Wot No Script?

As you know at The Lead Generation Group Ltd we pride ourselves in our organic approach to sales and marketing, and that definitely means not using scripts.

We've all been there; we make a call about utilities or Sky or even our pet's food and we know instantly that the call handler has a script for all or part of the call. The other day it was Sky and the inevitable question: "What kind of programmes do you like to watch. . . ? This month we are offering. . ." To be fair, on this occasion, it wasn't too bad but all through the call I was waiting for the pitch at the end, and they didn't disappoint!

I was also hearing from a friend who works in HR. It all kicked off when the recruiter had offered a job, on the spot, to a candidate they alone had interviewed. However, when other colleagues had watched the replay (because all the interviews are done over Zoom) they raised several concerns about the choice of candidate. And concerns meant issues around safer recruitment. And this got me thinking about scripts.

Following proper recruitment procedure means you need to ask every candidate the same set of questions to make the process fair, equitable and accountable. How you ask them is a different kettle of fish. I am a firm believer in conversation – be it in sales, marketing or recruitment. You begin with a standard question and depending on the answer – ensuring that the questions are "open-ended" – you then begin a dialogue with the other person and many of your set questions will be answered in the course of that conversation.

Scripts are ensuring that the art of conversation is slowly dying: there will come a time, probably not in the too distant future, when humans will be replaced with robots to carrying out routine sales and recruitment calls. Well, not on my watch! Nothing beats that person-to-person interaction and for The LG Group and its clients, that relationship is crucial to the success of both of our businesses.

My friend, who has worked in recruitment for many decades, was appalled at how robotic and unengaging the recruiter was in their interviews. There was no picking up on body language, no rapport or real personal engagement with the candidates and everything felt hurried – it was like an assembly line!

People are the most fascinating beings on the planet; everyone is unique and each response, be it to a sales and marketing call or being interviewed for a job, is a reflection of that person, and to get the best out of them, we as the interviewer/marketing guru use our unique skills and personality to elicit the best.

Something The LG Group set out to do is deliberately not to use scripts when making telesales calls. We believe in getting to know the people we are calling as well as we know our clients. To us it's about maintaining certain standards, and to use a script would compromise those standards, and that's definitely NOT part of our script.