30 Cold Calling Statistics to Know Before Picking Up the Phone
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management.
Cold calling allows direct connections with prospects and potential buyers over the phone, making them aware or interested in the solution you’re selling. This prospecting method enables sales reps to target a list of contacts in a short time while getting immediate responses from leads to move them to the next stage of the sales process. We’ve compiled 30 cold calling statistics to help you understand its elements and effectiveness.
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Cadence & Timing Cold Calling Statistics
Which leads should you contact first? How many cold calls a day should you make? These are just a couple of the questions sales reps often ask themselves after entering leads into their pipeline.
Below are several statistics about cold calling cadence that have been proven to work. You can apply these cases and tips when implementing your cold calling lead generation and sales processes.
1. Making cold calls on Wednesdays is 50% more effective than making calls on Mondays.
Takeaway: Wednesday is considered the best day to make cold calls in terms of a lead answering the phone. Generally speaking, Wednesdays are when employees are deeply focused on their work and likely to be at their workstation—making them more accessible than, say, Mondays or Fridays. Try making it a sales management practice to use Wednesday as the prime day for reps to place calls.
(Source: CallHippo)
Pro tip: To optimize your high-volume calling days, use software with dialing automation connected to your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Freshdesk, for example, is software native to Freshsales and has a power dialing module with a built-in telephone. This feature dials the phone for you based on a preset list of contacts so you can make many calls in a row without taking too much time manually typing phone numbers.
Freshsales built-in cloud telephony (Source: Freshsales)
2. Successful cold calls, on average, last 2:36 minutes longer than unsuccessful ones.
Takeaway: One of the biggest driving factors for cold call success rate is the time spent on the phone. Sales reps with a solid average cold call conversion rate tend to spend an average of five minutes and 50 seconds on the phone. This is in contrast to non-effective reps who spend closer to three minutes and 36 seconds. More time spent talking to the prospect means they are engaged with what a rep is saying and potentially interested in learning more.
(Source: Gong.io)
3. The optimal cold calling time range is from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., 71% more effective than 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Takeaway: If you’re trying to carve out an hour a day to make a good portion of your calls, this stat tells you everything you need to know. Both the 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. time slots are the two best hours to place calls based on success in connecting with a prospect on the first attempt. However, the 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. slot still produces significantly better results than that early afternoon time frame.
(Source: CallHippo)
Pro tip: A CRM with task management features can help remind you to make your calls during these high success time frames. Pipedrive, for instance, has task management capabilities that let you add one-time or recurring tasks for a specific time and day each week. These tasks can be created as general tasks or ones specifically associated with a lead, deal, or account record.
Scheduling a task or activity on Pipedrive (Source: Pipedrive)
4. The best time to call decision-makers is between 3 p.m. & 6 p.m.
Takeaway: Decision-makers tend to engage more with sellers in the late afternoon. The peak engagement happens between 4 pm and 5 pm, followed by 3 pm to 4 pm, then 5 pm to 6 pm. Based on this data, sales teams ought to schedule cold calls with top targets from 3 pm to 6 pm in their own time zone.
(Source: Revenue.io)
5. The worst time to make prospecting calls is around 1 p.m.
Takeaway: As every sales territory’s working hours vary, it is best to make prospecting calls whenever your target is picking up the phone. The peak connection time is around 9 a.m., steadily fluctuating every hour throughout the day and going down significantly from 4 p.m. onward. It is not advisable to call prospects outside of their working hours and during their personal time when they are spending time eating out or taking a break.
(Source: Revenue.io)
Driving Factors to Success of Cold Call Statistics
Placing a cold call has two objectives: first, to make contact with a lead, and second, to move that lead forward in the sales process. These outbound call statistics show how the small details that go into this sales activity often lead to a better connection and cold calling success rate.
6. Six cold calling attempts is the optimal number to have the best chance of connecting with a lead.
Takeaway: Much of your time placing cold calls will be spent leaving a voicemail due to a non-answer. This stat shows how important persistence is when attempting to connect with someone. While you only have around a 35% to 40% chance of getting an answer on the first attempt, that number continuously increases when you retry up until the sixth attempt, where the conversion rate increases by up to 70%.
