“Professional business-to-business telemarketing works” states Su. “When done correctly it is a proven and effective method of building relationships, gaining a greater insight into customers and generating leads.” Su explains that Lingo was borne out of recognising a widespread and fundamental gap in the market in Oxfordshire for a competent telemarketing agency. “Whilst working for companies in the past I struggled to find good external telemarketing providers with the right business acumen. It became apparent after talking to a number of our clients that they were encountering the same problems as ourselves, so we decided to launch our own telemarketing company based on the values we always wanted but could never find.”

“We had a very clear vision of what we wanted to create with Lingo. It was very much about getting the right mix of experienced people who can actually add value and talk knowledgably to senior decision-makers, so we represent our customers brands correctly. We’ve got very high standards and work hard to maintain these in everything we do for our clients. Old school aggressive, hard-sell tactics do not work and are not conducive to a long-term business relationship. Our mantra is ‘Pleasant Persistence’ and we find this generates the best results, whilst engaging with customers.”

Although Lingo primarily targets Oxfordshire based businesses, its core customer make-up is certainly not restricted to Oxfordshire, as Su adds. “Our customer portfolio is fairly wide-spread, and the nature of what we do means we can take on work on behalf of anyone, but we do like to have a face-to-face relationship with our clients to assist with the groundwork, which inevitably means our clients are predominantly based within at most an hour and a half of our base in Cassington.

“We like to meet our clients on a regular basis to feed back crucial information to them, nothing which can’t be done over the phone or by e-mail, but we do find the regular close contact helps to breed successful long term campaigns which are good for everyone.”

Lingo works on a project basis, without the incentive of commission, a model which Antonia believes enhances the overall service Lingo’s clients receive. “I think it’s important that we’re not commission-based because we work on the basis of quality, not quantity. When you have the incentive of commission dangling like a carrot in front of someone, is that person going to necessarily care about the quality of meetings he or she is being incentivised to book or are they just booking an appointment with whoever they can convince to agree to one. It takes real skill and experience to build relationships that lead to quality leads, appointments and ultimately sales, and at Lingo we have the right team to achieve this.”

Whilst some will have a pre-determined view that telemarketing simply revolves around selling, in reality it consists of a variety of tasks such as arranging appointments, qualifying database contacts, notifying people about products specific to their needs, inviting delegates to events, conducting essential market research and carrying out comprehensive customer surveys. These are all time-consuming, and a busy company may find itself neglecting them.

But this is precisely where Lingo will help, as Antonia explains. “I think a lot of people underestimate the value of a phone call because there’s so much talk at the moment about digital marketing and email. People forget that personal contact face-to-face, and also voice-to-voice, is often more effective in terms of gaining immediate direct feedback and building relationships. That’s unbeatable, in my opinion.”

Lingo recommends that telemarketing and telesales is most effective when integrated with a company’s broader marketing initiatives. “Telemarketing in conjunction with direct mail, advertising and digital communications can be used to increase response levels and conversion ratios” says Su. What’s more, Lingo will gather quantifiable information, taking into account individual and unique business needs. Although the rise of online business-to-business tends to promote e-Newsletters and the like as the definitive way to communicate and network with other people, Antonia advises that a real conversation with someone will also reduce the risk of misinterpretation.

An additional step Lingo takes is to help businesses recognise weaker areas to concentrate on, in turn teaching them how to tackle such issues in the future, as Su explains. “There are always certain areas where there are faults, and at the end of the day, we say ‘this is the area that you need to address.” One common oversight is companies don’t realise that data ages very quickly. ”Many databases we receive are old databases or haven’t been regularly maintained – people have moved on, details have changed, so we have to basically validate the whole thing and start the whole customer process again for a lot of clients.”

A company’s database of customers and prospects is often its most powerful marketing tool and it is therefore unsurprising that Lingo has been receiving plenty of positive feedback from returning clients who have appreciated its support, proactive service and advice.

“I think it’s because they like the environment and can see that we’re doing an honest job for them” reassures Antonia. “They can also come in and meet the team. We had one of our new clients in today - a director who sat with one of our guys from 9am until 2pm. I was just delighted to hear the conversations he was having. A lot of companies go by script, get it approved and just bang the telephones. Here we actually encourage our clients to come in, sit down, have a listen, have a chat with the team and find out how it’s going.”

Su points out that the quality of Lingo’s staff has played a crucial role in the success of the business. Building a great team has not happened by accident though and the Lingo recruitment procedure is very thorough. “We invest a lot of time and effort when selecting new team members” says Su. “The applicant of a shortlisted CV will undergo a rigorous selection process starting with a telephone interview to assess how they speak on the phone. If successful after this stage, they then go on to have a face-to-face interview. This is important, as it will determine their compatibility with the existing team.”

If they pass the first two stages, the candidate is then invited in for a final test stage where Lingo can assess their telephone technique in a real life environment and also their IT skills when using the CRM system.

It is obvious that Lingo really does seek the best-of-the-best in order to complement its exclusive team. Moreover, its success puts so called ‘cold-calling’ into a new light. Lingo’s victories over many businesses’ often-intrinsic preference towards e-mail and the internet is an indication that human interaction is indeed a crucial feature of building relationships between businesses so that ultimately, everyone is a winner.

www.lingotelemarketing.com