’t the trainers for you."

Wait on their reply and if they are just concerned with the price, then give them the range. Note: This can be taken as aggressive or pushy, so make sure to be diplomatic here.

Call backs. NEVER trust someone to call you back. Always ask them when you will hear back from them and tell them you will call them back if don’t hear from them. It is our job to book appointment and screen people to not book. We care more than they do, so it is our job to follow up with them if they don’t book on the spot.

If they text or email before calling. As TA’s we are so excited to get people on the phone with us to be able to book them in and get them an eval that we can jump the gun in a few certain areas. So if someone emails or texts in before talking to us on the phone, it is better to build some rapport over the text or email before asking them to just jump on a call with us. If they ask about the price over text or email, then ask them some basic info about their dog and after a few texts or emails, ask them to hop on a call to iron out the rest of the details.

Get used to being hung up on and people saying they didn’t fill out the form. Part of being on a team that makes calls is getting used to being hung up on. It’s just part of the game. People go through the trouble of clicking an ad, going to our site, filling the form out and then not wanting to talk. You call, they pick up and then they hang up. It just happens. So, get used to it. There’s also a special type of person out there that fills out the form and then says they DIDN’T fill out the form… when they did in fact fill out a form. So, get used to this too. Move on to the next one and book the ones who actually care into the schedule.