3 Ways to Improve B2B Appointment Attendance Rates

Upsell and Cross Sell

For Sales Development Reps (SDRs), the worst feeling in the world is when a prospect that you worked hard to qualify and show value to doesn’t attend a scheduled appointment. Nobody wants that to happen from either side, but it does happen. 

We asked our team of SDRs that schedule over 2,000 B2B appointments for our clients every year about what they do to improve appointment attendance rates. Then we narrowed it down to the top 3 actions that seem to be the most effective across industries.

Below we’ll outline the best actions that your team can take to help improve appointment attendance rates. 

 

Communicate Regularly

Once the appointment has been scheduled, that should not be the last communication that goes out to the prospect before the appointment takes place. In some cases, appointments might be scheduled 3-4 weeks out from your conversation. Find a way to deliver value during that time without being annoying. 

  1. Introduce the attending Account Executive that will be joining the appointment. Provide some of the AE’s background and expertise to help expedite the meeting when it does happen.
  2. AE’s – take the time to reach out to the prospect ahead of the call to thank them for taking some time to talk and summarize what the prospect is looking to get out of the appointment as a reminder. 
  3. Call, email, or leave a voicemail or two as the appointment date is approaching. Calendar reminders and notifications will go unnoticed on a busy calendar.
  4. The last point on this one – don’t be annoying!!

 

Send Relevant Educational Materials

Since you have an appointment scheduled you should have identified the pain points that the prospect is facing. This is your chance to provide some educational materials about how your solution will directly help them and their organization overcome those challenges. 

Be sure to keep the materials that you are sending as tightly related to the prospect’s problem as possible. This does two things:

  1. Educates and develops trust that you can solve their problem
  2. Reminds them that they have this big painful problem that they can’t solve on their own.

Lastly, keep the AE and anyone else attending the meeting on copy of these email communications that you send. That way everyone knows which material was shared in the event any of it is referenced during the appointment. 

 

Ensure the Prospect is Highly Qualified

This sounds like a no-brainer but we’ve all had the sneaking suspicion that a prospect may not be as serious about entertaining a solution as they have led on. The act of scheduling an appointment does not necessarily mean the prospect is qualified.

If you’re feeling unsure about the level of qualification with a prospect, use the time leading up to the appointment to firm up any of your questions or concerns. 

A great way to get more information from a prospect is to spin it toward their benefit. For example, you could say something like this:

“To be respectful of your valuable time and to be as productive as possible during our appointment, can you explain…XYZ”

 

Conclusion

In summary:

  1. Communicate Regularly
  2. Send Relevant Educational Materials
  3. Ensure the Prospect is Highly Qualified

Hopefully, those tips can help improve your appointment attendance rates. They work great for us here at Bay MarketForce and have allowed us to maintain strong working relationships with the AEs we are setting appointments for.

To learn more about why Bay MarketForce could be the growth engine you’re looking for, please feel free to Contact Us or Book an Introduction Meeting.