Tür-zu-Tür-Vertrieb: Was ist das Erfolgsrezept irischer Versorgungsunternehmen?
Im Energieversorgungsbereich hängt Erfolg oder Misserfolg des Haustürgeschäfts davon ab, in welchem Land man als Vertreter:in aktiv ist. Im Vereinigten Königreich zum Beispiel zögern Versorgungsunternehmen davor, allzu viele Ressourcen in den Tür-zu-Tür-Verkauf zu investieren, da immer die Gefahr besteht, dass durch diese Praxis ihr Markenruf geschädigt wird. In Dänemark gilt diese Art des Direktvertriebs sogar als ein Eingriff in die Privatsphäre und ist daher gesetzlich verboten.
In Irland hingegen ist das Haustürgeschäft eine beliebte und erfolgreiche Verkaufsmethode von Energieversorgungsunternehmen. Große Anbieter wie Vodafone und SSE Airtricity investieren beträchtliche Summen in ihr Haustürgeschäft und erzielen auch tatsächlich eine hohe Rendite. Diese Art des Vertriebs ist zum Eckpfeiler ihres Geschäfts geworden.
Doch wieso sind irische Unternehmen im Gegensatz zu ihren ausländischen Pendants so erfolgreich beim Verkauf an der Haustür? Irische Versorgungsunternehmen wissen, wieso das Haustürgeschäft in anderen Ländern so verpönt ist, und haben sich daher bewusst dazu entschlossen, es besser zu machen. Unter anderem nutzen sie daher Vertriebssoftware für regulierte Branchen, mit der sie sowohl ihre Kundschaft als auch ihre Marke schützen.
Irische Versorgungsunternehmen setzen Schutzmaßnahmen um, um Fehler und Fehlverkäufe zu vermeiden
Bevor ein Unternehmen Vertreter:innen losschickt, um sein Angebot von Tür zu Tür zu bewerben, muss es zunächst einige Kontrollmaßnahmen für ein effektives Gebietsmanagement umsetzen. Ohne diese Maßnahmen steigt das Risiko, dass jemand im Außendienst versucht, Kund:innen zu täuschen oder Verkäufe zu registrieren, die gar nicht stattgefunden haben. Wenn das nämlich passiert, leidet darunter nicht nur der Ruf der Marke, sondern das Unternehmen muss unter Umständen Strafgelder in Millionenhöhe zahlen. Im schlimmsten Fall wird der Gesetzgeber einschreiten und das Haustürgeschäft vollständig verbieten.
Ob einer dieser Fälle eintritt, hängt natürlich maßgeblich von den Aktivitäten der Vertreter:innen ab (auf das Vertretermanagement werden wir gleich noch genauer eingehen). Doch um proaktiv unnötige Risiken zu vermeiden, können Unternehmen sich eines wichtigen Hilfsmittels bedienen: der richtigen Vertriebssoftware.
Irische Energieversorgungsunternehmen zum Beispiel nutzen die Formulare von PSI, um zu verhindern, dass ihre Vertreter:innen die falschen Produkte verkaufen. In diesen Formularen werden Produkte aus einer vorbereiteten Produktliste aufgeführt und anhand der Kundenantworten auf vorherige Fragen gefiltert. Da Kund:innen dann nicht mehr dem Kauf eines Produkts zustimmen können, für das sie sich gar nicht qualifizieren, kann die Anzahl an Kaufrücktritten reduziert werden. Dies ist eine effektive Schutzmaßnahme gegen beabsichtigte und versehentliche Fehlverkäufe.
Wir arbeiten immer eng mit unseren Kund:innen zusammen, damit die Skripts in ihren Formularen Vertreter:innen genau aufzeigen, was diese mit Kund:innen besprechen sollen. Dadurch sinkt das Risiko, dass Vertreter:innen aufgrund mangelnder Informationen falsche Versprechungen machen. Die Logik des Systems und die daraus resultierenden Einzelschritte sind so gestaltet, dass Vertreter:innen immer den korrekten Interaktionsablauf mit dem:der jeweiligen Kund:in durchlaufen und somit niemals die falschen Fragen stellen.
Irische Energieversorgungsunternehmen nutzen Vertriebssoftware für das Vertretermanagement
Wie bereits erwähnt sind die Aktivitäten von Vertreter:innen im Außendienst ein wichtiger Faktor für ein erfolgreiches Haustürgeschäft. Da Ihre Mitarbeiter:innen jedoch alleine unterwegs sind, haben Sie die knifflige Aufgabe, ihre Aktivitäten zu lenken, ohne direkte Kontrolle über ihr Verhalten zu haben.
