What’s the big deal with cold calling! You just pick up the phone and call different people, simple, right?
Well it was never that simple. Cold calling jobs have one of the highest turnover rates due to awkwardness and immense pressure. Agents regularly face rejection, objection and even yelling from prospects. This creates awkwardness and to some extent resistance in their mind.
This blog describes why you feel so awkward to make cold calls, what’s the psychology behind this and how you can overcome it.
Why Does Making Cold Calls Feel So Awkward?
Human brain fears negative responses. The awkwardness we feel before dialing cold calls is not because of shyness. It’s because the possibility of facing rejection or irritating someone makes us morally down.
That’s why cold calling services are becoming complicated. Agents’ awkwardness often turns so high that they prefer sending voicemails over making calls.
Psychological and Biological Factors That Makes Cold Calling So Awkward
The awkward feeling for cold calls is not just a mental issue. It has been created biologically with human evolution. Thousands of years ago when humans started living in groups, to enter one they may have to face rejections. This same mussel memory emerges when agents feel they will get rejections from calls.
Fear of Violating Social Norms
It almost occurs to every agent before calling, am I disturbing someone? This is the most influential feeling that leads to the discomfort in a telemarketer’s mind.
For the job requirement, they have to make the call. But mentally it draws them back, creating a Cognitive Dissonance or mental conflict of their action.
The Amygdala Hijack
Amygdala is the fear center of our brain. When reps call, it perceives a social threat. The human brain deeply seeks acceptance from every aspect. When it detects rejection, the brain starts to release cortisol (stress hormone) and make us feel irritated over anything.
Vocal Interaction Reduces Clarity
In calls, agents only have their voice to interact. Body language is crucial for observing one’s actual motive. So when an agent can’t even make eye contact, it automatically becomes uncomfortable to work with.
Clinical Terms Related to Develop Anxiety among Cold Callers
To remain successful in cold calling, agents’ mental health is a key. There are some clinical terms that describe why representatives develop anxiety for making cold calls.
Telephobia
It’s an intense fear or anxiety that people develop for phone calls. Telephobia happens when someone is deeply affected by others criticism, judgement or objections.
In cold calling, this is common among mid and experienced level agents. Handling diverse responses during service period made them develop telephobia at a point. This causes a 30-45% annual employee turnover rate in cold calling globally.
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD)
RSD is a condition that happens when someone feels intense emotional pain over rejection. This is quite common among cold callers. Agents with RSD are most likely to produce less or often quit their jobs.
Anticipatory Anxiety
It’s a condition where brain only focuses on the worst possible outcomes. It creates stress and anxiety that may not actually exist.
Long Term Impacts When Cold Callers Feel Awkward to Call Prospect
When agents feel distressed to make calls, it eventually damages business. From an agent’s perspective, when they feel anxious, it significantly lowers their morale and productivity.
That’s why businesses are leaning towards outsourcing cold calling more, than operating it in-house.
Financial Impact on Businesses
In cold calling, agents’ performance determines business’s overall outcome. When their performance declines, overall revenue gets affected.
Anxious agents increase the average idle time. As reps are paid on hourly rates, increase in idle time significantly rises burnout and expenses. Overall affecting the return on investment (ROI)
Psychological Impact on Business and Employees
When one agent develops chronic burnout to make cold calls, it spreads among others too. This works as a butterfly effect and the whole business mentally suffers from this.
When this happens, agents take longer to initiate calls, their performance see significant drop and often many agents quit their jobs too.
For these effects, the cold calling industry has to face a 30-45% agent turnover rate yearly. In some complicated industries, the number even rises up to 70%.
New recruitment, onboarding and training are expensive. That’s why when businesses face huge turnover, it affects overall performance.
Overall, when agents develop anxiety or awkwardness to make cold calls, it affects the whole operation.
Solution to Recover Awkwardness and Anxiety Before Call
Recovering from the awkward feeling of making cold calls needs deep mental strength and preparation. The solution strategy should start when agents are new or in the training phase. It sets the baseline for what to expect. When pre-call preparation is solid, the chance to overcome anxiety and awkwardness increases.
Common solutions to overcome awkwardness and anxiety:
Pre-Call Preparations
Before agents start making calls, it needs to be set in their mind that more than 90% of the time, they will be rejected.
When someone is already prepared for a negative impact, it reduces their stress level. Overall relief them from facing awkwardness.
Reset Practices (Mid and Post Call)
If a call went terribly, just follow this to recover yourself:
- Conclude the call with a short statement like fair enough, thank you for your time.
- Take a 30 second break to reset and fresh your mind.
- Stand up, move around, shake off your body. This will reduce your stress.
- Take a 4-7-8 breath. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7, exhale for 8. This signals the Vagus nerve to physically force the heart rate to slow down.
- Share your experience with someone. This helps you to fix your mental strength.
Final Thoughts
Cold calling is sometimes a stressful task to do. It damages agents’ morale and slows down business growth. Often the stress level becomes so high that reps fear to make any calls, often quitting their jobs.
With some strategies and practices, this stress level can be reduced. But it can’t be removed entirely. Employers constant support and training is necessary to keep this at a minimal level.
