Fusion Guardian: elevating safety for reps in the field

Being a field sales rep might not sound like a potentially dangerous job at first. But when sales agents are heading out alone into uncertain environments, they need to be sure that their employers are keeping them safe – including by giving them the right tools in case of an emergency.

Our Fusion Guardian software is designed to give exactly that protection. From real-time location alerts to discreet ways to call for assistance, it helps you set up the right measures and procedures to give peace of mind to your reps and sales managers.

 

Protected reps perform better

Whenever a company sends sales agents out into the field, they have a legal obligation to ensure their safety. This includes everything from providing the right training and conducting risk assessments, to maintaining communication and keeping track of their wellbeing.

But there’s more to it than satisfying regulations. Field reps on their routes need to know that there are protections in place should they find themselves in an emergency situation – and that means tangible measures they can take, not just a written procedure to follow.

If your people feel safer while they’re out doing their job, they’re more likely to perform at their best. A more protected field sales team is also often a more diverse one. We know that far fewer women operate in the field compared to men because safety is more of a concern. Having better emergency tools and procedures in place can have a positive impact on how comfortable they feel heading out on routes.

 

Real-time protection, wherever they are

When we made Fusion Guardian, it was built in response to a client’s needs. They wanted to go further in their duty of care towards their field sales reps by offering more real-time measures within their field sales software they could use in case of an emergency.

While your field sales reps are out at work, Fusion Guardian can report back their exact GPS location and instant alerts. That means if they need assistance you can know precisely where they are, not just which route they were walking at the time.

In case of an emergency, Fusion Guardian gives them a discreet panic button so that they don’t have to take any further risks in notifying your team. And with a simple user interface, they can be confident of still calling for help even under pressure.

For the management team receiving alerts, you can also set up the response framework however you need to. The procedures that go on in the background can be tailored, meaning you can specify how notifications get escalated and who is informed at each stage.

 

Safety isn’t optional in the field

It’s easy to assume that knocking on doors isn’t much of a hazardous workplace for field sales agents. But when your reps knock on those doors, they’re entering uncertain environments, meeting with strangers and even going into homes.

When they’re out in the field, they’re in a situation you can’t control. We’ve heard of situations where sales agents have entered a potential customer’s home and not been allowed to leave. And while not every rep will be in that kind of danger, there’s always a chance for things to go wrong when they’re putting their safety in the hands of a stranger.

Ultimately, your people want to feel that they’re protected when they’re on their sales routes. If they know someone has their back in case they need it, they’re less likely to feel isolated and better able to focus on engaging with customers.

Speak to us to learn more about how Fusion Guardian can help safeguard your field sales team.

 


5 industry trends affecting telcos and their sales outcomes

When the telco industry is constantly evolving, so too is the way that telco sales teams approach launching campaigns, engaging new customers and maximising their resources.

Whether it’s finding new ways to strengthen a sales team or thinking tactically about how to enter new territories, the telcos that find the most success will be the ones that are agile enough to roll with the changing landscape.

 

There’s a talent shortage causing brain drain

One of the biggest factors in how telco sales teams are changing is the problem of talent shortage.

Recruitment has taken a big hit as a result of the pandemic and the following economic uncertainty, with fewer people willing to risk their job security by seeking new opportunities. Fewer candidates on the job market makes the talent you do have that much more valuable – and when someone does leave, telcos are having to find new ways to soften the blow of brain drain.

If bolstering your sales resources has become harder recently, you’ll have to focus on capitalising on the channels that are available to you. Sometimes that means being more open to building remote or hybrid sales teams, so that you can access the best talent wherever you’re located.

But it can also mean rethinking what you look for in new hires. Some telcos are taking in younger candidates, who might not have the usual level of experience or proven knowledge but have the right attitude to build competency for the long term. With the right training and systems in place, the right team can be in place too.

 

Sustainability issues are at the frontier of connectivity

The last few years have seen some major leaps forward in what ISPs can offer customers, such as 5G and gigabit broadband. And with those advances comes a push to extend connectivity into the hardest to reach rural areas.

A lot of the fibre in rural areas is still being run on poles rather than in the ground. That leaves networks highly susceptible to storms and damage, an issue that might only become more pressing as the climate crisis and more unpredictable weather takes effect. As a result operators and legislators are putting significant investment into digging and laying new, more resilient cables in the ground.

As those networks expand into more and more territories, they won’t just bring more reliable connectivity for consumers – they will also create more opportunities for ISPs to sell and expand. But taking advantage of that will require more than sending out reps to talk about download speeds.

Building trust in your brand will be crucial in winning those customers. If their area has been underserved by slow or patchy broadband in the past, they might not take to a new provider as quickly as expected. Before they consider signing a contract, they first need to believe the promises being made to them.