In Irland stellten diese Bedingungen früher ein Problem dar, sofern Vertreter:innen rein auf Provision arbeiteten. Es kam dann nämlich sehr häufig vor, dass Vertreter:innen ihren Kund:innen absichtlich falsche Versprechungen machten oder dass sie zusätzliche Formulare ausfüllten, um ihre Quoten zu verbessern. Wenn diese Vertreter:innen nur mit Klemmbrett und Papierformularen ausgestattet sind, ist ein effektives Gebietsmanagement schier unmöglich. Mit der richtigen Vertriebssoftware allerdings holen Sie sich die Kontrolle zurück.
Mit PSI sorgen Sie dafür, dass alle Außendienstaktivitäten geokodiert und mit entsprechenden Zeitangaben versehen sind. Auf diese Weise können Sie dann problemlos unehrliches Verhalten aufspüren, beispielsweise falls ein Vertreter abends um 22:30 Uhr einen Verkauf registriert oder sich während der Registrierung weit weg vom Zuhause des:der jeweiligen Kund:in befindet.
Durch die GPS-Lokalisierung können sich Energieversorgungsunternehmen im Ernstfall auch besser gegen Kundenbeschwerden schützen. Das PSI-System erstellt nämlich eine eindeutige Beweiskette, damit Unternehmen genau nachvollziehen können, wie jede einzelne Verkaufsinteraktion zustande gekommen ist. Falls ein Unternehmen sich dann gegen eine Beschwerde wehren muss, stehen diese Informationen innerhalb von Minuten (statt Wochen) bereit.
PSI unterstützt Unternehmen außerdem dabei, dass ihre Vertreter:innen ein effektives Training für den Außendienst erhalten. Irische Energieversorgungsunternehmen können Schulungsmaterialien direkt auf die Geräte ihrer Vertreter:innen hochladen, damit diese immer und überall Zugriff auf die nötigen Arbeitsinformationen haben. Daneben werden auch Daten zur Vertreterperformance erhoben, sodass Teamleitende mit PSI ganz leicht bestimmen können, in welchen Bereichen sich einzelne Mitarbeiter:innen noch verbessern müssen.
Irische Energieversorgungsunternehmen wissen, dass ein perfektes Onboarding zu einem erhöhten Kundenvertrauen führt
Für ein erfolgreiches Haustürgeschäft ist es unerlässlich, Kund:innen vor Fehlverkäufen zu schützen. Aber das ist nicht der einzige wichtige Aspekt, der im Rahmen von Kundeninteraktionen zu beachten ist. Um Ihre Marke zu schützen, müssen Sie auch Vertrauen zu Ihrer Kundschaft aufbauen. Dazu gehört ebenso ein effizientes, zuverlässiges Kundenerlebnis wie ein effektives Vertretermanagement.
Ist der Verwaltungsprozess papierbasiert, besteht ein größeres Risiko, dass Fehler geschehen, die Ihrem Markenruf schaden – selbst wenn Ihr:e Vertreter:in an der Tür alles richtig gemacht hat. In Irland merkten Unternehmensverantwortliche früh, dass Papierformulare in dem Zeitfenster zwischen dem Verkaufsabschluss an der Haustür und der Rückkehr ins Büro leicht beschädigt werden oder verloren gehen können. Auch lagen Formulare, ehe sie das Backoffice erreichten, mitunter tagelang im Eingangsfach, bevor sie manuell bearbeitet wurden.
Wenn Kund:innen zu lange warten müssen, um den Status ihrer Bestellung zu erfahren – oder schlimmer noch, wenn ihre Bestellung nicht im System gefunden wird –, dann werden sie natürlich schnell eine schlechte Meinung über Ihr Unternehmen entwickeln.
Irische Versorgungsunternehmen wollten dieses Risiko nicht mehr eingehen und entledigten sich kurzerhand des zugrunde liegenden Problems: Nachdem ein Verkauf in PSI registriert wurde, wird dieser sofort vom Vertretergerät entfernt und zur Verarbeitung weitergeleitet. Dieser Prozess ist vollständig automatisiert, sodass die üblichen Verzögerungen, wie man sie von der manuellen Verarbeitung kennt, eliminiert werden. Vertriebsteams bietet PSI darüber hinaus eine einfache Möglichkeit, zusätzliche Dokumente hochzuladen (zum Beispiel die Zustimmung des:der Vermieter:in), wodurch wiederum das Risiko von Kaufrücktritten reduziert wird.
