Appointment Setter: Full Job Description Guide, Must Read before Hiring or Start Appointment Setting


It is a new post-COVID age, regardless of how well your business is. There are inevitable sales slumps that many products and offerings endure. You want a boost or want to completely revitalize the sale of a product that has not been performing, and there is no better chance to upgrade your sales strategy.

Appointment setters assist an executive business development team by outreaching prospective clients and scheduling appointments with a salesperson. In 2021, an appointment setter has to be a ten-in-one soldier with expertise in digital outreach, psychology, and analytical skills.

The appointment setter can focus across inbound and outbound sales, but the most useful as a part of a dedicated outbound sales team.

Additionally, setter provides full customer and administrative support. They typically worked in a call center or office and report directly to a sales executive or team lead. Usually, this entry-level position and appointment setters can work a full- or part-time job. They may also work with overtime to meet quantity KPIs.

Appointment setter job description

There are different positions responsible for appointment settings: sales development representative, business development representative, junior salesman, digital marketer, appointment setter, secretary, etc. But we want to highlight some activities strongly dedicated to appointment setter job:

Response to inbound calls

Before validating potential leads, appointment setters answer inbound calls from the company’s perspective and current clients or customers. After the client’s successful validation and support, the setter can set up an appointment to discuss in detail with a closer.

Response in chats, interception of chatbot activities

Usually, companies use chatbots to respond to users. However, if after two or three answers, the user is still browsing the website and needs information, you can try to talk with him directly and propose a call to obtain more details from the sales team.

Commenting in social and questionary sites

One comment from Quora can provide tremendous traffic on your site. And you can give clear responses to user questions and convert them to the clients.

Provide outbound calls

Appointment setters generate or order from research teams the list with contacts of potential clients, and provide cold calling. After every call, they update CRM to determine the overall interest of prospective clients and submit the next meeting.

Clients from email and contact forms

The sales team may use email to contact clients to follow up with them, book meetings or demo with a salesperson, or reschedule meetings as needed. If the website has huge traffic, the setter must convert users’ responses in calls with the sales team. But in 2021, many companies use services like Calendly for direct booking without any agent support.

Response to email and LinkedIn campaigns

Marketing and research teams can run different campaigns, and appointment setters or SDRs may answer clients who interested. The best practices in the industry are to respond to a new client in 15 minutes. And any sales executive is to busy to provide such fast responses.

Keep CRM  records by appointment setter

When appointment setters contact clients or customers and obtain any information about portfolios, prices, products, or services, they input accurate records of each conversation into CRM. They also indicate in the schedule for any follow-ups and promo proposals.

Provide full-cycle administrative support

When they are not working with customers, appointment setters as entry-position persons do all administrative work to the sales. They are preparing reports, making non-qualified calls, filling CRM, preparing documents, and rearranging meetings.

Appointment setter skills

It is expected that appointment setters must be excellent communicators, and they are comfortable chatting and responding to customers and clients during daily activities. It does not require substantial experience, but the appointment setter has to demonstrate the following skills and qualifications:

  • Sales profile – Since an appointment, the setter is the first contact person for a customer, setter, like any other sales, has to understand sales best practices. The salesman should be an expert in introducing products or services that the company is providing.
  • Customer service experience – Appointment setters have previous customer service experience, preferably in a call center environment. However, any kind of retail customer service is usually helpful for this position.
  • Data analytics skills – The appointment setter has to provide regular reporting based on response rate, open rate, forecasting, any complex KPI, and improvement suggestions. Additionally, a good appointment setter must have some data researcher skills to find proper contact data or analyze it.
  • Language skills  –  Minim Upper-intermediate English is required (for jobs with a high level of scripted answers). Advanced level of English, German, or Spanish is needed for more smart outreach.
  • Data entry skills – Experienced appointment setters are skilled data entry experts who type at fast speeds, use reports, diagrams, formulas, etc.
  • Communication skills – SDR and appointment setters talk with clients the whole day via phone calls, video calls, chats, and emails. Such experts require proofed communication skills in both verbal and written forms.
  • Administration skills – the work with the bookings for multiple sales staff, understanding time zones, multitasking, and flexibility require from appointment setter be a highly organized employee and always be ready to support your sales team.

