Greg Brown offers some practical advice in his work.com ‘Guide to Sales Incentives’. His best advice?
Make the program simple. Easy to understand, easy to measure, easy to track. Provides the incentive to get the job done without having to get bogged down in the details.
Promote it, promote it, and then promote it some more. Leverage the program to the hilt by referring to it constantly.
Track progress publically. This ensures accuracy but, more importantly, it taps into the competitive juices of the Telesales people.
Be sure to have the rewards on hand. Make it real and make sure your reps trust the program by rewarding in a timely fashion.
Effective training is a key component to successfully teleselling and teleservicing and there are many companies who offer sales and service training.
Here are 3 questions to ask before you select a Tele Training partner:
1) Is this training company the right match for my business?
Is this company expert in delivering Telephone skills training?
and
Does this company have customers that:
a) sell to the same sized companies
b) and target the same level of decision makers
2) Is this company’s training offering repeatable?
The best telephone skills training programs are those that deliver training in modules. Once you complete the training, you can follow up with training in key focus areas. Be sure to select a program that is easy to deliver frequently, either by engaging an outside trainer or by purchasing access to modules that you can use as needed.
3) What do I need to do now to prepare for reinforcing the skills and techniques my team learns?
Plan ahead for what follows the training. Commit to reinforcing the telesales skills and techniques. Review this requirement with the trainer you select and establish reinforcement and retraining plan before the training starts. Build this into your plan and your training budget.
There are so many moving parts to Customer Service and Telesales organizations that it is good to work with some standard checklists. www.justsell.com has a number of good ones that can be used as is or customized to an organization. Check out the Sales Evaluation. It is designed as a self-evaluation tool for sales reps but could easily be used by managers. The Customer Service Checklist is a good, basic start for a new Customer Care department.
Last night’s All Star game was an exciting game, right up to the last inning. For baseball fans and non baseball fans alike, it provides an excellent backdrop for recognizing the performance of your top telephone representatives. Be sure to take advantage of the All Star break to shout out the contributions of your All Stars, whether top individual performers, top team contributors, subject matter experts…....the list is endless. Seasonal, themed recognition is easy to create and the media coverage provides a supporting backdrop.
There are many excellent Sales Training options available, however not all have the talent or expertise to train Telesales Representatives. When selecting a training company for your Telesales team, look for a Telesales track record.
Be sure to ask the following:
- What percentage of your training engagements involve training Telesales representatives?
- How many of those engagements are exclusively Telesales Training (as opposed to training in combination with Field Sales training)?
- How is your Teleselling training different than your other Sales training offerings?
- What specific Telesales techniques do you include in your training?
Asking a few Telesales-specific questions at the beginning of the search will result in a shorter list of applicable Telesales Training resources.
Answer: Conduct a telephone interview.
A short, targeted initial telephone screening will provide you with insights into the tele talents of the candidate.
Teletip: Break the interview into two segments: a short, introductory segment and a second, more involved series of interview questions. This enables you and your managers to end an interview gracefully if the candidate is not a fit and/or does not project a professional teleselling image.
(1) Do you know what your customers and prospects hear when they call your company?
(2) Are your Customer Service representatives and/or the person answering your main number courteous, knowledgeable, and professional?
(3) Are you sure your customers and prospects are getting the best service and the right information each and every time they call your company?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘No’ or ‘I don’t know’, consider implementing a regular tele checkup program. Every week, make a few calls to your company’s main number and to your Customer Service line. Make the calls on different days, at different times of the day. And come to the calls prepared with specific questions. This exercise will provide with the answers to questions (1), (2). & (3) and more.
Teletip: If you have a distinctive voice, it would be worth the investment to hire a ‘secret shopper’ to do these calls on your behalf.
Doing business by phone requires thought and planning. Begin by developing a separate and specific Telesales Plan.
Too often companies develop their Field Sales plan then add the Telesales component at the end or as a supplement. To create a successful Telesales function, the first step is to develop a specific plan, independent of Field and Partner/Affiliate Sales. What contribution do you want the Telephone Sales team to make? Lead Generation? Direct Selling? Database Management? Account Management/Support? Examine your markets, your products, your prospects, your customers, and your partners & affiliates.
Telesales can play a variety of roles, large to small, in the successful execution of a sales plan. Begin by developing a plan that specifically identifies how your company will leverage teleselling. Once the plan is developed, merge it into your company’s sales plan in order to develop a strategy that matches the right resources to the sales objective.
Years ago, the word ‘Telemarketing’ described all outbound calling activities, ranging from prospecting to closing sales to account support & management.
In the late 80s, the word ‘Telesales’ became the buzzword for selling via phone and ‘Telemarketing’ was relegated to describing prospecting and lead qualification.
‘Telemarketing’ was marketing and promotion. ‘Telesales’ was the process of closing the sale over the phone.
These days, the words ‘Telemarketing’ and ‘Telesales’ are often used interchangeably. If you look these words up in two different dictionaries, you will likely find the same definition used for both words (see ‘telemarketing’ in the American Heritage Dictionary and ‘telesales’ in the Cambridge Advanced Learner Dictionary).
Either term is acceptable, how you and your company use the words is the important part.
In this week’s column, Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory (‘Public safety hang-ups’, April 18, 2007) tells a great story about the Scottsdale, Arizona Police Department and its unique recruiting efforts. It is posting ‘help wanted’ signs in the men’s rooms of major baseball stadiums.
What struck me was the last paragraph. Greg Carlin, the chief recruiting officer for Scottsdale PD, said he had received one call from someone who was in Fenway Park and it was obvious the call was being made from the bathroom.
This got me to thinking ‘What’s in my background?’ How many times have I tried to carry on a conversation with a customer service rep or sales person and the background was distracting or, worse, getting in the way?
When your company makes or receives calls from customers and prospects, be sure the background reflects the professionalism of the call. If you find it doesn’t, buy a sound machine or a fan. Anything that masks the chatter and the noise.
What’s in your tele background?
Read Brian McGrory’s complete column: Brian McGrory’s 4/18/2007 column