 

There’s a gap between FTTP rollout and uptake in UK and Germany

Germany is aiming to bring FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) to half their population by 2025. And on first glance, the nation seems to be doing well. After all, Germany has the highest growth rate in Europe. However, they’re also starting from the smallest initial base.

70% of the FTTP rollout is being championed by alt-net providers, but their efforts are limited due to a lack of open access. They’re also facing a consumer base that is confused as to what benefits Fibre can offer over Germany’s robust and historically successful copper infrastructure.

Meanwhile, in the UK, 42% of the population have access to full fibre but only 25% have taken it up. Here the gap has some stark causes, such as lack of education around Fibre. In 2022, when internet service provider Zen surveyed the same population, they found that 32% of UK adults couldn’t define what full fibre broadband is.

In order to meet gigabit targets, telcos need to meet the education gap, and customers will only believe what telcos say if they can prove they are trustworthy.

 

The customer journey now starts earlier 

 When trust plays such a major role in telco sales, it changes the way providers think about presales. The customer journey starts long before you approach them about signing a contract. That’s true for any telco, but especially for challenger ISPs who need to build up brand and product awareness in an area before they send their sales reps in.  

For the results to be meaningful, this needs to be treated as part of a sales campaign. It’s often not, because it’s not directly linked to completing deals with new customers. Agents could go out and thoroughly canvas an area, but they’re only given a clipboard to record basic details – and at the end of the day, none of that information is fed into a sales system database. 

If that information is lost between campaigns, your sales team will be going in blind when they set out to sign people up in that area. They won’t know who’s interested in a new service or provider and who isn’t. With that comes a risk of overlooking potential customers who would have been easier to win, or overworking people who aren’t looking to change their current deal. 

 

One touch switch and other incoming regulation

The Telecommunications (Security) Act and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) dominate the regulatory landscape for telcos and their sales teams, but the Gigabit Infrastructure Act is in debate in Europe and Ofcom’s incoming One Touch Switch is on the horizon in the UK. The latter will make it easier for consumers to change their broadband supplier, but it will also require telecom sales teams to match their broadband service to other providers’ deals – their speed, pricing and contract length

Telcos that embrace this and go further, building on the ethos behind One Touch Switch and other customer choice-centred regulation will become the telcos that customers trust. And since that’s a key ingredient in overcoming many of the telecom industry’s current challenges, from FTTP rollout to funding new rural infrastructure, it’s going to be a determinant of which brands come out on top.

To learn more, check out our thoughts on how telcos can launch tactical, effective field sales campaigns.

 


Leads +, Sales + or Enterprise: a buyer’s guide to PSI

Leads +, Sales + or Enterprise: a buyer’s guide to PSI

Finding the right platform to support your sales process isn’t always about looking at the price. It’s also about finding sales software that can deliver what you need today, and empower you to get where you’re going next.

Do you need to dig deep into the performance of your field sales teams? See the bigger picture of end-to-end sales journeys? Or do you need to tie multiple sales channels together in one clear place?

PSI's sales software comes in three configurations: Leads +, Sales + and Enterprise. We’ve put together this guide to all three to help you find the package you need.

 

Leads +

You can think of Leads + as our essential field sales tools – a foundational sales territory management platform for overseeing campaigns and rep performance.

At its core, this package is about giving more power to both your field reps and your sales managers. Leads + lets your field sales team work on an unlimited number of addresses and leads, and think more tactically about how you engage with them. With the Opti Route algorithm you can optimise routes for each sales rep, to ensure that each area is maximised without being overworked.

While your agents are out in the field, GPS tracking and real-time rep management tools give an eagle-eyed overview of their performance at all times. And as they report the results from every door, you can follow and collect powerful data insights to hone future campaigns.

The features in Leads + underpin the rest of our packages because we know that field sales is essential for telcos and energy companies. Whether you’re planning to grow to multichannel sales or you’re an incumbent who’s already there, you will always need the ability to manage your sales territory and your field reps.

 

Sales +

Sales + takes the foundation of our territory management toolkit and builds on it with an end-to-end sales package.

The entire sale - from first recording potential customers to closing the deal - is wrapped up in one place. As well as digital contracts and bank validations to complete the sale, that includes document templates, a customer document portal, and email and SMS communications. Engaging with customers at any stage of the process is seamless for both them and your sales team, and all of the communications can be customised with your own branding.

That means there is less manual intervention required to move the process along and no data lags that risk breaking a sale. Your entire team can access all the information they need in one place and as close to real-time as possible – they’ll be able to know the exact status of each sale as soon as the rep leaves the customer’s door.

If you’re trying to grow quickly, Sales + gives you everything you need to tighten up your sales and provisioning process, while letting your internal tech team focus on adding value to the business.

 

Enterprise

If you’re operating on the level of multichannel sales, Enterprise is the package that helps you integrate each channel into one cohesive process.