Tools for appointment setter

In addition to laptop, internet, camera, etc., appointment setters use:

  • CRM Software ( we prefer Pipedrive, Hubspot or Salesforce)
  • Google or Microsoft office package
  • Mail delivery software
  • email checker
  • Contacts databases, catalogs
  • Phone systems (optionally)

Appointment setter education and training

A high school diploma is a formal requirement to become an appointment setter. Additionally, appointment setter obtains 2-4 weeks of internal training to understand how a company works and what products or services companies are selling. Additionally, the company provides information security, CRM introduction, local software, reporting, and policy training.


Appointment setter jobs from home

If you are not ready to outsource your appointment setting, you can engage a B2B lead generation copmany like Datarob or a professional at any job platform. Working from home, a team member will make outbound calls and introduce potential clients to your services. In this role, they will initiate, build, and maintain relationships with the leads, aiming to get them highly interested in a call with someone from your company.
Typically, an appointment setter from home will handle the following:

  • Identifying the needs of a potential client
  • Generating interest in your product or service
  • Keeping records of potential clients' information and activity in CRM
  • Participating in Sales meetings and stand-ups

Key requirements for this role include:

  • A reliable, high-speed internet service
  • Solid interpersonal skills and experience in Sales
  • A quick learning capacity of a product or service
  • Experience with LinkedIn and other social media
  • Strong work ethic and a self-starter attitude

In 2021 appointment setter works from sales offices or remotely from home, or as a digital nomad everywhere with flexible working hours.

Approbation period for appointment setter

A probationary period allows the company to assess whether a new appointment setter is capable, reliable, and suitable for the job. The standard period for appointment setter is usually three months. New staff receives the same environment and conditions as other sales team.

During this period, sales leaders have to give your employee the necessary mentoring and support to fix any issues or concerns on either side.

Appointment setter salary

The average annual salary for appointment setters is based on Glassdoor statistics.

The average annual pay is $45,762 p.a. for the United States. Salary estimations are based on $5,431 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by employees. But you have to spend minim plus $15K on taxes, equipment, and software.

How much does an appointment scheduler (setter) make?

Some performers of appointment setters earn bonuses and benefits based on their performance quotas or quality of appointments with clients, percent of deals that convert to buy.

Many companies from the USA, Canada, or Western Europe don’t want to invest in appointment setters as it’s too expensive for them.

Appointment setter from Upwork

Another solution is to order services from Upwork. You can spend 10-15 dollars hourly for appointment servicers. But there are some definite limits for such engagement:

  • low level of education and understanding of your company culture and products
  • issues with security
  • aсcent, time zones and internal communication issues
  • difficult to scale
  • tremendous management support and cost from your sales team
  • low level of automatization and digital tools usage

Appointment setter services

Like any business element, you can hand over appointment setting to other companies in a far-out, cost-effective location. If you are a company looking to boost sales over a short period with minimum expenses, engaging appointment setter services can be the answer.

How can you benefit from such services? First of all, by outsourcing appointment setting, you let your Sales Team do what they are good at - closing deals and implementing client acquisition strategies. Wasting their time on routine tasks like cold calls impedes your company growth.

Second, if you handle cold calling internally, you probably need to set up a separate budget for a cold call manager. In this scenario, the task of appointment setting will rest on your shoulders. Appointment setter services can take that headache out for you.

Third, the talent pool might be scarce in your location. Growing fast requires finding professionals quickly. Outsourcing accelerates this process. The service will let you see the results during the first weeks of cooperation.


Appoint setter services from Datarob


You can hire an appointment setter from a digital marketing agency. There are a lot of transparent benefits of hiring appointment setter in such way:

  • low cost: $2,000 monthly compared to $5,000 per own employees
  • NDA agreement and covering all data risks
  • fast replacement and knowledge transfer
  • high-level automation and all-new tools and feature
  • fast scaling

If interested in B2B lead generation and sales appointment setting, kindly follow the contact form.

Contact Datarob team
Please contact Datarob team in most comfortable way hello@datarob.com