Cold calling

Cold calling is the solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call.^[1][2] It is an attempt to convince potential customers to purchase the salesperson's product or service. Generally, it is an over-the-phone process, making it a form of telemarketing,^[3] but can also be done in-person by door-to-door salespeople. Though cold calling can be used as a legitimate business tool, scammers can use cold calling as well.

Cold calling has developed from a form of giving sales pitch using a script^[4] into a targeted communication tool. Salespeople call from a list of potential customers that fit certain parameters built to help increase the likelihood of a sale. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, sales consultant Steve Richard argued that cold calling remains an essential practice for B2B sales forces, and that dismissing it as obsolete risks eliminating a proven method of reaching decision-makers directly.^[5] This modern approach to cold calling, sometimes called "warm calling", attempts to understand the potential customer's specific situation and needs before making contact, rather than working from a generic script.

Modern cold calling typically begins with list construction rather than working from a generic directory. Sales teams build target lists filtered by criteria such as ideal customer profile (ICP), industry, company size, job title, and behavioral signals — for example, a prospect's recent fundraising activity, hiring patterns, or technology adoption — sourced from customer relationship management (CRM) systems and third-party data providers. Research by LinkedIn found that 76% of top-performing sales professionals "always" conduct research before reaching out to a prospect, and that inaccurate B2B contact data wastes an estimated 27.3% of sales representatives' time — equivalent to approximately 546 hours per year for a full-time representative.^[6] A separate survey found that 42% of salespeople reported lacking sufficient data to make a high-quality cold call.^[7]

Warm calling refers to outreach where some prior connection or context exists before the call — for example, the prospect has engaged with company content, been referred by a mutual contact, or the caller has researched the prospect's current business priorities. Warm calling is generally considered to produce higher conversion rates than purely cold outreach and is sometimes used interchangeably with the concept of targeted prospecting. The RAIN Group's Top Performance in Sales Prospecting benchmark report, which surveyed 488 B2B buyers and 489 sellers across 25 industries, found that 71% of buyers said they were willing to hear from sellers early in the buying process, and that top-performing sales professionals generated 2.7 times more meetings with target contacts than average performers.^[6]

While rigid, verbatim scripts are associated with earlier forms of telemarketing, most contemporary sales training distinguishes between scripts — designed to ensure compliance and basic message consistency — and talk tracks, which are flexible frameworks allowing callers to respond adaptively to a prospect's objections and questions. Frameworks for handling objections often follow structured patterns such as the "feel–felt–found" method: acknowledging the prospect's concern (feel), normalizing it as a common response (felt), and reframing based on what similar prospects have experienced (found).^[6] Published script frameworks from sales platforms are widely used as starting points for developing talk tracks tailored to specific industries and buyer personas.^[8]

Cold calling is increasingly deployed as one component of a broader multi-channel outreach sequence rather than as a standalone tactic. The RAIN Group benchmark found it takes an average of eight touchpoints to secure an initial meeting with a new prospect, with top performers achieving this in as few as five touches.^[6] Research on call timing suggests that mid-week windows (Tuesday through Thursday) and specific times of day — commonly late morning and post-lunch — tend to produce higher connection rates, though findings vary across studies and industries.^[9] Speed-to-lead — the elapsed time between a prospect registering intent and receiving a follow-up call — is also considered a significant variable, with data indicating that contact rates drop sharply beyond the first hour after a prospect signals interest.^[7]

Contemporary cold calling has moved away from rigid, script-based approaches toward what practitioners call consultative outreach, in which the caller researches a prospect's business context, role, and likely needs before making contact. This shift reflects broader changes in B2B buying behavior. Research by Gartner found that the average number of stakeholders involved in a B2B purchase decision has grown from approximately five to between eleven and twenty, requiring salespeople to tailor messaging to multiple personas within a single account.^[10] The same research found that 27% of a B2B buyer's time during the purchase process is spent researching independently online, with sales representatives representing just one of many channels buyers consult.^[10]

Modern cold calling operations are typically built around a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that stores prospect data, tracks prior interactions, and surfaces that information to the caller at the moment of contact. Integrated power dialer software automates sequential dialing through prioritized lead lists, skips unanswered calls and voicemails, and logs outcomes back to the CRM automatically — reducing administrative overhead and allowing representatives to focus time on live conversations. The technology stack has evolved from basic auto-dialers focused on volume to more compliance-conscious power dialers that surface CRM context for each call and support STIR/SHAKEN call authentication requirements under U.S. federal regulations.^[11] Some CRM platforms bundle power dialing, predictive dialing, voicemail drop, call recording, and AI-generated call summaries into a single integrated workflow.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly applied at multiple points in the cold calling workflow: verifying and enriching contact data before calls are placed, transcribing calls in real time, scoring conversations for coaching purposes, and automating follow-up sequences. A 2024 Salesforce State of Sales report (Sixth Edition) found that 83% of sales teams incorporating AI into their processes reported revenue growth, and that 47% of sales teams were specifically using AI for call coaching.^[12]

The effectiveness of cold calling is contested among sales practitioners and researchers, with outcomes varying considerably by industry, target segment, data quality, and methodology. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Weldon Long reported that 48% of B2B salespeople are afraid of making cold calls, and that this fear correlates with lower quota attainment and higher stress levels — suggesting that execution quality, not the channel itself, is often the limiting factor in poor outcomes.^[13]

Industry research has found average cold call success rates — defined as calls resulting in a booked meeting — of approximately 2–5%, with variation attributed to differences in data quality, targeting, and outreach methodology.^[7] Separately, research cited in industry surveys found that organizations which believed cold calling was no longer effective experienced 42% less growth than those that maintained active programs.^[7]