Enterprise brings all sales journeys together under one roof, no matter where they start or finish. If a customer journey begins with a field sales rep visiting their door but finishes online, that sale is treated as one end-to-end process within the system. There’s no lag as they move between channels, and no risk of customer details being lost or duplicated along the way.

Enterprise also comes with even greater flexibility. With the power to set up custom journeys, workflows and data reporting, you can map out the PSI platform to fit your existing sales workflow and optimise it fully.

If you’re ready to take your sales campaigns to the next level, speak to us to find out more about PSI can help.


Grow, compete, retain: why energy companies need to get ready to sell again soon

Grow, compete, retain: why energy companies need to get ready to sell again soon

Across the UK and Europe, consumers are looking forward to a time when they’ll be able to pay less for their energy usage. And with the wholesale price of gas falling to its lowest in almost two years, that time may soon be here.

For the energy sector, that means a chance to send their sales agents back out into the field and compete for new customers once again. But to take advantage of this opportunity to grow – not to mention to keep hold of their current customer base – their sales teams will need to be well ahead of the curve, and have the right tools and clarity to move intelligently when the time comes.

 

Your customers are waiting for prices to fall

In February the wholesale price of natural gas fell below €50 per megawatt hour. That’s a significant drop from its peak of €320 per megawatt hour in August 2022, and the lowest the energy sector has seen since September 2021.

In response to that, Ofgem in the UK has begun dropping its energy price cap. For the second quarter of 2023 it went down from £4,279 to £3,280, and it’s expected to continue falling to £1,966 by the end of the year.

But while wholesale prices are falling for energy providers, the benefit of that is still yet to trickle down to the consumer. Due to their fixed price contracts, customers are locked into paying the higher prices they’d signed up at.

When their contracts end, those consumers will be looking to switch to whoever can supply them for less – and that opens up a significant opportunity for energy providers who are ready to get out and sell again.

 

The advantage will go to the agile

In 2020, the year before the current energy crisis began, almost 6m customers in the UK alone changed their energy provider. When prices are low and competition is high, there is a large appetite among consumers to capitalise on better deals and more innovative tariffs by shopping around.

If the price of energy falls again in 2023 and the market opens back up, that appetite may well return. Energy usage has been one of the most daunting household expenses for many consumers over the last two years, with some being forced to choose between paying for heating or paying for food. If there is a chance for them to save hundreds on their next bill just by switching providers, they will be open to it.

The first providers to respond to that will be at an advantage, but they will need to be ready to move fast. No one wants to be out on doorsteps trying to sell now because they aren’t going to win new customers while prices are still high. But they still need to be proactive, not reactive, and start planning how they’re going to deploy their next sales campaign ahead of time.

That will mean thinking tactically about where to focus resources, drawing intelligent data insights on where gains can be made, and knowing how to maximise the productivity of your entire sales process. It will also mean asking yourself if you’ve got the right tools to move with that level of speed and precision – and if not, what do you need to get there?

 

Think smarter on customer retention

When it’s time to sell again, one of the biggest challenges for the energy sector will be that a competitive market won’t just mean an opportunity to grow your market share. If everyone else is out on doorsteps offering lower prices, there’s a risk that you could lose as many existing customers as you gain.

If you have the right sales system in place for customer acquisition, it’s easy to turn that same insight and tactical approach towards retention. The PSI system, for instance, can draw on the data you’ve already gathered, so all your current customer information is already at your fingertips – and that gives you a clear advantage over your rivals.

Your sales team will know exactly when your current customers’ contracts are ending and what kind of deal they were on before. That means you can get started on customer engagement before your competitors have had a chance to get their boots on. And with their details already in the PSI system, their retention form can be populated automatically – giving your customers an effortless, positive experience, and your sales reps a better chance to close the deal quickly.

With sales software that gives clarity and insight on the state of your customers, you can think intelligently about how to engage them long before your reps arrive at their door. To learn more, check out our thoughts on effectively returning your sales agents to the field.


One Touch Switch: embracing new telco rules for the good of your customers

One Touch Switch: embracing new telco rules for the good of your customers

This year is one of major change for telcos. From upgrading critical infrastructure to implementing One Touch Switching, there is a wave of new regulations, obligations and security frameworks that UK telecoms providers will need to be ready to embrace.

Navigating those changes can be difficult. But when the new regulations are so focused on protecting consumers and giving them more power to choose the best available deals, there’s an opportunity for telcos to turn legislation into a competitive sales advantage.

 

Safer networks, stronger service

For the UK telecoms sector, there are two major pieces of legislation dominating the horizon in 2023 – the Telecommunications (Security) Act and the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC). And while both of them are broad frameworks touching on all areas of the telecoms industry, there are two significant prongs to this new wave of regulation.

The first is aimed at upgrading and modernising telco infrastructure, and promoting investment in that area. But that doesn’t just mean updating a telecoms network’s capabilities – it also means making the infrastructure more robust.

