BPO
Appointment setting
Booking qualified meetings for sales teams, with confirmation and no-show reduction.
What is delivered
A diary filled with meetings that meet the agreed criteria
Confirmation and reminder before each meeting
Attendance rate measured, not just bookings made
Why measure meetings held rather than meetings booked?
Because a meeting booked and not held consumes the sales operation's worst resource: blocked time from someone senior that can no longer be used for anything else. No-show rate is the indicator that most affects this service's real value and the one that least often appears in proposals.
Booking meetings at volume is easy, and no-show rate rises with that ease. An operation assessed on bookings produces fragile ones: counterparts who agreed to end the call, badly chosen times and confirmations that never arrived.
We report both rates side by side from the first week, with the reason for each no-show where it can be established. A no-show rate above twenty-five per cent signals weak qualification rather than bad luck, and is fixable by adjusting the criterion rather than raising the volume.
What actually reduces no-shows?
Confirmation at two points, the day after booking and the day before, through a channel the counterpart actually uses. An email confirmation to someone who replies by message is not a confirmation, it is a record that an attempt was made.
Short-notice booking wherever possible. No-show probability grows with the distance between booking and meeting, and a meeting fifteen days out has a substantially worse rate than the same meeting five days out. Where the calendar allows, we propose the nearest date.
And honest qualification on the call. A counterpart who agrees out of politeness does not show; one who understood why the meeting is of interest attends. That means disqualifying more at source, which reduces bookings and increases meetings held.
How does calendar integration work?
Through direct access to your sales team's calendars, with availability rules defined per person: time windows, duration by meeting type, travel time where applicable and a daily limit. Without those rules, booking produces calendars nobody can keep.
Rescheduling is handled by the same team rather than pushed back to the person who was attending. It is where this service frees most of the time it saves, because rescheduling consumes disproportionately more time than booking and is always urgent.
Each meeting arrives with a context summary: who the counterpart is, what they said, which objection they raised and what was agreed. A meeting that starts with the attendee asking what it is about wastes the first five minutes and part of the credibility.
What criteria define an acceptable meeting?
Agreed in writing before starting, and specific: the counterpart's role and seniority, the organisation's size and sector, the existence of an acknowledged need, and the decision horizon. A criterion saying interested decision-maker is not a criterion, it is a hope.
The criteria are revised in the first weeks based on rejections. It is normal for the initial criterion to be wrong in some respect, because it was written before information existed, and an operation treating criteria as fixed spends its first weeks producing what does not serve.
And there is one criterion we always recommend and that is frequently refused: the counterpart has to know concretely what the meeting is about. Vague bookings produce high no-show rates and unproductive meetings when they do happen.
How is the brand's reputation protected?
With written, enforced persistence limits. A maximum number of attempts per contact, a minimum interval between them, and permanent exclusion at the first sign the contact does not want to be contacted. These rules cost volume and preserve the brand, which lasts longer.
With transparency about who is calling. The team identifies itself and on whose behalf it is calling, and never presents itself as part of your company if it is not. The contrary practice is common in the sector and is a risk we do not take.
And with call recording and review, with prior notice to the counterpart. Review serves training and verifies that the limits are being respected, and it is the only way to know what is actually being said on your company's behalf.
What size of team does this make sense for?
From two or three salespeople whose time is being consumed by booking and rescheduling. Below that, the cost of coordination and criterion calibration is not offset by the time freed.
The gain grows with the seniority of whoever is freed. An hour recovered from someone who closes contracts is worth substantially more than the hourly cost of the team that recovered it, and it is that ratio that makes the service defensible rather than the rate itself.
For large teams, the service combines naturally with prospecting and qualification, on the same record and the same criteria. Keeping the two with separate suppliers produces two definitions of an opportunity and a permanent argument about which one counts.
What do we need from you to start?
The criteria for an acceptable meeting in writing, calendars with per-person availability rules, and access to your sales system. All three are obtainable in a week and the absence of any one delays launch more than recruitment does.
And someone from your sales team available for the weekly review in the first six weeks. It is the meeting most frequently cut for lack of time and the one that most quickly improves the result, because it is where the definition of an opportunity gets tuned against real cases.
Where appointment setting can be run from
Not every delivery model suits every service. The table shows only those that make sense for this work, with the data residency position of each.
| Model | Where | When it makes sense | Personal data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onshore Portugal | Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra, Aveiro, Faro, Funchal and Ponta Delgada | When data cannot leave the EEA, or when the end customer is Portuguese | Stay inside the EEA. No transfer. |
| Nearshore in Portugal | Lisbon and Porto, for foreign buyers | When you need a multilingual European base without incorporating | Stay inside the EEA. No transfer. |
| Brazil | Sao Paulo | When scale and cost are the priority, or the market served is Brazilian | No adequacy decision. Requires standard contractual clauses and a transfer impact assessment. |
| Global network | Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Colombia, Turkiye and Africa | When you need continuous cover, specific languages or the lowest cost | Poland is inside the EEA. The others require standard contractual clauses. |
The data column describes the applicable framework and is not legal advice. The detail is in international data transfers.
This service carries a variant decision
Are you serving customers in Portugal, in Brazil or in both? The answer changes the operating design, the scripts, who reviews quality and how results are reported.
Related services
- Customer supportContact centre operations in Portuguese, English and more than thirty languages, across voice, email, chat and social.
- Technical supportLevel 1 and 2 support for software, telecoms and hardware products, with structured escalation.
- Back officeAdministrative processing, document management, data entry and internal operations support.
- Finance and accountingAccounts payable and receivable, reconciliations, invoicing and close support, alongside your own accountants.
Frequently asked questions
Do you measure bookings or meetings held?
Meetings held, with the no-show rate reported alongside from the first week.
Who handles rescheduling?
The same team. It is where this service frees most of the time it saves.
Do you access our team's calendars?
With availability rules defined per person, so booking does not produce calendars nobody can keep.
How do you reduce no-shows?
Confirmation at two points, short-notice booking wherever possible, and honest disqualification on the call.
Do you present yourselves as our company?
No, not if we are not. The team states on whose behalf it is calling, and it is a rule we do not relax.
Are calls recorded?
They are, with prior notice to the counterpart, for training and to verify that persistence limits are respected.
What minimum size justifies the service?
Two or three salespeople whose time is being consumed by booking and rescheduling.
Does it combine with prospecting?
It does, and we recommend it, on the same record and criteria to avoid two definitions of an opportunity.
Let us look at the numbers for your case
Tell us which processes you want to outsource, in which languages and at what volume. We come back with a euro estimate and an operating design, with no commitment.
We reply within 6 hours on working days. If you would rather write: info@corpshore.solutions