Is Pay Per Appointment REALLY Worth It?

First thing I will say for you people who think Commission or Pay Per Sale is a possibility - THIS DOES NOT EXIST - just completely throw that idea out the window.

Pay Per Appointment does exist - let me tell you a little more about it:

Pay Per Appointment (referred to from here out as PPA) may sound like an interesting model and may appear risk free - PPA is not risk free and may even cost you more money and a bad image in the end!!!

For the so called "Inexpensive PPA", the actual callers (even though the company may appear to be American) are from overseas (usually India), and are very noisy, VERY PUSHY, boiler room callers.

For the so called "PPA" from the USA or Canada (If you can even find them), they charge an "arm and leg" for the appointments (I have see as high as $1000 per appointment), usually a fairly substantial, non-refundable "set up or assessment" fee, often a monthly fee and you have to pay for their database (which is costly), or if you give them a database, there will be fees to clean the data. ===>  Still sound like a good deal?

Oh and did I mention, they charge per appointment set?  Not the appointment actually happening or is it even qualified?  Additionally, most times people are so pushed into these appointments, they are absolutely useless appointments as they are quite often unqualified.
Dominion Professional Services has been asked to do PPA in the past and we tried it for a few months, under a model of buying X appointments and no other costs using a generic database.  We found it was a much better deal (even though less certainty) for our clients to work with our current models (either hourly + bonuses or per database).  Additionally, managing the revolving door of, so called, PPA experts, who if you were lucky, would show up when they wanted and do the project calling IF they wanted to, was both too time consuming, a waste of our client's time and money and a waste of our time hiring and training them.  We did this for a short period of time and will never do this again.  Think about this:  After reading that, do these PPA reps sound motivated?  Maybe on someone else's campaign? Maybe? Maybe Not?

If you are trying to get appointments, it should be important to have other types of leads in your "sales pipeline" for future opportunities.  PPA focuses only on the appointment they can get right away, with your future leads being pretty much thrown away.

One other thing to consider:   You as the client must fit into the mold of the PPA agencies, with how (and if) they do reporting, and no extras and good luck to have communication with these people.  By using a firm like Dominion Professional Services, we work with you, to act as your MARKETING ARM and do extras like faxing, emailing, etc, daily reports - as you need them, and full communication with all our staff.

Pay per appointment may sound good - but ultimately, you and your customers will pay the price.  Let Dominion Professional Services develop a program that will work FOR YOU.   We can even do a small test pilot program.

www.dps.bz

Regards;

Steve Ball
s.ball@dps.bz
Dominion Professional Services
1-866-446-3558 x701