First of all, what is telesales? Simply put, telesales is the remote, phone-based capturing of sales orders. Telesales representative can be supported by in-field team members, but their position in the sales journey is often different. In Consumer Goods, the role of the field sales team is often to open new accounts, up-sell & cross-sell products and complete audits, while the telesales rep will be handling the weekly, repeat sales and maintaining ongoing relationships with the customer.

With changing customer behaviour and external market factors, it’s really important for companies to embrace not just one sales channel, but to be truly omnichannel. A comprehensive sales strategy needs to include all of the potential customer touchpoints; this means a consistent experience across field, telesales, eCommerce and beyond.

With the number of companies investing in omnichannel experiences rising exponentially from 20% to over 80% in recent years, commercial strategies in this area are vital. Far too often, however, we see telesales being neglected from ‘omnichannel’ sales strategies, despite its significant impact. There are a few reasons as to why this can be:

• No Single View of the Customer:

One of the most significant issues facing traditional telesales is clunky, siloed platforms. A potential advantage to telesales is the ability to have all of a customer’s information open on screen, so that you can have the best conversation possible with total visibility. If you don’t have a platform that support this in an efficient way, it can waste time for both you and the customer.

• A Disconnected Channel

Far too often, the industry will see companies who utilise (in some capacity) telesales as an add-on to their other sales channels label themselves ‘omnichannel’. When telesales operates as a ‘bolt-on’, it creates a clunky experience for employees. This, in turn, deteriorates the customer experience. It needs to be a part of the picture from the beginning, fully integrated and seamlessly executed.

• An ‘Anti-Change’ Mentality

Reluctance to update both internal systems and ways of working can (and will) significantly impede the evolution of a telesales team. Just because it’s the ‘way things have always been done’ does not guarantee that it is the best way. Especially when you can be more productive and make life easier for yourself with newer systems and technology.

• Unfair Negative Perception

With the increase of high-volume unsolicited cold calling from multi-level marketing and scammers, public perception of telesales is often resentful at best. Even for telesales representatives with an established customer relationship, it’s essential to ensure that the interaction can’t be associated with the time-wasting stereotype the channel suffers. This can be avoided by focusing on customer wants and needs and not utilising aggressive sales techniques.

• The Human Touch

Telesales’ greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness: the person holding the phone. People buy from people, and the creation and curation of a customer relationship can be invaluable. But the personal touch can also hinder a sale – not every employee will always be on top form. In addition, having to establish a relationship can cause a sales representative to not have necessary conversations that could increase basket size. This is where having an overview of customer history can be useful – it reduces the amount of work for the telesales representative by putting it at their fingertips.

With a single source of truth, Aforza provides your sales teams with unified pricing and discounting across all channels which means that every order is priced accurately, in real-time. An industry-leading product catalogue also sits at the core to drive accurate product bundles, discounts, and units of measure.

When capturing orders, sellers are seamlessly guided through promotion and cart configurations which are fully optimised for an offline tablet experience with the same prices, discounts, cart summaries and order completion workflows. Penny Perfect Pricing, available across all channels.