Call barging: 7 ways sales teams can use barging to close deals

Remember three-way calling from when we were teenagers? Getting on the phone with your friends, chatting until all hours of the night, prank calling your brother… Those were good times.

Essentially, call barging is just another way to have a three-way call. But the term ‘barging’ hardly brings up warm and fuzzy memories from your days of teenage angst.

For sales reps, having a manager barge an in-progress sales call can be a stressful experience. And sales managers may feel uncomfortable barging, unsure of when they should and how it will affect the outcome of the sales call.

If you want to try call barging but aren’t sure how to use it correctly, you’re not alone. But when you know how to effectively use live call barging (and the scenarios where it makes sense to barge), you’ll not only overcome the stress of barging—you’ll be able to use it as a tool to close more deals.

Let’s discuss:

• What is call barging?
• Warning: Never barge a call without an introduction
• Use call barging to boost your team’s performance and not their stress: 7 use cases for sales teams

What is call barging?

Call barging is a feature included in many types of calling software. It allows another team member (normally a sales manager) to join an in-progress sales call and speak to the other call participants. In most call coaching software, users can choose to Listen (not be heard by either party), Whisper (be heard only by the sales rep), or Barge (be heard by both parties).

Listen and Whisper are both useful tools for sales managers to evaluate and coach their sales team. But Barge is the feature managers need to give real-time help to reps who need it.

Call barging is especially useful for remote sales teams who are physically separated from their manager. With the right system, you can continue to coach your team as if you were sitting right next to them.

But how can you make the most of this feature in your call coaching software? Here’s one piece of advice you’ll need to keep in mind:

Warning: Never barge a call without an introduction

Think of this from the prospect’s point of view: How would you feel if you were talking to a sales rep and suddenly a third party joined the call without an introduction?

If you would feel unnerved or confused in this situation, your prospects will feel the same.

So, if you’re going to barge a call, make sure you always, always get an introduction.

For example, the sales rep may mention to the prospect that they’re going to pull in their manager to answer a question or assist in some way. Then, you can barge without scaring the prospect.

But what if you’re listening to a call that’s going south, and the rep doesn’t introduce you? No, this isn’t an excuse to unexpectedly barge the call.

Instead, use the Whisper feature to speak directly to the rep and ask them to introduce you. Then, once you’re introduced into the conversation, you can barge the call and help the rep to close the deal.

Use call barging to boost your team’s performance and not their stress: 7 use cases for sales teams

Of course, just because you can barge a call at any time, doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea.

If you make a habit of randomly jumping in and taking over your team’s sales calls, you’ll cause unnecessary stress to your team, and limit their individual performance.

So, when should you use call barging? And how can the whole sales team benefit from this feature?

Here are 7 scenarios when call barging can help move the needle for your sales team:

1. The safety net

For managers who are coaching junior reps on their sales calls, call barging can be a welcome safety net for the rep.

In Close, when another user joins an in-progress call, their icon will appear in the call bar:

Instead of causing stress, this can actually help the rep to feel more comfortable on the call. Seeing their manager there with them provides a safety net—the rep knows that, if they get stuck, their manager is available to back them up.

This is also useful when onboarding new sales hires who have less confidence in selling your product, or when you’re training the team to sell a brand new product.

2. The AE tee-up

Handoffs between SDRs and AEs can be difficult and uncoordinated—or they can be smooth.

Choose smooth.

Your SDRs work hard to nurture new leads and get them to the precipice of a closed deal.

To hand off the deal smoothly, the SDR can coordinate with the AE to join a call with the lead. Once on the call, the SDR introduces the AE. Then, the AE can barge the call, join the conversation, and ask for the close.

3. The technical answer

Some prospects have very specific, technical questions that your sales reps just aren’t prepared to answer.

And sometimes, the deal just isn’t going to move forward until they get their answers.

In that case, a rep can ask a technical contact to join the call—perhaps someone from the product or engineering team.

In Close, reps actually have the option to invite users directly to a call within the app:

Alternatively, reps can reach out to the right contact over Slack or another chat tool.

Then, the technical contact can join the call with Barge and help move the sale along by answering any technical questions.

4. The support or success contact

Another place where deals may get stuck is the question of implementation. Some prospects love your software, but they’re unsure of how to implement it for their company or team.

To put their mind at ease and help them feel confident enough to sign the deal, reps can get a support or success contact on the call.

Again, this can either be arranged in advance before the call, or the rep can invite another user while the call is in progress.

When a user is invited in Close, they’ll see a notification in the app, telling them who is inviting them to what call:

Inviting a member of the success team is also a great way to introduce high-value prospects who are about to purchase to their main point of contact after they’re converted. This shows them in advance the type of support they’ll get after purchase, and can make the handoff between sales and success teams even smoother.

5. Peer support

Each member of your sales team has their own unique experiences, interests, skills, and expertise.

So, give all of your reps to option to barge calls, and encourage the whole team to collaborate with each other to close deals.

For example, if one sales rep has less experience selling to a certain industry than a colleague, they can invite that rep to join their live cold call to help them build rapport with the prospect.

Encouraging this kind of collaboration on calls will help your team rely on each other and builds an atmosphere of partnership across the team, even when they’re physically distanced.

6. The VIP treatment

Your prospects love it when you make them feel special.

So, build rapport with your prospects by giving them the VIP treatment. Make them feel valuable by inviting someone important to the call, such as one of the execs at your company, or someone on the team that they already respect and admire.

When you make your prospects feel valued, they’ll be more likely to purchase and stick with you in the long run.

7. The 3-way call

Maybe this situation sounds familiar: You’ve planned a video sales call with the prospect and another team member. The Zoom link is sent out, and everything is ready.

Then, the prospect calls you. They can’t make the Zoom call, and they want to switch to a regular phone call.

This happened recently to our Senior AE. The prospect was in his car and couldn’t make the scheduled Zoom meeting, so he asked to just talk over the phone. Since our Senior AE had planned to do the meeting with his manager, he simply invited the manager to the in-progress call and continued the conversation smoothly.

If your sales calling software includes the option to allow other users to barge, there’s no problem when plans change: Simply invite the other team member to barge the call once it’s in progress, basically converting it into the classic three-way call.

Live call barging to empower your sales team

Give new reps a safety net, perform smoother hand-offs to AEs and success teams, get fast answers to your prospects’ questions and make them feel like VIPs—all this is possible with call barging.

Are you ready to see how live call barging can empower your sales team to close deals faster?

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