Both the EECC and the Telecommunications (Security) Act have obligations for service providers to strengthen their network against cyber threats and to notify the government of any breaches. The Telecommunications Security Act goes even further, requiring telecom companies to only work with trusted vendors and suppliers who meet stringent security criteria laid out by the UK government.

That focus on network security feeds into the second part of the legislation – to better protect consumers and ensure they get the highest quality of service. The European Electronic Communications Code in particular is designed to give consumers more freedom and power in choosing a telco provider, by encouraging competition and introducing new rules on billing and contract length.

With consumers in the spotlight, meeting these obligations is as much a matter for a telco’s sales and operations teams as for their technical side. But if they’re not equipped with the right tools, they can risk not being able to deliver the kind of customer service that’s required.

 

One Touch Switch

Legislation isn’t all that’s putting consumer empowerment in an ever greater spotlight. There’s also Ofcom’s plans for One Touch Switch, to enable customers to change to a new broadband provider without having to speak to their current provider first. Although the adoption has faced delays and there has been confusion on what exactly is required, this is still something telecom companies will have to bring into their sales process soon.

In a nutshell, One Touch Switch is about making it easier for consumers to change their broadband supplier. But it’s not just about creating less admin in the switching process – it’s also about giving people more options to choose from in the first place.

Every telco provider has an obligation to match their broadband service to what else is on offer, in terms of speed, pricing and contract length. The idea is that sales reps can show consumers that they’re offering the best package out there – not just on price but on the quality of the service too – and that customers can make an informed choice on whether to stay or switch.

Ultimately, it’s about extending more freedom of choice to broadband customers. And while that’s being driven from a regulatory perspective, internet service providers who embrace that into their sales process can make it a core part of their brand.

For example, our Touchstone sales platform makes it easy to give customers a grace period to review their offer before signing the contract. That extra time can help them to a) be more confident in their decision, and b) trust that a sales pitch isn’t pressuring them to switch.

 

Look after your brand by looking after your customers

While navigating new restrictions and regulations can be a challenge, it also presents an opportunity for telecoms operators to build their brand. When so much of telco sales depends on trust, doubling down on looking after consumers doesn’t just satisfy legislation – it also builds a competitive advantage.

For example, take the pre-documentation that has to be sent during a sale. Once your sales rep has agreed a sale with a customer, they need to send all of that over before any contract is signed. With PSI Fusion they can do that instantly, and send it directly to the customer’s device. They can still have a grace period to review the documents, but that isn’t prolonged any further than it has to be.

The sooner those documents arrive, the better the experience for the customer. They can focus on going over the offer in their own time rather than wondering when everything will arrive. Most importantly, they’ll feel reassured that you’re honouring your obligations to look after consumers and deliver the best possible service.

With such a unique framework of regulations governing the telco world, your sales solution needs to be one that takes that into account. A general sales tool might do everything necessary for another industry or jurisdiction, but it won’t be set up for the nuances of meeting telco legislation and providing customers with the frictionless experience they’re looking for.

To learn more, check out our thoughts on boosting your customer experience with territory management or take a look at our End-to-End Sales or Multichannel Sales solutions.


Tactics, insight and impact for energy companies: how to launch effective sales campaigns in the field 

The last few years haven’t been easy on the energy sector. As energy bills increase, many consumers find it hard to trust large energy companies who seem to profit from putting up their prices. Meanwhile, the rise in wholesale supply costs has left several of the UK’s newer, smaller providers stretched to or even beyond capacity. 

Against that backdrop, field sales campaigns need to work harder than ever. Consumers need more than lower prices – they need to know they can trust a potential new provider, and understand what sets them apart from everyone else on the market. 

First, ask what your potential customers are thinking  

Before you start sending sales agents out to people’s doors, there are some fundamental questions you need to answer. What problem are you trying to solve, and for whom? How can you help your potential customers to understand the value of your service? And what resources do your reps need in order to get that message across?

When it comes to energy, the problem is fairly straightforward – your customers need reliable, affordable electricity. The questions they have are less likely to be about what they’re buying and more about your company in particular. 

Consumers often see switching energy providers as a hassle, so they need to know why you are different from their incumbent. That’s not just a question of cost – it’s also about trust.

People have seen their bills shoot up in recent years – some are even choosing between heating their home and buying food – and they need to know what makes one energy company different from another. Imagine what questions they will have, and work out how to arm your reps to put any concerns to rest. 

Take a tactical approach to your sales territory 

To roll out an effective sales campaign, you need to be tactical about where you’re sending your field sales reps and what outcomes you need them to achieve.

The difficulty for energy companies is that the market is very mature. When everybody already has a supplier and there are no new products or innovations to sway them, a tactical approach often means testing the waters on whether it’s a good time to sell, focusing on building trust or acquiring certain groups of customers. 

Bringing that laser focus requires effective territory management. That means more than gathering addresses and assigning them to sales rep routes. It’s about getting the most out of your campaign tools to optimise the routes in an area, deploy reps efficiently and get reports on results as they happen.

