The best phone system for web and marketing agencies
Selling time in an agency is whatever is left over: make it ten times more productive.
Hundreds of companies use 
to make every call pay off
The situation
What holds you back today
Prospecting dropped the moment delivery gets busy
Too much reliance on referrals
Inbound enquiries called back too late
The answer
What Skipcall changes
Specific to your industry
An agency's calendar: when your prospects actually have budget
An agency rarely loses work on the quality of the work. It loses it on timing: a rebuild or a campaign budget gets decided on dates you can predict, and a call placed three weeks late lands on money already committed. Knowing that calendar beats doubling your call volume.
September and January, the two front doors
September wakes up everything that was parked over the summer, and January opens the year with fresh intent. Those are the two windows where a first call is most likely to land on a real project rather than a vague idea. August and the fortnight from Christmas to New Year are for building lists, not for first contact.
Budget season depends on their year end
Plenty of UK companies run to 31 March, so their marketing budget is argued out between January and March and starts spending in April. Others run to 31 December and settle it in October and November. Ask which one they are on: that single question tells you whether to call in the autumn or after Christmas, and it is the one thing agencies almost never ask.
The anniversary of the incumbent contract
SEO, paid media, social: most retainers run twelve months and roll on. Always ask when the current agreement renews, write it down, and set the callback around two months before. That is the only window in which an incumbent agency is genuinely up for review.
A website pitch is decided in about ten days
A rebuild brief almost always goes to three or four agencies at once. Call at forty eight hours to check the proposal arrived and reads properly, then again between seven and ten days with something new: a comparable piece of work, a firmer timeline, a costed option. After two or three weeks with no answer the decision is made, and booking a distant callback beats a fifth chase.
Two fixed slots a week, not a campaign
Delivery always wins against an intensive campaign, and rarely against a recurring slot in the diary. Two short sessions a week, with the list built the day before so the slot is spent talking and nothing else, survive a busy quarter. A blitz stops at the first big project.
An agency pipeline stands on written dates: when the incumbent's contract ends, when the proposal went out, when you agreed to call back. Everything else is a feeling, and feelings do not ring anybody.
The script
An agency's two calls: the cold one and the inbound enquiry
An agency has two calling slots a week and two very different situations to handle. The first call goes to an owner or a marketing lead who already has an agency. The second calls back an enquiry that came in through the website. What you want from the first is not a meeting, it is the date on which the subject will exist.
The cold opener
“Hello, [first name last name] from [agency] in [town]. I had a look at your site before calling and I'll be quick: who looks after it at the moment, an agency or someone in house?”
A question about what they already have gets an answer, where an agency introduction gets you hung up on. Above all it avoids criticising a site that was often built by the person on the other end.
If they already have an agency
“Good, that makes this simpler. When does that arrangement come up for renewal? I'm not asking you to change anything today, I just want to call you at the right time.”
The renewal date of the incumbent contract is the single most useful thing an agency call can bring back.
If they say there is no budget
“That's fair mid year. Does your year end in March or December? I'll call you when the next budget is being set, and not before.”
If they ask what you charge
“I'd rather not throw a number at you, you've had plenty of those. Give me three minutes of context and I'll give you a range before we hang up.”
Refusing to give any figure loses the call. Giving a range after three questions keeps the conversation and rules out the projects that were never in reach.
If they ask to see your work
“I'll send you three projects close to what you do, not the full portfolio. And I'll call you [day] at [time] to hear whether the style works for you, ten minutes, no more.”
Calling back a website enquiry
“Hello, you've just sent us an enquiry about [project]. I'm calling straight back while you're still on it. Tell me first when you need it for, and we'll deal with the rest afterwards.”
Starting with the deadline rather than the requirement gives you, in one sentence, the only thing that decides what happens next: a dated project, or an intention.
At Skipcall, every call is recorded, transcribed and summarised, so the script gets corrected against what your reps actually say rather than what we imagine they say.
Avoid this
Three mistakes this industry makes on the phone
The mistake
Opening the call by listing what is wrong with the prospect's website.
Do this instead
Ask who looks after it first. The site was often built by the person you are speaking to, by their business partner or by a friend, and a criticism in the first sentence closes the conversation before it starts.
The mistake
Talking search rankings, conversion funnels and Core Web Vitals to a business owner.
Do this instead
Translate it into what they count themselves: how many enquiries come in, how good they are, how many turn into work. Keep the technical vocabulary for the person who uses it first.
The mistake
Getting the studio to scope a full rebuild after one ten minute call.
Do this instead
Three things before anyone writes anything: who decides, by when, and roughly what budget. Without them the agency is writing, for free, the brief a competitor will be judged against.
Frequently asked questions, Web, SEO & marketing agencies
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See what it does on your own lists
A demo runs on your own contacts, not on a sample data set.
Personalized demonstration