Appointment Setting: Was I Duped?
Posted by Michael Damphousse on Mon, Mar 01, 2010 @ 12:50 PM
In the collection of appointment setting techniques I've seen before, I've never seen the one that I fell victim to this week. Interestingly, if Green Leads did this for our clients we would soon be one a B2B Appointment Setting Vendor that had a tainted reputation.
The dupe: I got an unsolicited calendar invite in my inbox with a bridge number, date and time.
My week is comprised of 5-8 appointments per day. I figured, what's one more? Must be someone I've been talking with or met at a conference. Well, that's what they want you to think. Before I researched it and canceled, the date and time was here.
I dial in, and on the line was Rick. He was selling a "SaaS telecom/VoIP solution for small to medium sized businesses." Are you kidding? An introductory appointment from an unsolicited calendar invite? How much did Rick pay for that? $9.99? I back-tracked the source and found a company specializing in appointments for janitorial services, credit repair and life insurance brokers. The sick part...when you type "appointment setting" in google, they show up on page one.
Reminds me of the appointment setting tactic I saw three months ago: "take this web demo and we'll send you a $25 Starbucks card." I'm sure they are selling the appointment for far more, and the vendor is suffering from ROI-paralysis.
I'll stand by our quality appointment setting methodology and keep chuckling.
How low can you go? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.