Ramping up cold calling for an Australian property management firm.
Tracing the story.
Cold calling is not a game for the faint-hearted. A cold caller has to be resilient and self-driven and move leads without sounding pushy.
That’s exactly what this client asked for.
We were approached by an Australian property management firm that also provides residential and NDIS cleaning services. They wanted a part-time cold calling virtual assistant to make high-volume cold and follow-up calls.
In addition, they wanted the VA to maintain a clean CRM for better visibility into their lead funnel.
We matched them with a professional, part-time cold caller who had native-like English speaking skills and a neutral accent. The VA was able to turn many leads into customers and increased their monthly appointment booking rate within three months of joining!
- Industry: Real Estate
- Service: Property management and residential & NDIS cleaning services
- Founded in: 2023
- HQ Location: Sydney
- Based in: Australia
The challenges.
The cleaning services market in Australia is crowded. Here are some challenges that come with running a small business in such a market with high competition.
Insufficient volume of calls
This niche has lower conversion rates compared to others. On top of that, the client was also a small business. Getting in touch with the decision-makers of commercial spaces, homeowners and support coordinators in NDIS plans was also not always guaranteed.
So our client’s best bet to get a tangible ROI from cold calling was to make a high number of calls every day.
But being a small business, in-house capacity was lean to begin with. They didn’t have a dedicated person to handle outbound calls. Whatever calls were made were by their core team.
Naturally, they were unable to focus on cold calls as much as was required to get results.
No specialized outreach skills
Since they didn’t have a professional cold caller on board, their core team was not able to handle calls with quality.
Some shortcomings like sounding robotic, getting flustered or defensive, not listening enough, no rapport-building and poor call logging were holding them back from making real progress with leads.
Messy records
They were also dealing with messy records, missing contact details and inaccurate address information. The situation was so bad that even if a cold call successfully converted a lead, unorganized information would cause confusion and delays in services. This was a major bottleneck.
An alive and clean CRM system and someone to actively update it were crucial for efficient sales data collection.
How Zenius helped.
Since the client’s pain points were so tangible, it was very easy to outline the Ideal Candidate Profile (ICP) for the role. The perfect virtual assistant would have:
– Previous experience with cold calling or telemarketing
– Strong communication skills
– Native-level English fluency
– Clear and understandable neutral accent in English
– Fast & accurate typing skills
– Strong attention to detail for maintaining the CRM
– Self-motivated and resilient nature to handle friction
Taking the ICP as our North Star, we designed two custom assessments for this client.
The client needed an independent worker and confident speaker who could understand the niche and meet their daily goals. Our tests targeted each aspect thoroughly, focusing on performance in real-world scenarios.
AI call simulations
To see whether candidates could actually hop on a call, engage people and get them interested, we set up AI call simulations.
In each simulation, candidates were given a scenario along with company and service information. They then made a cold call and convinced the AI customer to book a cleaning appointment.
In this 10-minute call, candidates had to get to know the prospect’s needs, walk them through the company’s services, handle objections smoothly and get the cleaning session scheduled.
Going off-script
The simulations were designed so the AI customer would ask an off-script question (something that the candidate didn’t have information about). The goal was to test if they can think quickly and answer well if the conversation goes in an unexpected direction.
Speaking skills
Speaking, which was a core skill for this role, was rigorously tested. We prepared two situation-based video questions to evaluate speaking flow, ability to handle objections and overall suitability for a high-volume cold calling role.
This also gave us insights into their English speaking fluency, accent and intonation—all critical to build rapport with an Australian target audience.
Writing skills
The virtual assistant would have to maintain call logs and enter lead information into the CRM. They’d also need to communicate and collaborate with overseas teammates.
So we added questions to test their typing skills, attention to detail and ability to write clearly.
Applicants for the job opening
Role-specific custom assessments
Cold calling virtual assistant hired
Results & ROI.
We matched this client with an energetic cold caller who could make rapid outbound calls and qualify leads against set criteria.
After they successfully passed the hands-on assessments, we were confident in this candidate’s ability to think on their feet, communicate service offerings clearly and handle objections professionally.
The candidate was also adaptable and tech-savvy. This was ideal as the client wanted to train them on using their custom CRM and also a VoIP platform so they could make cold calls using an Australian phone number.
Consistent high-volume cold calling
The cold calling virtual assistant has been meeting their daily targets for outbound calling and lead qualification consistently.
Regular inflow of qualified leads & customers.
Because the VA is always moving prospects toward a booking or follow-up, the client has developed a pool of recurring customers and signed annual contracts with others.
Well-maintained and updated CRM.
The VA has also been regularly updating the CRM with notes after each call. They log all call activity, outcomes, follow-up actions, as well as other details in a CRM.
Required skill set.
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