Telephone sales is a challenging job at the best of times. But phone agents calling prospects out of their geographical area face an additional challenge – low answer rates. Failure to connect stops the sales process before it can even begin and sees leads that could otherwise be converted go to waste. Local presence is a system designed to remove that additional friction and help telephone sales agents connect with their leads, regardless of where they’re located. It uses easily-selectable, VOIP-based telephone numbers to give agents the power to choose their outbound number in a matter of seconds. The result is more calls connected, more leads moved through the sales funnel, and more deals closed. 

 

The Problem: Low Answer Rates on Out-of-Area Calls

Everyone with a phone knows how common abusive telemarketing and telephone scams are. From robotic messages attempting to get people to give up personal details to overseas call centers that call at all hours of the night, these spam phone calls generally all have one thing in common – unfamiliar, out-of-area phone numbers. As a result, consumers today are extremely adept at ignoring phone numbers with unfamiliar area codes. It’s a form of ad blindness designed to combat a growing problem that “do not call” lists have proven unable to stop. 

But, what about all the legitimate sales organizations that make calls out of their local area, or, in the case of many larger companies, across the entire country? Unfortunately, those legitimate sales companies’ calls get caught up in the bad reputation of the scammers and spammers and suffer from the same low answer rates for out-of-area prospects. 

A call that doesn’t connect can never become a sale, so low answer rates are a huge problem for all types of telephone sales organizations. 

 

The Solution: Customizable Numbers with Local Presence

Luckily, there is a way legitimate sales organizations can get around low answer rates – local presence. Local presence is a feature built into some power dialer software that allows agents to custom tailor their outgoing phone numbers to match the area code the prospect on the other end expects to see. It’s a fast, simple, efficient fix that can have an enormous impact on answer rates and, in turn, sales. 

How Local Presence Works

Local presence systems work by providing agents with a list of phone numbers that are loaded into the system and can be selected in a matter of a few clicks. Once a number has been selected, all outgoing calls will go out through it, and it will show on the call display of all prospects on the other end of the line. 

An agent using a power dialer to go through their daily call list would simply segment the list by geographical area, load up a relevant number for the first region, make their calls, and then repeat the process for the next region on the list. It’s a fast, easy way to boost answer rates by as much as 60% and it gives agents a huge advantage over calling from a single, static number. 

What local presence isn’t is call spoofing. Call spoofing describes a practice used by bad actors in which software is used to disguise a phone number so that it appears on call display as something different. Call spoofing is illegal, and spoofers will spoof any number that is convenient, causing problems for both the recipient and the real owner of the phone number being used. 

With local presence, numbers are not disguised. Every local presence phone number is a real number, wholly owned by the organization. The local presence system just makes it easy to switch back and forth while working through a call sheet. But, aside from that ease of choice, there is effectively no difference between calling through local presence and calling through different phone lines. It just represents a cheaper, easier, more efficient way of utilizing multiple numbers.  

Getting Set-Up with Local Presence

The first step in leveraging the power of local presence is to find a power dialer that offers it as a built-in feature. Rather than purchasing a stand-alone power dialer purely to handle calls, the best option is to adopt a CRM with a power dialer already built in, maximizing utility and smoothness of integration and minimizing costs. CRMDialer offers a complete CRM with a leading power dialer integrated right out of the box. CRMDialer’s power dialer offers local presence along with a full set of calling features ranging from automated dialing to one-click voicemail drop to IVR calling trees and beyond. 

With access to a dialer with a local presence feature, setting up the system is as simple as porting in all of an organization’s existing owned numbers, which makes them available in the system for agents to select. In the case that a relevant number isn’t already owned for a specific area, CRMDialer’s local presence system makes it easy and affordable to quickly purchase a new number right from within the CRM and be calling from it in seconds. 

 

A local presence system eliminates the low answer rates many national and multi-state sales organizations face when reaching out to prospects over the phone. With CRMDialer, users can access not only local presence, but also a complete suite of cloud-based calling features and one of the most powerful customer resource management platforms available today. 

To find out more about how CRMDialer can boost your sales organization’s answer rates and streamline all areas of your sales process, reach out to a member of the team or start your no-commitment free trial today.