Is selling over the telephone for you and your company? In today's world of globalization, can you afford to hire sales people from around the globe? Do you have the necessary infrastructure to support multiple languages in multiple countries? How can you get to the required number of leads and sales needed to grow and hit your targets for this year?
One of the benefits that Israel has to offer is the multitude of people that speak multiple languages on a mother-tongue level. Those that have come here as olim or were born to those that had come here from their native countries. We can use this to our advantage on the global playing field.
But, managing telesales and building the infrastructure is not easy.
1. Measurement - There are two philosophies about measuring telesales. One is quantity - the number of calls in a day or talk time. The other is quality - how many of the calls lead to closed business. I believe a combination of both is necessary. Sales reps should be held to a minimum number of dials and talk time, but you cannot sacrifice the quality of the calls just to hit the allotted time on the phone. They also need to be accountable for closed business as well.
2. Working hours - It is imperative for your folks on the phone to call the clients during the local business hours. This may seem obvious, but the easiest times to catch someone without getting their voice mail is when the person first arrives in the office to start their day.
3. Infrastructure - How will you show the client the value of your product or solution? Today, with WebEx and Microsoft LiveMeeting, you can demonstrate the value over the web easily and with little cost. If these cannot be used, do you have a trial version that can be downloaded and used by the client? Do you have some type of pre-sales technical support that can help the client through the trial process? Without making this simple for the client, you will have a longer sales cycle than necessary or will not succeed at all.
4. Defined Process - Are your telephone based assets selling or just setting meetings for your sales team? At what point do you move from the phone to the field? Is it a size of a deal? You will need a string operation person for this task and it must be backed up by a system (like Salesforce.com).
5. Training - Just like any sales force, the reps need ongoing training. Listen to their feedback as well as they are a frontline group touching many customers. You will get a return on your investment of training through this invaluable feedback.
Call centers can be very beneficial and profitable if run correctly. Are you running yours correctly?
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