A financial, promotional effort by which a bank tries to reach new customers (new leads) who were not expecting to be contacted by the bank. The term “cold” implies that no groundwork was laid before contacting the customer. Sometimes, both phone calls and drop-in visits are referred to as cold calling. However, most salespeople thing of cold calling in terms of telephone contact.

Cold calling, or also unsolicited real-time promotion, is the opposite of warm calling.