Appointment Setter

As a business owner, you know that every minute counts. That’s why it’s important to have an appointment setter on your team—someone who can contact potential customers and book appointments for you.

But how do you know if an appointment maker is a good investment for your business? And what should you look for when hiring one? Keep reading to find out!

An appointment setter virtual assistant (VA) is a remote or work-from-home appointment setter. Because of the nature of the job, setting appointments is a natural fit for remote work.

Virtual assistant appointment setters can do all the same things as a local appointment setter can—from wherever they are in the world. They can handle cold calls, answer incoming calls, create a database of prospective customers or potential clients, and fill up the calendar of each sales representative in your company.

So, how does the appointment setter help your business? First, they can call existing satisfied customers, which is an established marketing strategy for many companies. These are excellent leads for sales teams because they are already familiar with your company.
They can also make cold calls to prospective clients. You can even find VAs that provide more specialized services to your particular industry or niche, from real estate to ecommerce.
Here are some of the most common tasks you can outsource to an appointment setter:

Cold Calling

Cold calling is one of the top tasks companies outsource to a phone appointment setter VA. This type of VA can make phone calls to potential customers from your list of contacts, schedule appointments, and record the results.

Set Appointments

You can give your appointment setter and closer a calendar with dates that you or other sales reps are available and let your virtual assistant handle everything else. They can work on populating your calendar by setting up and confirming appointments through email, phone, or chat.

Database Building

For sales teams that work on various accounts, building a database of prospective clients is a vital task that can be outsourced to a virtual assistant. A successful appointment setter will have experience building databases from scratch and know how to segment different clients based on demographics, industry, potential value, etc.

Inbound Calls

Many online entrepreneurs and small business owners outsource the handling of incoming phone calls to their remote staff as well. It’s a great way to free up your own time and create more opportunities for your VA.

Send Reminders and Follow-Ups

If someone books an appointment with your business, you can hire a virtual assistant to follow up with them before the date of their appointment. They will send out reminder emails and ensure that everything’s on track. This is a great task for your appointment setter because it requires follow-up skills, strong communication skills, and the ability to show initiative.

Sales and Lead Generation

If you want more leads, get a lead generation virtual assistant! To start, you can hire an appointment setter VA and give them a list of potential customers such as decision-makers at big firms in your area or target market. Your VA will reach out to them via email or call, set appointments for your sales reps, and collect feedback from existing clients.

As you can see, appointment setting is a versatile task that many different companies can benefit from. You’ll find that there is a wide variety of virtual assistants with different skill levels and niche industries that can support you with your appointment setting requirements (and more!).

Once you have determined that hiring an appointment setter or a team of appointment setters is what your company needs to increase sales, it’s time to find the right appointment setter for the job. But before you set out job ads to find candidates, it’s essential to know the top skills of an appointment setter you should look out for.

Here are some of the skills you need to look for in an appointment setter.

Great Interpersonal Skills

Those working on appointment setter jobs should be able to handle a wide range of situations and personalities.

Your appointment setter needs to be able to handle all types of relationships well, not just business or customer relationships. Skills like empathy, communicativeness, and assertiveness are all great for this job because you want someone who will encourage the client to book that sales appointment with your sales reps.

Strong Communication Skills

Since appointment setters typically interact with current and potential clients, they need strong communication skills. This means being able to speak clearly and persuasively and having the ability to listen well. It is important that you find an appointment setter who communicates well through email, phone calls, or other messaging mediums, depending on your business needs.

A Positive Attitude

When you are looking for an appointment setter to work with your team, you want someone who gets along well with others. The person must have a positive attitude towards not only clients and customers but also towards their co-workers. Strong communication skills can go a long way in this regard because these skills will allow the appointment setter to work well with others.

Sales Skills

Basic sales skills are necessary for this position, as the virtual assistant must be able to set appointments based on what your sales reps say and then communicate that information effectively back to them. They also need strong follow-up skills because it usually takes multiple calls or emails to schedule an appointment.

When it comes to hiring an appointment setter VA, you can go through the usual channels such as placing job ads on online job boards or freelance platforms. You can also rely on referrals from friends or owners of other companies or scour online groups and forums to look for appointment setters.

But while there are plenty of helpful resources that can help you with the hiring process, doing all of these yourself can be laborious and stressful. The easiest way to find great candidates for your appointment setter position is to work with a company specializing in virtual staffing services.

At 20four7VA, part of our process is making it easier for new clients to hire by sending candidates that are already pre-screened and pre-qualified. We’ll scour our large pool of global remote talents to find the best candidates that match your approved appointment setter job description.

Aside from matching you with the best appointment setters for the job, 20four7VA offers top-notch support to help make remote staffing much more effective for you and your VA. Our support staff can provide necessary appointment setting training to ensure your chosen VA completes their appointment setter tasks to the highest standard. We can also provide a wide range of services, including VA management and payroll processing to help you save even more time and energy.

Ready to find the right appointment setter to strengthen your sales team? Book a call with our Business Success Specialists today!