PSI’s Territory Management solution can help here. It allows you to approach an area tactically by creating unique routes for each agent and ensuring no routes are overworked. 

Outcomes are reported in real time, giving you the insight you need to react quickly to what’s going on in your sales territory. And there’s no limit to the amount of data you can upload and manage at one time, so you won’t be held back even when handling multiple campaigns. 

Keep one eye on the bigger picture 

With any sales campaign, there are two key areas to focus on – getting the most productivity out of your sales team, and delivering the best possible customer experience. And if you’re striking out into new areas, you need to ask whether the tools you’re using are still capable of doing that as your customer base grows.

A common problem for growing suppliers is that when they get near or reach enterprise size, they find they’ve outgrown the systems they were using before. The tech isn’t able to keep up with where the company is going, and some customers inevitably fall through the cracks. 

Field sales might be your focus at your current stage, and you have a solution in place to cover that. But if that solution can’t also handle multichannel sales when you need it, it’s going to fall short. But if your partner is as used to working with big players as they are with new entrants, they will be able to follow you on the scaling journey. 

Even if reaching that size isn’t on the horizon right now, you need to be acting bigger than you might be right now. Your ambition will always be to build a larger customer base, and mergers, acquisitions and amalgamations are a fact of life for the sector. Companies that aren’t thinking of that long term vision can quickly get caught out. 

The PSI platform can be that reliable partner, whether you’re at the field sales stage or growing towards multi-channel. Our intuitive software puts everything you need to quickly create and launch campaigns at your fingertips. Real time reporting lets you monitor your lead capture and market penetration as it happens, and the data insights from that help shape the targets and direction of your next campaign. 

There is a long game you can play here. If you start out with sales and territory management tools that can easily scale as you do, you can continue to roll out each sales campaign as effectively as the last. To learn more, check out our thoughts on boosting your customer experience with territory management or take a look at our Territory Management solution.


Tactics, insight and impact for Telcos: how to launch effective sales campaigns in the field 

The telco industry is one that doesn’t stand still. As the infrastructure evolves and networks grow more capable every day, ISPs are constantly developing more products and rolling out to new sales territories.

The difficulty for their field sales teams is that so much change can be dizzying for consumers. When a sales rep turns up at the door, customers often don’t know what they already have or what else is on offer, and getting their interest can be the first and biggest hurdle.

An effective campaign has to go further than price and download speeds. It needs to help guide customers through the options available, and use the data at hand to make a tactical impact fast. 

First, ask what your potential customers are thinking  

Before you start sending sales agents out to people’s doors, there are some fundamental questions you need to answer. What problem are you trying to solve, and for whom? How can you help your potential customers to understand the value of your service? And what resources do your reps need in order to get that message across?

For ISPs, it’s easy for that value to get lost beneath industry jargon<link to Gigabit broadband blog>. You can’t take for granted that the people you’re selling to will know the difference between fibre-to-the-cabinet and fibre-to-the-premises, for example, or that they see a need for full-fibre in their daily lives. 

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes – imagine what questions they will have and what education they’ll need from your reps. From there you can work out how best to arm your reps to explain the options clearly and accurately.

Take a tactical approach to your sales territory 

To roll out an effective sales campaign, you need to be tactical about where you’re sending your field sales reps and what outcomes you need them to achieve.

In the telco space, that tactical approach is a daily fact of life. The nature of constantly evolving technology and capabilities makes for a dynamic market. When new properties are ready for service, telcos need to react fast to what’s available, getting pre-marketing and sales teams in the area first to get ahead of the game.

But to get there first, your data has to be up to date. You need a system that takes in the latest address data so that you can create a tactical campaign off the back of it. 

Bringing that laser focus requires effective territory management. That means more than gathering addresses and assigning them to sales rep routes. It’s about getting the most out of your campaign tools to optimise the routes in an area, deploy reps efficiently and get reports on results as they happen.

PSI’s Territory Management solution can help here. It allows you to approach an area tactically by creating unique routes for each agent and ensuring no routes are overworked. 

Outcomes are reported in real time, giving you the insight you need to react quickly to what’s going on in your sales territory. And there’s no limit to the amount of data you can upload and manage at one time, so you won’t be held back even when handling multiple campaigns. 

Keep one eye on the bigger picture 

With any sales campaign, there are two key areas to focus on – getting the most productivity out of your sales team, and delivering the best possible customer experience. And if you’re striking out into new areas, you need to ask whether the tools you’re using are still capable of doing that as your customer base grows.

A common problem for growing suppliers is that when they get near or reach enterprise size, they find they’ve outgrown the systems they were using before. The tech isn’t able to keep up with where the company is going, and some customers inevitably fall through the cracks. 

