When you have booked time in your busy calendar for a meeting and the other person stands you up at the last minute, it can be beyong frustrating. To help, here’s how to eliminate missed phone meetings and vitual conference calls.

Missed Meetings Happen All The Time

I was listening  to a group of business people discussing how frequently they have set up phone meetings with someone only to result in a “no show”.

Telephone appointments are just as important, valuable and critical to your business as face to face meetings. So what do you do when you had a planned phone call with a prospect or client and they don’t’ show up?

As a business sales coach I spend a lot of time working with clients and prospects on the phone. So I know first hand there is nothing more frustrating than missed calls. The customer got busy. They forgot. Something else came up. It doesn’t matter the excuse. The fact remains you are now stuck with an hour of non-billable time.

How to Reduce NO SHOWS from Virtual Sales Meetings – Part of the How to Sell Virtually Video Series

In the video below, as part of the Virtual Selling Webinar Training Series, Susan and Robert of B2B Sales Connections talk about How to Reduce NO SHOWS from Virtual Sales Meetings.

By the end of the video, you will have learned

• How to motivate people to come to your meetings whether they are your prospects or your clients and team members
• How create better virtual meetings overall
• A process to follow that drastically increases the number sales prospects that attend your meetings the first time you schedule them
• How to reconnect and engage your prospects if they do miss a meeting and have gone silent using a proven template. (Download the template for free from the B2B Sales Connections Free Download Centre)

This video is part of the “How to Sell Virtually” Webinar Video-on-Demand Training Series. You can view the whole training series here.

5 Steps to Eliminate Missed Phone Meetings and Virtual Conference Calls

I find that most of the problems can be avoided with these simple tactics.

1.  Always book your phone meetings into your calendar and send out an invitation to the guest so you both have it documented.
2. Send a reminder notice 24 hours before the meeting. It should only contain a reminder to attend. Do not give the person an option to reschedule. If you do you have just given a “disorganized” person the opportunity to cancel. The purpose of the reminder is to make sure the meeting happens, not the other way around.
3. Arrange the meeting so you are the person calling your guest. This allows you to control the timing instead of waiting by the phone until 10 or 15 minutes after the appointed time before you realize something is wrong and your guest is going to miss the meeting.
4. At exactly the time the meeting is scheduled to start you will call the other person. Not 3 or 5 minutes later. If your meeting is scheduled for 10am then call them at 10am.
5. Here is the critical step that will turn an almost missed meeting into one that happens. When you call if you do not reach the person immediately you are going to leave a particular scripted voicemail message.

This Voicemail Script is the Key on How to Eliminate Missed Phone Meetings

The following message is highly effective when learning how to eliminate missed phone meetings:

“Hi ________; This is Bob Weese, we are supposed to have our meeting now to discuss ____________. I’m sorry I missed you and I know this is important for both of our schedules. I have blocked out the next __ minutes for our call and I’m waiting for your call back so we can get started. My number is 905-555-1111. I’ll keep my line free for your call back. Once again my number is 905-555-1111. Thank you

Rescheduling is Not the Right Option!

Notice in my message I did not suggest that we reschedule the call at a later time/date. If I had given them that option I know it would take another few days or weeks before we can rebook the meeting and the same thing may happen again.

Your message is letting the other person know that you also have a busy schedule and you respect their time and it implies that they should respect yours.

I find that 9 times out of 10, I get a call back almost immediately and the meeting goes ahead as planned. In the odd case that they call back and must re-schedule we are able to set and new time and date immediately. No playing phone tag or email tag.

For that 1 out of 10 that doesn’t call me back, the key is to follow up, usually via email. You can download my email template to start a stalled prospect from the B2B Sales Connections Free Download Centre. There are also some great email templates on Hubspot’s post, What to Do When Your Prospect Ghosts [Free No-Show Follow-Up Email Templates].

Try this technique. I know you will find that your “no shows” for phone appointments and virtual meetings will be greatly reduced. It works for me and my clients and it will work for you.

Aim Higher!

Robert J. Weese, B2B Sales Coach

“When you lead a struggling sales division from the brink of closing to over $7.4 million dollars in annual sales you can be confident, Robert knows how to engage customers and build sales.”

Looking for more ideas to generate more leads, reduce the buying cycle and close more business? Then download our free eBook, Attract New B2B Customers Fast and Effectively Using Outbound Lead Generation from the B2B Sales Connections Free Download Centre.