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Sales Qualified appointments are a dream for many business owners, but TLM can make it happen with a personalized email marketing campaign. Our process has been vetted for many years to get positive results. We have expertise across various industries, but 96% of our customer base comprises MSPs across the United States, Australia, and Canada.

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Appointment Scheduling is a process that happens once we identify interest from a particular prospect for a specific type of service.

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For example, if we identify a contact for an Edison-based MSP, we will put them in our personalized campaign engine. After that, if we get a response from their owner or any decision maker, our lead identification team will ask whether they would like to meet over a phone call, virtual bridge, or in person. Based on the response, we schedule those appointments. They will be on your calendar, and beyond that point, it will be your responsibility to take that meeting to the proposal or on-site step.

We do manage the post-lead call process as well, but it comes as an add-on and is not included in the basic packages.

Appointment scheduling might seem like an easy process, but this is the step where we book the appointments, and hence we cannot go wrong with anything. It includes:

Identifying the neutral to positive response
Replying to the prospect
Exchanging schedules
Setting up the appointment on the calendar
Sending them a no-obligation form to know more about their infrastructure

Identifying the Neutral to Positive Responses

If you are doing email marketing, you might receive many useful to useless emails in the process, and you need to deal with all of them. Understanding which ones are important and which ones are not is part of the game. We need to keep an eye on anything and everything that comes into the agent's inbox. For example, if you’re sending 1800 emails per day from an agent, you might get many automatic reply emails, some sales emails, "not interested" emails, and some neutral to positive emails. The identification process itself is very complicated. You might miss an opportunity because you might think that it is not an interesting response.

“Every email could hold a missed opportunity”

Neutral to positive responses include:

Emails asking about pricing: These emails might be more focused on asking the pricing of services and not committing time for the meeting. You need to handle such situations very carefully. This could become a missed opportunity if not handled well.
Emails asking for references: If a person is partially interested in our services but wants to do due diligence, they would ask for references upfront without even meeting the team. If we handle such emails properly, you won’t find any problem with appointment scheduling.
Emails asking technical questions: If you are an MSP, there are more chances that the prospect might open up with their needs and ask some technical questions like server upgrading, patch management, M365, etc. These questions should be handled well.
Emails about the right decision maker: If the prospect who received the email is not the right decision maker, they might introduce us to the right person or just give us their first name, leaving us clueless. Our team is capable enough to get those email addresses and reach out to them instead.
Emails about a later reach out: Not every response will be positive. Some might defer the discussion because of current priorities. It is important to know when is the right time to reach out and how to handle such emails and get an acknowledgment of the situation.

Replying to Prospects

Replying to prospects is an art that cannot be mastered easily. At TLM, we deal with 100,000+ responses daily, identify all these responses, and categorize them into neutral, positive, and negative responses. Based on the type of response, we take the next step.

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“Every prospect deserves a thoughtful response; at TLM, we make sure that happens”

You might also see some responses that need to be handled carefully as they might be annoyed by receiving these marketing emails. Also, prospects asking for pricing is a unique case. For an MSP, you cannot give pricing over the email. It should be a scheduled call where we ask the prospect for the time and set up the call. Handling these responses requires expertise and the right team.

‍Talk to us to learn more about how we handle such situations.

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Exchanging Schedules

After response handling, the most important part of appointment scheduling is exchanging schedules. It is important to have schedules exchanged. Giving a couple of schedule options is important so we can schedule the appointment in one email, rather than going back and forth with the prospects.

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Setting up the Appointment on the Calendar

This step is extremely important for an agency so we do not mess up the invites and can schedule it correctly the first time. We need to be clear on the schedule and ensure all parties are fine with the discussed time slot. Do not send the invite unless you have confirmation from all parties. Once everything is set, you can send the invite, and please make sure to check the acceptance, because you need to be sure they are coming to the meeting. Sometimes, people do not accept invitations, which creates confusion. You need to be careful with what you say to them to avoid annoying them while seeking their acknowledgment.

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Sending a No-Obligation Form to Learn More about Their Infrastructure

After setting up the invite on the calendar, it is recommended to send out a form requesting some pre-call information. It could be optional but would make the call productive. The form could be no-obligation since the appointment came from a cold email.

The above processes should be followed for appointment scheduling to ensure you nurture the lead well. At TLM, we focus on small details and do not overlook the details when a qualified lead is in question. To learn more about our case studies and how we deliver high-qualified leads, please visit our case studies. If you want to talk to us, please schedule a call.

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