Go Telemarketing- Stay Away!

[LGilmore]

Everything about telemarketed leads works against the agent. The agent wants a quality appointment, someone who is interested and will possibly buy. A telemarketing lead company "caller" gets paid to make an appointment, good, bad or ugly, they don't care they all pay the same.

I tried this once for business leads and had about the same results. Totally a waste of money. the "business owner" turned out to be the janitor. Another was a company that had about 15 other agents quoting.

The telemarketers just want to get paid, making sure we're happy is pretty far from their minds.

 

[Josh]

The telemarketers just want to get paid, making sure we're happy is pretty far from their minds.

Sure, insurance agents are the innocent victims here.

If you pay a telemarketer a fair hourly rate and bonus based on quality, then you can have pretty solid success. Making insurance agents happy selling leads at ridiculously cheap prices against what it costs to generate them is impossible. A large part of the problem is that insurance agents can't wrap their heads around paying an hourly rate high enough to make it attractive for a company to use quality telemarketers with no guarantee of success.

For the most part any of the agents I've spoken with about doing lead generation want super cheap leads with unlimited free returns forever and they have no concept of what it takes to generate a quality lead. If an agent was willing to spend $75-$100/lead OR pay $35/hr, the lead quality would go up dramatically.

 

[Frank Stastny]

Sure, insurance agents are the innocent victims here.

If you pay a telemarketer a fair hourly rate and bonus based on quality, then you can have pretty solid success. Making insurance agents happy selling leads at ridiculously cheap prices against what it costs to generate them is impossible. A large part of the problem is that insurance agents can't wrap their heads around paying an hourly rate high enough to make it attractive for a company to use quality telemarketers with no guarantee of success.

For the most part any of the agents I've spoken with about doing lead generation want super cheap leads with unlimited free returns forever and they have no concept of what it takes to generate a quality lead. If an agent was willing to spend $75-$100/lead OR pay $35/hr, the lead quality would go up dramatically.

Amen. You've hit the nail on the head.

The one aspect you didn't touch on is the agent's ability to work a lead. Some agents could get a good quality lead and still not be able to turn it into a sale.

All agents are not equally skilled in working leads. Some are well skilled in turning that lead into a sale, others don't have a clue how to properly approach the prospect. They just "wing it".

That can and does make a huge difference in the degree of success one agent has compared to another agent.

I have tried telemarketers and I have purchased every kind of lead that has ever been offered. The easiest, simplest, most cost effective way for me to get new clients is to generate that lead myself. I have learned how to use the phone.

There is no magic to it. If a telemarketer can generate a real lead then I can do it a lot more efficiently and generate more sales from a list than even a good telemarketer can. I've done it and continue to do it.

I don't get just the "easy" ones. I also get the those that a telemarketer wouldn't.

 

[LuckyFace]

I think the best we can do is stay away from them

 

[insuranceboss]

Purchased 20 leads. The next day had 8 "appointments", if you can call them that. 6 were not home. 1 said they didnt realize they had an appointment, wouldnt let me in. 1 called the police on me, again didnt realize anyone was coming out.

They sent mp3's of the calls- very shady at best.

Refuse to replace- met quality control! Wont refund the 12 appts they have not set yet. Anyway, save your money- you will have better success knocking on doors than you will have running these appts. They dont even know you are coming.

Use Visa - you can always reverse your charges. I had to reverse over $3,000 for Hakim Telemarketing room recently. I order over 100 pre-set appointments for the week and he only gave me 14 in 3 weeks. We brought all of our telemarketing in house!

 

[Josh]

How long ago did you bring it in house?

 

[insuranceboss]

How long ago did you bring it in house?

About 3 months ago. I might would like to talk to you about your data pricing sometime.

 

[Josh]

About 3 months ago. I might would like to talk to you about your data pricing sometime.

I'd be happy to help you with that. E-mail or PM me your number and I can give you a call. Aside from aggressive pricing on larger orders, I can most likely help you model a more effective list.

I started hiring telemarketers direct about 2 years ago and I'll never do it another way.

 

[johnnyg]

Sure, insurance agents are the innocent victims here.

If you pay a telemarketer a fair hourly rate and bonus based on quality, then you can have pretty solid success. Making insurance agents happy selling leads at ridiculously cheap prices against what it costs to generate them is impossible. A large part of the problem is that insurance agents can't wrap their heads around paying an hourly rate high enough to make it attractive for a company to use quality telemarketers with no guarantee of success.

For the most part any of the agents I've spoken with about doing lead generation want super cheap leads with unlimited free returns forever and they have no concept of what it takes to generate a quality lead. If an agent was willing to spend $75-$100/lead OR pay $35/hr, the lead quality would go up dramatically.

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In the case of this Go Telemarketing outfit the agents ARE the innocent victims.

We are consumers just like everyone else. Because we are insurance agents does it mean it's okay to rip us off cuz we are on he low end of the public respect totem pole?

This outfit provides nothing but pure garbage and is NOTHING as they describe on the intial call to get info on their service.

I (stupidly) bought pre-set life appts. from them and out of the 10 I bought NOT ONE of the "appts" had ANY CLUE why I was there, and that is MY FAULT?

I've been buying leads for years. Some are good some are bad, but I have NEVER had anything like this.

I guess since we are "just insurance agents", paying good money for a service it is our fault for not being able to come in and "close" someone who just answered the door to a guy in a suit jacket and a briefcase who came in unannounced claiming he had an appointment with the person, and we shouldn't even expect the person answering the door to have any clue even though we just spent 35.00 to help ensure that the person DID have a clue as to why I'm at their doorstep wanting to talk life insurance.

Yeah, we're just a bunch of cry babies who shouldn't whine about giving hundreds of dollars away for "appts." of people that don't have a clue why we are there.

 

[Josh]

I (stupidly) bought pre-set life appts. from them and out of the 10 I bought NOT ONE of the "appts" had ANY CLUE why I was there, and that is MY FAULT?

Shame on them for claiming to be able to offer a service at a price they can't afford to come good on, but an appointment service at $35/appt doesn't pass the smell test, especially if you've reviewed any of the comments anyone has made on here about a variety of vendors. The problem is that they all face the same challenge: Appointment setters don't know what the response rate will be on a given product in a given area so they can't give out a hard cost and guarantee it, but agents expect there to be a guarantee.

In case it's unclear, someone offering you 10 preset home appointments guaranteed to have interest in your insurance product for $350 is virtually guaranteed to be a lie. Buyer beware? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?