Hold Everything: The Antidote to No-Shows

I wanted to share a few tactics that we have been using in The Agoge to increase show rates. While the quality of the cold call is the biggest determining factor (deserves its own post), there are a few tactical processes that any SDR team can quickly apply to dramatically increase their hold rate regardless or phone skill, outbound process, or who they are.

Know the ideal date and time you want to set the meeting for before you call anyone.

When you are setting a meeting you should absolutely know the ideal day and time you plan to set it for before you connect with a prospect. Suggesting it yourself makes life easier for them, increases the odds they say yes, and allows you to suggest a time that will make the meeting more likely to hold.

Bad: “Do you have some time later this week?" 

Good: “Would Wednesday at 1:00 work for you?” 

Date

The date that is most likely to hold is the date closest to today. The sooner you book it, the more likely it is to show. At Outreach we found that we had an ~80% show rate for meetings booked within 5 business days of the cold call and the show rate drops below 50% for any meetings scheduled more than 5 business days out.

The SDRs with the very best show rates would habitually schedule meetings less than 48 hours out.

Time

The time of day also matters. Set meetings for when people are most likely to be happy and less busy. First thing in the morning and first thing after lunch are typically less busy and deadlines/stress are less likely to get in the way.

1:00 PM was the best for me. It's usually a little slower and the prospect is more likely to have just eaten not be hungry. Sounds silly, but hunger matters.

When I was setting meetings, this is the hierarchy I used:

Prioritize booking the meeting at a sooner date over the ideal time though. A meeting booked for tomorrow at 3:00 PM is better than a meeting two days away at 1:00 PM. 

Send the invite and ask the prospect to accept while they are on the phone with you

If a prospect accepts a meeting they are much more likely to show up, and they will never be more likely to accept the invite than when they are on the phone with you.

If you have Outreach calendaring or another calendaring tool, it is often easy to send the invite right then and there while you are on the phone with them and then politely ask them to accept the invite. (If you don't have this, you can still accomplish some of the same purpose by asking them if they will accept the invite when you send it after the call).

Here's an example conversation:

SDR: “Great looking forward to chatting tomorrow at 1:00! I just sent you a calendar invite, did you get it?”

Prospect: “Let me check… yes it just came in”

SDR: “Awesome, if you could just click accept I will know that you got it and we are good for tomorrow”

Prospect: “ok, just accepted”

I then stay on the line until I see an email confirming they accepted.

But what if they say no? Awesome! This means that you identified a prospect that agreed to a meeting just to blow you off quickly. Discovering this on your cold call, as opposed to a few days later when they no-show, means that you have another chance to address them on the phone instead of waiting for them to no show and trying to follow up after that.

Have a list of everything you need to do after setting a meeting

Everyone has the list below along with the Agoge Playbook to stay organized. 

Step #4 is the trick that increases the show rate. Every time an SDR schedules a meeting, they immediately set a reminder email with the bridge info to go out 4 minutes before the meeting. This makes it extremely easy for the prospect to jump on and it becomes an important part of our "Worst-Case Scenario" strategy later on.

When you call to confirm, don't give them an out

Giving the prospect a call between the time you set the meeting and when it is going to run is positive for show rates. BUT! When you call to confirm and remind, do not give them an "out." The point of the reminder call isn’t to ask them if they have changed their mind about their decision to take the meeting, it is to remind them it is happening. 

My strategy was to call and confirm that they got the invite or the bridge info. This accomplishes the purpose of reminding the prospect of the meeting without giving them an out.

Good example: “I’m really excited to meet this Thursday! Did you receive the invite?” 

Bad example: “Can you still meet with us Thursday?

Horrible example: “I saw you didn’t accept the invite, are you still able to meet Thursday?

Sometimes, prospects will agree to a meeting they don’t plan on showing up to to blow you off. Asking them to accept the invite is a good way to see if they are bluffing and have the ability to address why they feel that way while you still have them on the phone.

Have a Worst-Case Scenario for the Day of the Meeting

The meeting is your responsibility until it holds. These were the four phases I went through for every initial meeting until the prospect showed.

Phase 1: Five minutes before the meeting is supposed to take place: Open the video call to see if the prospect has joined the meeting as well as the prospect’s Outreach profile to monitor email opens. The email with your bridge info we talked about earlier will be automatically sent out and you want to watch your Outreach dashboard to see if it was opened. The prospect will usually open the email and access the meeting through the url you send them, so their activity on it will give you a clue.

If they haven’t shown up and there are no email opens, it's time for Phase 2

Phase 2: Call the prospect on their most direct line. If they don’t pick up, try it again. If they do pick up, script is: “Hey, we are on the line, did you get the bridge info ok?” (Again, assume the meeting.)

If they don’t pick up their direct line, call the main office line. Tell the gatekeeper you have a meeting with [prospect’s first name] that started two minutes ago and you are waiting for them and then pause. This works surprisingly well.

Phase 3: If none of that worked, send an email letting them know you are on the line and include bridge info again. Also, ask the AE to give them a call. They may be more lucky with their phone number

Phase 4: If no sign of life after 7 minutes, it’s probably time to accept that they are not going to show. At this point they will need to advance to the No-Show Sequence.

No-Show Sequence:

If you have done all you can and they are just not showing up today, put the prospect into the No-Show Sequence. It will keep you on top of the followup. There’s a good blueprint for it here: 7 Sequences Every Sales Team Needs. 

#HappyHunting

P.S. If you want to book more meetings to practice these strategies on, check out The Agoge Sequence.