Field sales might be your focus at your current stage, and you have a solution in place to cover that. But if that solution can’t also handle multichannel sales when you need it, it’s going to fall short. But if your partner is as used to working with big players as they are with new entrants, they will be able to follow you on the scaling journey. 

Even if reaching that size isn’t on the horizon right now, you need to be acting bigger than you might be right now. Your ambition will always be to build a larger customer base, and mergers, acquisitions and amalgamations are a fact of life for the sector. Companies that aren’t thinking of that long term vision can quickly get caught out. 

The PSI platform can be that reliable partner, whether you’re at the field sales stage or growing towards multi-channel. Our intuitive software puts everything you need to quickly create and launch campaigns at your fingertips. Real time reporting lets you monitor your lead capture and market penetration as it happens, and the data insights from that help shape the targets and direction of your next campaign. 

There is a long game you can play here. If you start out with sales and territory management tools that can easily scale as you do, you can continue to roll out each sales campaign as effectively as the last. To learn more, check out our thoughts on boosting your customer experience with territory management or take a look at our Territory Management solution.


Gigabit broadband in the UK: government targets and the opportunity for telcos

At the start of the decade, the UK government pledged to make gigabit broadband available across the country by 2025. Although this target has since been revised to 2030, Ofcom reported at the end of last year that 70% of UK households can now access gigabit broadband packages.

But despite the drive from both government and private companies to rollout the infrastructure, uptake from consumers is still slow. Part of the problem is that the gigabit initiative is still ongoing, and many households across the country aren’t aware they can upgrade yet. That’s not helped by a confusing picture of who’s responsible for the rollout, with private telcos, central government and regional authorities all involved at various stages.

But it’s not just gigabit that isn’t being fully embraced. Ofcom’s 2022 Connected Nations report also found that while 97% of UK homes can access 30Mb per second broadband, only 73% actually take it.

As more choices are put before consumers, it becomes harder for them to know which one is the best for them. Telcos have a huge part to play in helping them navigate their options – and a huge opportunity to build more loyalty and trust with their customers as a result. For new ISPs, there’s also a chance to lay down the right customer relationship from the get-go. 

 

Safety and convenience matters just as much as cost 

It’s easy to point fingers at cost or a lack of infrastructure as the reason behind slow uptake. But while those factors certainly play a part, the habits of individual consumers is just as large a barrier to overcome.

In the UK currently, 73% of broadband coverage is provided by just four companies: BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. BT alone occupies 25% of the broadband market. 

Consumers feel safe with those larger telcos. They’re established companies, with years of service and customer reviews behind them. If something does go wrong with the network, they’ve got ranks of customer support to call on and engineers to deploy. 

It’s hard for new, smaller telcos to compete against that. Even if the service they’re offering is thirty times faster, consumers still see switching to a less-established provider as a risk. Will they be able to deliver the promised speeds? If there’s a problem, how long will it take to resolve it? Are new ISPs less likely to stick around? 

But more than that, consumers rarely want to think too much about their broadband provider. Shopping around for new deals is confusing and time consuming. Unless their bill shoots up or there’s something egregiously wrong with their current package, they’re unlikely to browse around at who else is on the market. 

Effective field sales campaigns can be a powerful opportunity for newer ISPs to overcome those challenges. If there’s a perception of risk in switching to a new provider, field sales reps can listen to those concerns and address them directly. And most importantly, they can engage with potential customers about the options available to them. 

Do consumers even know what’s available? 

In 2022, internet service provider Zen found that 32% of UK adults said they couldn’t define what full fibre broadband means. When those that said they knew what full fibre meant were presented with possible definitions, only a third could actually identify the correct one.

When consumers weigh up their broadband options, they’re met with an array of jargon. Both Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) are offered up as fibre broadband, despite FTTC still using slower, less reliable copper wire for part of the connection. Terms like Superfast and Ultrafast broadband are used both as definitions for specific download speeds and marketing terms.

For many consumers, gigabit broadband is just another part of an already unclear picture. If they’re not sure what kind of connection they currently have, the prospect of upgrading it to gigabit is unlikely to have much of an impact.

We recently spoke to a BT customer who signed up to their first Wi-Fi contract in 2022. They explained that while they knew they needed Wi-Fi for their phones and TV, their knowledge about what service they were getting was limited.

“I was paying over £20/month for speeds of less than 3MB,” they said. “It was my daughter who found this out and realised we could actually get a much better full fibre service for a similar price. During initial sign up, no one took the time to explain these options, I could still be paying through the roof for bad internet!'' 

That education gap is a clear opportunity for telcos to reach out more directly to their customers. They have the expertise to decode all of the options and terminology, and it’s expertise that a large section of the market clearly needs to make more informed decisions.

For that to be truly effective however, it needs to go beyond defining things by download speeds. If they’re already uncertain what broadband they currently have, talking about megabits per second likely won’t illuminate much for them. Even if gigabit broadband is far beyond what their current package is capable of, they need to know what that means for their personal internet usage. 

