Why Email Can Never Replace Phone Communication
We are all very attached to our electronic devices for email, text and social media communication. But when it comes to relationship building, picking up the phone and speaking to your prospect is the only way to go. Certainly, cold calling takes more effort than shooting off an email. It also takes practice and skill but there are many benefits in using phone conversations for lead generation.
Phone communication fosters personal relationships. There is no electronic media that allows you to build a personal relationship with a prospect. A personal relationship is key in cultivating and closing a sale. Phone conversations make building relationships easier.
Phone calls are an opportunity for the prospect to talk to you. People love to talk about themselves – to tell their story. If you do not give prospects a chance to do so, they feel unheard and sale will go nowhere.
Phone calls lower the risk of being misunderstood. Email lacks social cues like tone of voice, clear emotion and pauses, which can easily lead to your message being taken the wrong way. We may think we are interpreting the tone of an email correctly but in fact we often are not. There is no misinterpretation in a live phone discussion.
Phone or in person communication builds trust. People do business with people that they know, like and trust. Conversations generate honest discussions that emails cannot deliver.
Phone conversations provide constructive feedback. They give you a valuable insight which you can use to improve your solution and sales process.
Phone conversations are an opportunity for 2-way communication. How will you know if there’s a good fit between you unless you and the prospect can ask questions.
Phone calls are 10 times more likely than email to lead to sales*. Emails are more often than not considered spam unless they are directly relevant and the sender is someone known. No surprise that human interaction is more effective than email since salespeople have been around much longer than email has.
*https://grasshopper.com/resources/articles/talking-to-customers-phone-vs-email/
