"We don't do inbound..."

I was at a social shindig of like minded telecoms people. It was informal and there were drinks involved. I mingled and as some there knew what we, at Invosys, are experts at, namely inbound call routing solutions, I was met on a couple of occasions with, "I like your product but we don't do inbound." I have come across this before, normally on cold sales calls as its quite a hard objection to over come. If you are selling hoovers, then it's pretty hard to carry on with the conversation if they say we "we don't have electricity", however, these people do telecoms.

So what was my reply? In actuality, it was "fair enough let's talk about something else." This wasn't a sales call so I saw no need to push it. Yet like in any situation, half an hour later I came up with the best reply. Like most situations, I come up with the quick, witty, straight for the jugular quip, way too late. My only advantage is that I have a ready mind and a good memory, so next time I am ready and on the pulse.

Therefore, for the next person to tell me that "we don't really do inbound", my reply is:-

"I disagree, you already do loads of inbound, your customers do loads of inbound. If any of your customers that you supply calls and lines to, that you supply mobile phones to, that you supply SIP trunks to, or that you supply a hosted switchboard to; if any of those customers receive calls on any of those devices, you do inbound. What you haven't done is explore the solutions available to see how you may improve their call handling and their customer experience, how a solution may save them money in many ways or help them win more business. If you supply lines, then you supply inbound, and there is an opportunity to monetize that and make the customer more loyal to your company."

In hindsight, I may make it less of sanctimonious speech as its hard to get back to Gin and Tonics after such a rousing interlude, but you get the idea. SG