 

Speed won’t matter if consumers don’t believe it 

A 2020 Censuswide survey of UK households served by the big four ISPs found that 22% rated their internet as “OK” or worse. 20% also said they felt they were overcharged for the service they received.

In theory those figures suggest that a large section of the market should be low-hanging fruit for providers offering gigabit speeds. But the problem for new or smaller telcos is that dissatisfaction with their established competitors often reflects poorly on the industry as a whole. 

A common point of distrust for consumers is signing up to a deal that promises fast broadband with speeds up to 500Mb or more per second, only for their average speed to be far lower in reality. When one of the country’s largest providers lets them down like this, it makes them question how a telco they’ve not heard of before can deliver true gigabit internet instead.

With a smaller share of the market, new telcos are also more easily harmed by poor customer experiences. If they say they can provide gigabit broadband but their online reviews say their network is patchy or their engineers didn’t show up to appointments, consumers will question whether they can really deliver on their promise.

Again, this is an opportunity for new ISPs to create a competitive advantage from their field sales. Reps do more than speak to leads and close sales. They’re the bridge between a telco’s brand and its customers, and the relationships they build on their routes will be key to winning trust. 

Building that trust isn’t easy, but it’s what consumers need to get on board with gigabit. 

To learn more about building trust with your customers, read our thoughts on using territory management to boost customer experience and brand reputation and field sales: the untapped competitive advantage. 


How to soften the blow of brain drain

When people talk about churn in the telco and energy industries, the focus is often on customers drifting away. But there’s another kind of churn that’s just as big a problem and often gets overlooked: brain drain. 

Every time talent leaves a company, it’s not just the individual who goes. It’s their years of valuable insight in the industry. Their unique understanding of their role and the territories they work in. If they’re moving to a rival, you could even lose your competitive edge. 

Although you should try to reduce brain drain where you can – especially if it’s rooted in a culture or employee engagement problem – there’s no way to stop it altogether. People will always retire, move on or seek new challenges. 

But just because churn is a fact of life, it doesn’t mean the impact has to be. If you can’t always keep talent from leaving, you can at least make it less of a hard reset for the company when they do. 

Keep control of your market insights 

Although brain drain occurs when someone leaves, it can still happen even if the talent stays within the company. For example, if a field rep team leader gets promoted or a manager steps down, and their expertise at that level isn’t replaced. 

It might also happen because you need to change your relationship with a sales agency partner. A common problem for telcos and energy companies is becoming too dependent on their sales agency, because there is a risk that all of their market knowledge and insight is held by that team. If you want to change partners, or work with a different agency in a new space, that knowledge is lost. 

One way to avoid this is to buy your own sales solution and onboard a sales agency onto it. That way you become more self-reliant and own your own sales data. The insights stay within the building, and you still know what’s going on in your market even if people leave or your agency relationship changes. 

Use your data to see where the real problem lies 

Part of keeping insights within the company is knowing what data to collect and how best to use it. 

You might have an excellent field sales team you know you can trust. They’re productive in the field, they reliably knock on every door on their route, and they respect your potential customers by not overselling or ignoring compliance. Getting to that stage wasn’t an easy task, but the result is a highly efficient and skilled team to represent your brand on people’s doorsteps. 

But if those reps move on for any reason, it’s a problem. The people that made the team so well-oiled are gone, and you can’t yet trust their replacements in the same way. If sales performance is dipping, how can you tell if it’s because the area has been saturated or your new reps aren’t knocking on the doors they say they are? 

When you’re not capturing information accurately, it creates too much grey area. Reps are able to say they tried an area to no avail, and it's impossible to diagnose why the results aren’t coming. 

But with the right data capture process in place, you can know where the problem lies and zero in on ways to make your sales team more productive. Then you’re not overly reliant on your star reps, and it’s less of a setback when those talents leave. 

Protecting your knowledge will protect your brand 

When valuable knowledge leaves, that can be just the tip of the iceberg. If a company isn’t prepared for the loss of talent, the impact of brain drain can reach much further than their specific role. 

To begin with, the cost of training replacements is a setback. But if a team’s progress and operations are regularly disrupted each time a manager leaves, that can make the rest of the team less motivated and more likely to move on as well. 

Where the impact of brain drain can be especially serious is where compliance is concerned. If only one person is keeping track of issues like rep behaviour and compliance processes, they leave behind a major hole when they go – one which regulators might look into. 

Without that compliance lead’s oversight, anyone new to your sector or sales processes might not know what to watch for and how. As a result, leads that should be removed from campaigns are left in. Reps aren’t armed correctly and risk overselling or pressuring potential customers. And when customer trust is breached, so is your brand integrity. 

But when compliance is an automated part of your sales process, you’re not reliant on individuals to uphold it. If there’s turnover in your sales team, a new team leader can slot in and the system ensures your customers don’t feel any fallout. 