(Source: CallHippo)
7. Stating your reason for calling in your opening line increases success rates by 2.1x.
Takeaway: If you utilize some of the previous stats on when to make cold calls and manage to get an answer, you’re now ready to deliver your opening line. During this phase, one of the driving success factors is your promptness in stating your reason for calling. By immediately mentioning who you are, where you’re calling from, and why you’re calling, prospects become more open to hearing what you have to say and moving on to the next sales pipeline stage.
(Source: Gong.io)
8. Successful sales reps use the word ‘we’ 65% more times.
Takeaway: An interesting finding from this research involves how a sales rep using the word “we” in association with the organization they represent impacts calling success. Speaking on behalf of the business rather than communicating in terms of “I” appears to give more credibility to the business’ brand and creates more opportunities.
(Source: Gong.io)
Pro tip: Once you’ve crafted the perfect cold calling script that highlights your value proposition and team-oriented business culture, use a CRM to store it for all reps to access. Popular products like Salesforce have organizational file management features to store and share documents, slide decks, and spreadsheets for everyone using the CRM system.
Salesforce file management (Source: Salesforce)
9. Mentioning a common connection on a cold call can increase the likelihood of an appointment by 70%.
It’s not surprising that citing a mutual connection can yield a stronger cold calling conversion rate. What is surprising, however, is how much of an impact it has. During prospect research and before placing a call to a decision-maker, checking out their LinkedIn profile to see if any of your family, friends, or professional colleagues know the person can have a huge impact on whether or not you get that appointment.
(Source: LinkedIn)
Pro tip: The TeamLink feature in LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a powerful prospecting tool that lets you see a list of your connections who are also connected with a prospect you’re targeting. From the mutual connection list, you can make an introduction to a potential lead in just one click and give yourself a better chance of converting.
LinkedIn TeamLink (Source: LinkedIn)
Visit LinkedIn Sales Navigator
10. It takes an average of 1.5 hours of cold calling daily for five days to win one appointment.
Takeaway: The time it takes to schedule one appointment is roughly 4.5 hours per week. This does not include time doing other tasks, breaks, or being distracted by peers—it is the actual dialing, calling, and conversing. Remember this as you set sales quotas on minimum calls per day for your sales team. Make sure it’s realistically attainable yet high enough to produce results.
(Source: Zippia)
11. Almost half (48%) of business-to-business (B2B) sales reps are afraid to make cold calls.
Takeaway: The fear of making cold calls may arise from different reasons, including the risk of failure and sounding annoying to the prospect. Regardless of the cause, this fear could inhibit your effectiveness and productivity. But you can conquer this fear little by little and build your confidence by researching your prospect ahead of time, using cold calling scripts, and constant practice with the help of mock-up calls.
(Source: Zippia)
Pro tip: Keep your sales team motivated to make their calls by gamifying your sales operation. Using various competitions with rewards and incentives goes a long way toward producing solid results and maintaining a positive culture. Check out some of our ideas in our article on sales contests to motivate your team.
12. Most (89%) buyers are likely to consider purchasing a product if the seller can change their mind.
Takeaway: Most buyers would buy a product if a seller is skillful enough to convince them to do so. In addition, 54% of buyers admitted that it is possible for a seller to steer them into a new mindset or assumption about a product or service. Having said that, sellers should not be afraid to question a buyer’s way of thinking because doing so could help them close a deal.
(Source: LinkedIn)
Voice Call Usage & Popularity of Cold Calling Stats
While cold calling is considered more traditional than some of today’s sales outreach methods, such as emailing or social media messaging, many businesses still use it as their primary prospecting channel. These cold call statistics tell you just how common this prospecting method is today within sales teams and how sales reps truly feel about doing this sales activity.
13. Voice call is the top preferred communication channel for businesses for most customer interactions.
Takeaway: Phone calls have remained the most preferred method of communication for interactions that include resolving issues, closing cold call sales, and setting appointments. This channel is considered immediate and convenient, yet it also has a personal touch and is not intrusive.
(Source: Hiya)
14. Only 21% of buyers want to be contacted via cold call & 66% prefer email as an outreach method.
Takeaway: Email is the most preferred method of outreach by buyers, with cold calls lagging far behind at 21%. Email is followed by in-person events (35%), social media (34%), virtual events (31%), and email newsletters (30%). This does not mean cold calling is ineffective, since a fifth of buyers still prefer it. However, it is worth noting 37% more sellers are now adopting warm calling methods.
