We have an otherwise great manager but his salesmanship is less than adequate. I am wondering if anyone has a call center they use that they are happy with.
Thanks
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Great idea used in self storage a lot- several companies offer attractive rates
Another possibility would be to hire a commissioned sales person. Either a “virtual assistant” type contractor who doesn’t live in the area. Or someone who is local and wants an occasional source of part time income. That way they’d have some incentive which a call center might not have (assuming they are just charging per call answered).
The only problem with a call center – which we’ve tried in the past – is that it won’t fully solve the problem of the bad sales person. If they can’t show the home well or close the sale/rental, there’s no benefit to having a call center answer the phone. So what’s the answer? Look at the manager’s performance on collections and property conditions. If they’re doing everything else right, you might just be better off hiring somebody who lives in the park to show and sell the homes on a commission of, say, $250 per sale or rental completed. But then you’re still back to the phone issue. Your manager HAS to answer the phone, and they can then give the person the sales person’s phone number to call to set up a showing. You may be able to patch together a program that works if there’s not that many homes to sell/rent, but it you’re talking 20+ homes, then you’ll need to replace the manager (or supplement the manager) with a full-time sales person who answers the phone on the first ring, does a great job at showing and closing the sales/rental.
Another thing I’ve done in the past (if you’re just trying to sell/rent a few homes) is to have the phone number in your advertising go (via being forwarded) to another employee who has good sales skills to set up the showing. This will require you to set up standard showing hours of X to X on X days since the person who answers the phone can’t coordinate the showing time or day since they’re not there. You then give this phone person a commission on each deal closed.
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