Ability to adapt and modify appointment setting campaign ensures success for Sussex Enterprise.

Sussex Enterprise is a not for profit organisation funded by members and the largest business organisation in the county. Sussex Enterprise is the accredited Chamber of Commerce for Sussex, part of the national network of Chambers and its sole aim is to improve the economic environment within which Sussex businesses operate.

Sussex Enterprise offers outsourced HR support services as part of its portfolio. There are two main reasons why a business would chose to use these services; to protect the business, i.e. legal compliance and avoiding tribunals and to develop the business, i.e. making individuals, teams and organisations as a whole more efficient. Using the HR consultancy service is significantly cheaper than employing an in house resource and is often able to deliver better results.

Project Background

Sussex Enterprise approached The Telemarketing Company to plan and deliver a trial campaign to generate qualified appointments with decision makers within organisations who require human resources support, either with specific projects/issues, or with the function as a whole. The range of HR experience is broad and can cover anything from an exit interview to the outsourcing of the entire personnel function.  Sussex Enterprise can also help businesses stay up to date with ever changing employment law and Best Practice, both on site, and via telephone and online/e-mail support. 

The criteria for appointments was defined by segment as follows:  businesses with fewer than 30 people – must be with a qualified decision maker who has a specific requirement/interest. Businesses with 30 + employees – must be with a qualified decision maker who has an interest in at least discussing the broad range of services provided.  

Project execution and results

Using an existing database provided by Sussex Enterprise, The Telemarketing Company began the campaign by calling into local businesses using a very broad message, which focused on general business advice and training.   Decision makers included not only individuals in HR but also Managing Directors, Financial Directors, Ops Directors etc. 

It became clear quite early on that whilst the breadth of the service portfolio is a strong USP of the Chamber, it was not focused enough to drive the anticipated results. Using call recordings and side by side on site call listening, the message was refined and sharpened to a more HR targeted approach, which produced significantly better results, pipeline and overall quality and volume of decision maker conversations.

In addition the data was “topped up” with some data from an HR Challenge run on a micro site, which provided some warm and timely leads to add to the pipeline being developed from the cold calling. Once optimised, the campaign was delivering a run rate of approximately one face-to-face appointment every four to five hours of calling. A second campaign is now being planned.

"I was impressed with both the callers and the management of our campaign. Only the people that we had personally briefed were used for the calling and Nicola kept us updated at every turn. Everyone seemed really keen to make the campaign a success and work with us, even though we were adapting the original brief in line with feedback received. We were really pleased to be able to re-brief the callers as often as we felt necessary but also hugely impressed with their ability to retain the information and to make it relevant to those that they were calling.
I’d have no hesitation in recommending Nicola and the Telemarketing Company to anyone who wants to develop a qualified sales pipeline."

HR Consultant, Sussex Enterprise