(Source: LinkedIn)
15. Almost half (45%) of business professionals indicated their use of voice calls increased in 2021.
Takeaway: Based on Hiya’s data, both businesses and consumers spent an average of 98 minutes per month on voice calls in 2021––that’s an average of 58 incoming and 59 outgoing calls per month. With voice calls being the top preferred mode of communication, this trend will most likely continue.
(Source: Hiya)
Pro tip: CRMs offer excellent reporting tools for managers to track sales activity such as phone calls placed as well as total production for revenue and deals generated. HubSpot, in particular, has easy-to-use features to create reports according to the type of data the user would like to see and how they want it organized, such as by rep, team, or regional department.
HubSpot productivity dashboard (Source: HubSpot)
16. 57% of C-level executives prefer contact via phone call.
Takeaway: C-suite executives and VPs are the top decision-makers for any B2B sale. Despite how intrusive cold calling may seem, most executives still prefer being contacted over the phone to email or social media. Another interesting finding is the number slowly decreases as the managerial hierarchy decreases. For example, it drops to 51% of directors and 47% of middle managers who prefer a phone call as the contact method.
(Source: Zippia)
Spam & Fraud Cold Calling Stats
Phone scams and fraud calls have been around for many decades and continue to affect both businesses and consumers globally. The cold call statistics below tell us how the prevalence of scam calls hinder legitimate business calls from going through and what businesses can do to ensure their cold calls are not being marked as spam.
17. 94% of consumers said they think calls from unknown numbers might be fraudulent.
Takeaway: A staggering majority of consumers may never pick up the phone if they receive unidentified calls, posing a giant obstacle for businesses that engage in cold calls. To overcome this problem, businesses could brand their calls to ease consumers’ fear of receiving fraudulent calls.
(Source: Hiya)
18. More than half (62%) of consumers have received impersonation calls & 12% have stopped doing business with the impersonated company.
Takeaway: Legitimate businesses are negatively affected by scammers who impersonate them in phone calls. In fact, 32% of consumers are now suspicious of calls from impersonated companies, and 20% have lost trust in these businesses. In addition, 20% now have tainted views of the spoofed business, while 12% have ultimately switched brands due to these impersonation calls.
(Source: Hiya)
19. 38% of businesses do not know that their calls are being marked as spam, while 32% know this is happening.
Takeaway: One of the biggest challenges for businesses that engage in cold calling is the lack of knowledge on whether their calls are being labeled as spam or not. While others are aware that this is happening, more than a third still do not know if scammers are hijacking their business numbers.
(Source: Hiya)
20. 32% of businesses believe branded calls are the most effective way to increase answer rates & 97% are willing to pay extra for it.
Takeaway: Business professionals believe adding identity to outbound calls is the best solution to scam calls. Almost all respondents in the survey said they are willing to pay a premium per call for a branded caller ID solution. Other solutions cited include ensuring calls don’t have a spam label, increasing agent coaching, and adjusting call scripts and IVRs (interactive voice response).
(Source: Hiya)
Pro tip: Freshsales integrates natively with Freshdesk Contact Center, customer support software within Freshworks’ ecosystem of apps. This integration allows you to use an outbound caller ID that allows your customers to easily identify your company no matter which number your agents are using for the call.
Freshdesk Contact Center’s outbound caller ID (Source: Freshdesk)
Cold Calling Statistics on Salespeople & Performance Metrics
The phone remains one of the most successful sales channels right now, both in general selling and in remote sales. Read on to learn important cold calling metrics as well as statistics on reps’ performance and top focus. Use this data as benchmarks for your own team’s sales performance and productivity.
21. A sales rep makes an average of 33 outgoing cold calls per day.
Takeaway: Making cold calls is not easy and could be uncomfortable, especially for inexperienced reps. Nevertheless, almost a fifth of high-quality leads are generated through sales activities such as this.
(Source: Zippia)
22. Phone calls rank #2 among the most successful sales channels, next to in-person meetings.
Takeaway: Making phone calls is among the five most effective sales channels, ranking below in-person meetings and just above social media and email. A modern business phone enables reps to sell wherever they are.
