Cold calling has always been hard, but it’s an uphill battle for small businesses with little name recognition. Here at Kaspr, we wanted to separate fact from fiction and gather data to help SMB teams understand the challenges they face in 2025 – and what they can do to have quality conversations, time and time again.
We commissioned We Have a Meeting (WHAM) to collect data from nearly 100,000 calls made by SMB sales teams across Europe to help small businesses learn more about:
Cold calling still matters for SMB sales teams, maybe now more than ever. With tighter budgets for paid ads and rising costs in other acquisition channels, SMBs need to be more resourceful and smarter with their outreach.
Unlike their peers at large enterprises, SMB sales teams face extra barriers, like fewer qualified leads, less customer data, and the added friction of establishing credibility without the name recognition enterprise sellers enjoy. Harsh penalties for breaching data protection regulations make things harder still.
SMB sales is a challenging profession that demands independence, diligence, and the right tools. Cold calling remains a vital channel in this landscape, but success depends on skill and persistence.
Now, let’s get data-heavy. It’s time to build a clear picture of SMB cold calling in 2025.
Let’s start with the headline UK SMB data.
Of the 77,250 calls made by UK SMBs, 20,231 connected. That equates to a 26% connect rate, meaning about 1 in 4 calls connect.
Of those 20,231 connected calls, 13,572 resulted in conversations.
Those 13,572 conversations resulted in 322 meetings booked, a 2.4% success rate.
It’s fair to say those are long odds. But a closer look at our connect rate data reveals plenty of insights you can use to help turn the odds in your favor.
When it comes to outbound calling, it’s a trade-off:
👉 Maximize coverage by contacting more leads,
or
👉 Maximize your chances of reaching each individual lead by calling fewer prospects more times.
Our data shows you don’t need endless follow-ups to get results:
Here are three data-backed strategies to help you strike the right balance:
One call per prospect. Maximize pipeline velocity by calling once and moving on. Since most conversations happen on the first dial, this is the fastest way to generate volume—ideal if you have a large lead pool.
Two calls per prospect. Capture nearly 90% of possible conversations without sacrificing too much speed. This is a smart middle ground for teams balancing efficiency with thoroughness.
Three calls per prospect. If every lead counts, extend to three calls to reach 95% of potential conversations. Expect slower list turnover but a higher contact rate per lead.
Now you know how many dials you need to make, the rest of this report highlights granular insights to help you optimise your outreach. Below, we reveal the best days of the week, and best times of day to make a cold call.
What are the best days to call? The answer is clear: mid-week reigns supreme. While Tuesday is the strongest individual day from a meetings booked perspective, both Wednesday and Thursday represent well.
That’s not to say Monday and Friday are worthless — Friday, the worst day for booking meetings, is only 24% worse than Tuesday, the best day.
The reasons for this are pretty simple. Monday is a day for organizing, planning, clearing the weekend email backlog, while Friday is a slower day. The mid-week days are the prime doing-business days.
When viewed through a conversation rate perspective, a different trend emerges. Monday is again a laggard, and Tuesday is again the star performer, but Friday’s conversion rate nearly matches Tuesday’s. We speculate that lower competition from other cold callers or fewer meetings allows prospects more time to chat.
To maximize the number of conversations per connect, make sure to brush up on your objection handling skills. Handling objections well can turn a “No” into a “Yes” or keep the door open for a call at a later time.
There are four key points in this data:
Assuming a standard 7.5 hour workday, you could work 10am-6pm instead of 9am-5pm. That way, you capture the two most productive hours of the day from a sales standpoint.
Let’s combine the day and hour data with dial attempts to create a strategy.
In our view, it doesn’t matter much when you call if you follow the two-dial or three-dial strategies, except that you don’t neglect the last hours of the day.
Pro-tip: Post-5pm is a great time to call because the prospect is unlikely to be in meetings, but is still likely to be at work. And with less pressure on their time, they might be more open to considering new ideas.
If you are pursuing the optimal one-dial strategy, it could be worth focusing your efforts on Tuesday through Friday. Friday’s high conversation-to-meetings booked rate is particularly enticing.
Overall, though, the variations by day and time are not statistically significant. Cold calling success can occur at any time. The key is to make the most of the hours available to you.
We’ve looked at UK SMB data. Now, let’s dig deeper to compare how SMB sales teams compare across the UK and Europe.
The data shows that for EU SMBs, cold calling is broadly similar to that of UK SMBs. So, if you’re working in European small business sales, our data suggests you could:
With the right tools, tactics, and attitude, cold calling is absolutely viable for SDRs at small businesses in 2025. Accurate and reliable data can help turn the odds more in a sales rep’s favor by getting them through to the people they need to speak with, boosting meeting-booked rates.
For more tips on cold calling and outbound, check out Prospecting on Demand for a video series like the Cold Calling Clinic.