If you’re thinking about customer experience and how to make your operations as smooth as possible, limiting the effects of brain drain should fall into place. To learn more, check out our thoughts on boosting your customer experience with territory management and the competitive advantage of compliance. 


The launch of Territory Management: a data-centric way to upgrade field sales performance

Field sales is about so much more than sales teams knocking on doors. It’s the entire process, from mapping out which addresses to visit, logging the outcomes of every conversation, and making sense of your data to make each campaign more impactful than the last. 

Effective territory management is a crucial gear in that machine. But while there are plenty of territory management solutions out there, often they’re either bundled in with more than your company needs right now, or too limited to take care of things like compliance as well. 

At PSI, we’re experts in sales for highly regulated industries like telco and energy and in creating software solutions that help companies get a competitive edge in the field. That same insight is now behind our latest release. 

Our new Territory Management solution is built with the same technology that powers our successful multichannel systems, but we’re keeping it laser focused on optimising every part of your field sales channel. Here’s a quick rundown of everything you can expect from it:  

Intelligent route planning to keep your reps on track 

When you’re planning routes for your field sales team to follow, efficiency is the name of the game. No one benefits from field reps overworking the same routes or knocking on doors they should be passing over.

The heart of PSI Territory Management is being able to assign and adapt routes that make sure your field sales reps are as productive as they can be. Routes can be split between different areas, regions and target customers, and assigned specifically to different reps to avoid overlapping. 

Agent management features also give each rep a GPS location. As well as giving managers more oversight to manage reps while they’re out on their routes, this also allows you to adapt routes in real time. 

Our Opti Route tool combines that location data with information about the rep’s current mode of transport to streamline where they’re going next. Not only does that help sales managers to ensure more efficient routes, it also keeps their reps more engaged by not sending them round the houses. 

Automated compliance that builds trust 

If a potential customer tells your agent they don’t want their door knocked on again, it’s vital that they’re listened to. Not just out of courtesy, but to keep on the right side of compliance. But if that response doesn’t get properly logged or someone misses the memo to take that address out of the system, it’s going to cause a problem. 

There’s more at stake here than avoiding penalties. It’s a case of showing your customers that you listen to them and will keep to your promises. If a rep shows up at a door they’ve been asked not to knock on, it erodes trust – and that kind of reputation damage can be as harmful to new telcos as a regulatory fine. On the flipside, keeping your brand reputation robust can give you a competitive advantage.

PSI’s Territory Management has automated compliance built into the system. As soon as a field sales rep logs that someone doesn’t want to be contacted, their address is automatically taken out of future sales routes. There’s no manual procedure, so no risk of human error meaning someone falls through the cracks. 

That can also be configured depending on the response given to the rep. If they say they aren’t interested at all, their address will be permanently removed from the system – if they say they might be interested when their current contract runs out, their address will be fed back into agent routes as a lead to contact in the future. 

As for address data, we know how crucial it is to keep that secure. Our software gives managers the power to silo customer address data and assign access to specific users at specific times, meaning the only people who get to see it are the ones who need to. This all makes field operations a far simpler task. 

Always know where your field teams are needed most 

Brilliant sales reps are obviously key to the success of a field sales campaign. But without the right direction and planning, even the best will leave opportunities on the table. 

Our territory management software gathers and reports data insights that help you make sure that those sales opportunities aren’t getting missed. From knowing if reps are genuinely knocking on the doors they say they are to tracking the outcomes of each address, that data lets you pinpoint where your best potential leads are and what’s happening with them. 

Penetration reports show how many doors in each campaign were knocked on, how many conversations were had and where those potential customers are in their journey. Whatever data the software is set up to capture is tracked and reported, giving an accurate view into exactly what’s going on in the field. 

Losing connection doesn’t mean losing a sale 

The best part is that your field sales don’t have to get interrupted even if your reps aren’t connected. With offline functionality, PSI means your sales reps can continue to access the whole process whether they’re in the city centre or the heart of the countryside. 

The system stores all address and product data, route information and sales forms offline, and automatically switches to offline workflow as soon as the connection drops. Reps don’t have to hunt around for signal or come back another time – they can continue closing their sales, and trust that validations will be completed as soon as they’re back online. 

That means your field sales reps can be confident they’ve always got the right data in their hands. Their time isn’t wasted, and this smoother rep experience will lead to better employee retention.  

Ready to scale when you are 

With the PSI system, flexibility is part of the package. You aren’t hemmed in to a daunting multichannel solution if all you need is to manage door-to-door field sales right now. But if you’re ready to start integrating more channels, our higher Scale and Market Leader tiers can open those doors for you. 

That means when you’re ready to start scaling, PSI is there for you at every level. You don’t have to worry about retraining your team to use a brand new piece of software, or risk losing any data migrating it to a new system. 

If you’re ready to take your field sales campaigns to the next level, learn more about PSI Territory Management.