(Source: HubSpot)
23. 44% of businesses consider phone calls as the most effective channel for closing deals in remote transactions.
Takeaway: When it comes to remote selling, most businesses believe that using a modern business phone is the best way to sell. This is followed by email (21%) and video chats (18%). Through voice calls, you can easily build rapport with prospects and create a positive customer experience they easily recall.
(Source: HubSpot)
Pro tip: Leverage HubSpot’s cloud-based phone features like international and local numbers to expand your global reach and speak to prospects wherever they are. Doing this also lets you see major cost savings on international calling.
Adding a phone number on HubSpot’s caller (Source: HubSpot)
24. In 2022, the number of calls made was the second-most important indicator of productivity in sales, next to CRM usage.
Takeaway: Last year, 47% of sales managers ranked CRM usage as the most important metric for sales rep productivity, followed by the number of calls made (41%). Next in line are the emails sent (37%), cold call conversation rate (36%), use of sales tools (35%), proposals sent (33%), number of follow-ups (31%), and scheduled meetings (30%). This shows how crucial calls are to a sales team’s overall progress and productivity.
(Source: HubSpot)
25. 31% of sales reps reported that establishing trust & rapport with a prospect has become the main focus in sales in 2022.
Takeaway: Compared to 2021, there was more demand for establishing trust and rapport with prospects in 2022. Other top changes in the sales field since then include an added focus on solution-based pitches (27%) and more personalization when trying to close deals (27%). Aside from that, they focused on upselling and cross-selling for existing customers rather than finding new ones.
(Source: HubSpot)
26. 63% of sellers say cold calling is the worst part of their job.
Takeaway: While it’s essential in many sales roles, most reps do not enjoy doing this activity compared to other parts of their job, such as networking, generating proposals, or even data entry in a CRM. The task as a whole can be intimidating at times, especially for newer sales reps, as you’re making calls to total strangers, knowing they will be caught off-guard, annoyed, and may likely reject your proposition.
(Source: LinkedIn)
Impact of Remote Work on Cold Calling
The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the popularity of remote work. While the world has already shifted back to face-to-face meetings and adapted hybrid work settings, the rise of remote work has also impacted cold calls. Check out the stats below to learn more about what percentage of sellers still conduct cold calls, the impact of remote work on the buying process, and how many sellers want to keep working remotely.
27. 88% of sellers engage in warm calls & only 46% conduct cold calls.
Takeaway: The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently and positively disrupted the selling landscape. Virtual selling is now flourishing, with sellers interacting with buyers via phone calls, video calls, social media, email, and chat. However, warm calls still prevail over cold calls. If ever someone answers your cold call, make sure you are prepared with a solution-focused approach so as not to waste your prospect’s time.
(Source: LinkedIn)
28. One in 5 (21%) salespeople find remote selling more difficult than the traditional way, while 36% find it easier to sell virtually.
Takeaway: It could be easier for many sales reps to sell remotely because all the information they need about leads and prospects is already in front of them, automatically pulled online by their CRM system. Others feel more comfortable and confident because they are working from their own homes. However, 46% of hybrid sales reps feel that virtual selling is less effective.
(Source: HubSpot)
29. More than half (55%) of buyers say working remotely has made the buying process significantly easier.
Takeaway: When asked about the impact of remote work on their purchasing decisions, 55% of the respondents said it made the buying process easier. More than a third (36%) said there is no change at all, and 9% said working remotely has made buying more difficult.
(Source: LinkedIn)
30. More than half (52%) of sellers want to work remotely 50% of the time.
Takeaway: The desire to work remotely is shared by both buyers and sellers. Based on LinkedIn data, the number of remote sales job postings increased by almost 300% in the U.S. and Canada from December 2021 to February 2022. This further proves remote selling is thriving and is here to stay.
(Source: LinkedIn)
Bottom Line
Cold calling today remains popular and effective, assuming best practices are followed. While you might see stories online or posts on LinkedIn either crediting or discrediting this sales method, these B2B cold calling statistics take real data from businesses to tell the true story of their experiences. Incorporate cold calling strategies into your sales process and train your sales reps on how to place effective cold calls to prospects.
