People have said, “Pay per appointment is the way to go”, when looking for appointment setting firms. When asked why they explain –“we received many appointments.” So – I wanted to do a little investigating to find out how it really works – and what are the advantages and disadvantages of a “Pay Per Appointment” firm.
Prior to working for EAS LeadGen, I worked for an organization that outsourced its appointment setting. We had hits and misses. But the hits and misses were with the appointments that were set. These were supposed to be legitimate leads and people interested in appointments. This firm was paid an hourly rate, it wasn’t much, and I guess, we received the quality that we paid for at this rate. But, the callers – as I will call them since I would not consider them a part of our company’s sales team, well – they received bonuses for scheduling appointments. That may be why there were so many bad appointments – or it could have been the quality. This firm is still out there.
Well – things have changed – and appointment setting companies have become more sophisticated. (This is where the investigation comes in.) Now there is something called the “point system”. Are you familiar with it? This is how if works:
Each appointment setter, (not a team member because they are in it for themselves and not for you) receives points for the number of appointments that they set. They have a minimum requirement of appointments that they need to set, then there is a threshold – which is the point they must cross to get paid a bonus. Depending on the level of ethics of the organization, the Account managers throw out some of their appointments to make it harder for them (callers) to reach their threshold. In response to these activities, the callers, to meet requirements, began to “throw up wood”. This is lots of bad appointments so THEY get paid – and this gets passed on to the clients. The incentive for the “callers” is not quality, but quantity.
So – if you are the client – you are paying top dollar per appointment. The appointment may not even be a good one, and you have people calling on your behalf, representing your company who only care about getting paid – not about setting a qualified appointment or representing your company the way it should be. Often these appointments are forced upon people. Is this how you want to be represented? As a marketing manager or a sales manager, you are still spending the money on the leads, but you are not seeing the results.
If you are given 50 appointments and 10 result in face-to-face meetings and you are able to convert 2 into sales or you are given 17 appointments and all 17 lead to face-to-face meetings and you are able to convert 7 into sales – which is better – quantity or quality?
Which gives you a better return on your investment?
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