Buyer preferences add nuance to the debate. The RAIN Group benchmark found that 57% of C-level and VP buyers across industries prefer to be contacted by phone, and 54% of B2B technology buyers specifically preferred cold call outreach over other contact methods.^[6] At the same time, a HubSpot survey found that only 37% of prospects felt that cold callers delivered information relevant to their needs, while nearly 75% of the salespeople involved believed their outreach was well-targeted.^[7] Gartner research noted that buyers are increasingly completing substantial portions of their purchase research independently before engaging with any vendor representative.^[10]

With the development of newer technology and the Internet, cold calling has gained some criticism. Jeffrey Gitomer wrote in a 2010 article for The Augusta Chronicle that "the return on investment on cold calling is under zero."^[14] Gitomer believes that cold calling will only annoy customers and will not attract business. Gitomer also believes that referral marketing is a better form of selling and marketing.^[14] According to Gitomer, there are "2.5 basic understandings of a cold call":^[15]

• Cold calling is the lowest percentage sale call.
• Cold calling has a very high rejection rate.
• Multiple rejections can change the salesperson's mentality and make it more difficult to act friendly and complete calls.^[15]
• Since the rise of the Internet, social media and instant text messaging, a significant portion of people tends to prefer texting over calling and ignores incoming phone calls from unfamiliar numbers.^[16][17]

Cold calling has also been used by scammers. One such example was when groups of impostors posed as members of the Microsoft support team. The impostors called several homes from a database of Microsoft owners. The Microsoft customers were then told that there was a virus on their computers, and in order to fix it, they had to download a specific program. The program gave access to the computer files for the impostors.^[18] Cold calling has been a hallmark in the proliferation of boiler room scams selling fraudulent investment and sports betting schemes from Australia's Gold Coast.^[19]

Many countries have rules and regulations that limit and control how, when and whom companies can cold call. These rules and regulations are often implemented by government bodies that deal with telecommunication laws in their specific country.

The United States telecommunication laws are developed and enacted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC aims to "puts consumers in charge of the number of telemarketing calls they get at home".^[20] The United States, along with many individual states, have enacted various "Do Not Call" lists. These lists are based on the national US Do Not Call List which was enacted in 2003.^[20] Every month, since January 2005, companies are required by law to check the "Do Not Call List" database and remove registered numbers from their leads lists.^[21] However the "Do Not Call List" has certain limitations. Even if a person is registered for the "Do Not Call List", certain organizations can still call. These organizations include:

• Telephone surveyors, charities, and political organizations
• Organizations that one has had a business relationship with over the previous 18 months
• Any company one has given written permission^[20]

The FTC has also set certain regulations on when one can be called. Cold calling can only be done between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. The caller is also required by law to tell the customer who they are and what organization they represent. This includes clarifying if the organization is a for-profit organization or charity. The salesperson also must reveal all information about the product they are selling. This means that they are legally required not to lie.^[20]

Many other government organizations monitor cold calling within their jurisdiction, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC specializes in monitoring cold calling that deals with stocks, specifically stockbrokers. The SEC advises that investments cannot be made based solely on a telephone sales pitch, and that written information about any investment opportunity should always be obtained before committing funds.^[22]

As of February 2024^[update], the FCC has banned the use of AI-generated voices and potentially AI-generated text messages in telemarketing and cold calling, with violations posing significant legal liabilities for businesses who violate the new regulations set forth.^[23][24]

The National Do Not Call List (DNCL) is administered by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). As with the U.S. version, the rules exclude surveyors, charities, political organizations/candidates, organizations that one has had a business relationship with over the previous 18 months or has otherwise granted permission, as well as newspapers seeking subscribers.^[25][26]

The United Kingdom has its own version of the "Do Not Call List" known as the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). Any citizen of the United Kingdom can register for the list that aims to eliminate its participants from receiving unsolicited calls from organizations including charities and political parties, unlike the United States and Canada. TPS was first enacted in 1999 and eventually saw changes in 2003 that ultimately created the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.^[27] While the TPS prevents unsolicited sales and marketing calls, it does not prevent "recorded/automated messages, silent calls, market research, overseas companies, debt collection, scam calls"^[28] according to the TPS website.

In 2012, Richard Herman from Middlesex sent an invoice to a company for the time they had kept cold-calling him. He eventually took the company to the small claims court, leading to the company settling out of court. He had been phoned several times by the company despite being listed with the Telephone Preference Service.^[29]

Australia has its own version of the "Do Not Call List" known as the Do Not Call Register. The "Do Not Call Register" is under the jurisdiction of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) which acts as the supreme telecommunications authority in Australia. Registering for the "Do Not Call Register" prevents telemarketers and fax marketers from contacting registered members. Registration for the program is free and will last for eight years. Similar to other countries, there are exceptions to the "Do Not Call Register". These exceptions include: political parties, charities and educational institutions. The "Do Not Call Register" takes effect 30 days after registration.^[30]

In the Republic of Ireland, the "National Directory Database" is an index of numbers that cannot be called for the purposes of 'cold calls' and/or sales and advertising. An unsolicited marketing call to a number on the National Directory Database is a criminal offence.^[31]

Some financial products are totally not permitted to cold-call, but the practice is generally permitted within a guideline which requires stating the name of the business, full name of the caller, name of the product and intention of solicitation. There is no do-not-call list. The Japanese government's Financial Services Agency maintains a list of known fraudulent entities involved in financial cold-calling scams.^[32]

On May 25, 2018, the European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation which imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere, so long as they target or collect data related to people in the EU.^[33]

• UK (Free) Anti-Cold Calling Register to Help Stop Unwanted Marketing Calls
• US Federal Do Not Call Registry
• US Federal Trade Commission – Avoiding Unwanted Calls