Telemarketing Software Featured Article

VanillaSoft officials say the company has released new features within its Appointment Setting Software platform.

The improvements are designed to enhance VanillaSoft's appeal to companies engaged in setting appointments for their own in-house sales team, company officials say, “or for professional service bureaus setting appointments for their clients.”

The new release is described as “a vast improvement over basic telesales software and lead management software... focused on driving better qualified appointments and more appointments.”

Last month TMC’s (News - Alert) Juliana Kenny reported that Fonality (News - Alert) and VanillaSoft announced a partnership to unite the two software providers to supply sales centers with feature-rich hosting.

Ken Murray, President of VanillaSoft, outlined what he sees as three advantages of the new features.

Sophisticated calendaring. Appointment setting “requires precise calendaring,” Murray said, adding that appointment setting software “should do a few things really well: allow the appointment setters and the appointment receivers to clearly communicate availability, quotas and placement of appointments onto the calendar, allow calendar blocking and, of course, e-mail notification when an appointment has been added to a calendar.”

Prospect research. Cold calling is more challenging. Smart sales teams, Murray says, are deploying tools that “allow the appointment setter to gain some insight into the prospect being targeted for the appointment.” The idea here, Murray says, is that “a little research can go a long way,” and why not have your appointment software do the work for you?

Closed loop reprinting. In Murray’s view, reporting should include not only what is getting booked, “but also what the results of the appointment are once the salesperson has run them.”

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