But here are some things to consider before you change that script!

Ask yourself, how often do you make significant changes to your sales scripts? If it is too frequently (more than once per month) then your sales agents may not have a chance to get comfortable with the script before a new script is rolled out.

On the flip-side, if you change your script less than twice per quarter, your agents may become too comfortable with the script, almost to the point of being bored. Listen to your agents closely, unless they are memorizing legal confirmation statements that have to be repeated a number of times throughout the sale, if your agents have memorized any other portion of the script, it is time for change.

How do you tell if it is time to tweak the sales script?

Review your script from time to time, and see if it’s still leading to some form of lead capture. Ultimately, your script should lead to a sale, customer contact information (a lead), a request for more information, or an invite to a future contact from your business. Look at sales performance on a weekly basis. If you are noticing a trend where results are dropping, then it’s time to work with your agents to change the script. That’s right! Work with the sales representative and listen to their suggestions, and follow these steps before rolling out a new script:

1. Ask your sales agents. After all, they are where the rubber meets the road. They know first hand the objections that they have to overcome day to day. They listen to your customers and know what they want.

2. Add your own suggestions, but only after doing research on customer response and retention. Knowing the demographics of your customer can be the deciding factor on whether they want to be enrolled in a health forum that they access online, or prefer to receive the monthly newsletter in the mail.

3. Thirdly (this is probably the most overlooked step), evaluate how the agents are compensated. Are the agents incentified to pitch the continuity (aka autos-ship) or do they make more money if they sell the year supply? The customer is going to buy what sells and the sales agents are going to sell what pays. I cannot tell you how many times a new script is rolled out and the auto-ship price is dropped but the auto-ship conversion doesn’t go up, just to find out that the call center pays .50 for each auto-ship but $1 for every buy club. If you were a commissioned agent, what pitch would you put your focus on?

And of course, there is no rule that says that you cannot test a new script with a controlled group of seasoned agents and/or revert back to the original script after a couple of weeks if performance takes a nose-dive.

As long as your goals are clearly communicated with your call center and agents, every script change should go smoothly.

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I recently read and got a few good laughs about the drama with Video Professor from a few months back.  The basic gist is that Video Professor is suing more than 100 anonymous Internet posters over derogatory comments that they made about Video Professor’s business.  That’s right, suing anonymous internet posters on the site infomercialscams.com.   From arstechnica:

The company’s federal complaint is a strange read, since it does not identify even a single false and defamatory statement; it simply asserts the existence of such statements somewhere on The Interwebs. Despite that, the company was able to obtain a subpoena to obtain the information it is seeking.

Unfortunately it is instances like these that can certainly propagate the image of infomercials (and the products behind them) as non-legitimate business.  It certainly signals a problem when a company gets a lot of negative feedback on the web (and 615 complaints with the BBB, albeit most of them resolved) and can often hurt other marketers using the same medium.

So what ARE marketers to do about anonymous web feedback?  For starters you can play defense - respond to every complaint, constantly monitor via search engines what boards are messaging about your product, and actively seek to make the wrongs right.  For long term success though you have to play offense - that means having a great product, building a great brand that meets a consumer need, and empowering your employees to build lifetime customers.  It’s easier said then done but probably better than finding yourself in the position of the founder of Video Professor:

“I personally do not believe that you can be anonymous and bash people and get away with it under the First Amendment. I will stay with this case, and I will get the names that I am requesting. I will pursue this until the Supreme Court tells me I can’t get them.”

Personally I think heading all the way to the Supreme Court to “get them” is not quite the ideal customer relationship dynamic I’d be hoping for.

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