Die PSI-Plattform wird kontinuierlich weiterentwickelt, damit irische Versorgungsunternehmen künftig noch mehr Tools zur Verfügung stehen, um eine Vertrauensbasis mit ihren Kund:innen zu etablieren. Während der Pandemie führten wir zum Beispiel Remote-Unterschriften als neue Option auf der Plattform ein, damit Vertreter:innen Verträge und andere Dokumente an Kundengeräte senden und Kund:innen die Dokumente aus sicherer Distanz prüfen und unterzeichnen konnten. Auch Kund:innen, die ihre Bankinformationen nicht an der Tür mitteilen möchten, profitieren von dieser Option: Sie haben nun eine alternative Möglichkeit für die Angabe dieser sensiblen Daten.
Da die Sicherheit von Kundendaten heute von größter Wichtigkeit ist, erleichtert PSI Nutzer:innen zudem die Compliance mit Bestimmungen wie der DSGVO. Bankinformationen von Kund:innen werden aus dem System entfernt, nachdem ein Verkauf genehmigt wurde, und alle sensiblen Kundendaten werden nach drei Jahren standardmäßig automatisch gelöscht. Bei Bedarf kann das System auch so konfiguriert werden, dass die Daten schon nach kürzerer Zeit gelöscht werden. Mithilfe von PSI können Sie auch effektiv mit Agenturen für Außendienstservices zusammenarbeiten: Agenturmitarbeitende sehen ausschließlich die Unternehmens- und Kundendaten, die sie tatsächlich zur Durchführung ihrer Aufgaben benötigen.
Wenn auch Sie Ihre Vertriebskampagnen effizienter gestalten möchten, kontaktieren Sie uns. Wir erklären Ihnen gerne, wie PSI Ihnen weiterhelfen kann. Alternativ können Sie auch unseren Leitfaden zu den Vertriebslösungen von PSI durchlesen.
Door-to-door sales: why Ireland’s utility companies have the edge in the field
If you look at door-to-door selling in the utilities market, you’ll see a wide variation in success around the world. In the UK, for example, utilities companies are hesitant to put too much into field sales for fear of damaging their brand reputation. In Denmark, doorstep selling is seen as a privacy intrusion and prohibited by law.
But in Ireland, door-to-door is a thriving sales channel for telco and utilities companies. Major players like Vodafone and SSE Airtricity invest considerably in their field sales, and see such a clear return on that investment that door-to-door campaigns are a core pillar of their operations.
The reason why things are different in Ireland isn’t the Irish people are simply more receptive to door-to-door sales reps. It’s that the utilities companies here have seen the issues that have made doorstep selling so contentious in other countries and committed to doing it right – including using sales software designed for regulated industries to ensure their customers and their brand are always protected.
Ireland has protection against mistakes and mis-selling
When you’re embarking on a door-to-door campaign, it’s essential to have controls in place for effective territory management. Without those controls, it’s too easy for bad actors in the field to mislead customers or report sales that never happened – not only will your brand reputation take a hit if that happens, but you could also risk fines in the millions, and legislators might even step in to ban door-to-door selling altogether.
While sales rep behaviour plays a huge role in that – and we’ll talk about rep management shortly – there are features your sales software should have to ensure door-to-door selling doesn’t get your brand into trouble.
For example, Ireland’s energy companies are using PSI’s journeys to prevent the wrong products being sold to customers. The products in the journeys are drawn from a set product list and filtered by answers to previous questions, meaning fewer broken sales as customers can’t agree to a product they later find out they’re not eligible for. It’s a guard against both intentional and accidental mis-selling.
We always work with our clients’ assurance teams to make sure the scripting in their journeys is exactly what reps need to be saying to customers, which reduces the risk of reps misrepresenting a product because they don’t have the answers they need. The logic and journey of the system is designed to always take reps on the correct path with a customer, so that they never see questions that shouldn’t come up.
Ireland’s energy companies use sales software to manage rep behaviour
As we’ve said, sales rep behaviour is critical to making door-to-door field sales work. When you send reps out to knock on doors, you’re faced with the challenge of managing them while having no direct control over what they’re doing on their routes.
In Ireland that used to be a real problem in the days of commission-only sales reps, when reps were notorious for either misleading customers or filling out forms themselves in order to record sales. When those sales reps are only armed with a clipboard and paper, effective territory management is almost impossible – but with the right sales software, it’s a different story.
At PSI, we learned to make sure everything a rep does while they’re out on their route is geocoded and time-stamped. That means you can immediately see if a rep is logging a new sale at 10:30pm or far from a customer’s address, and the data keeps them honest.
That GPS location data also gives Ireland’s energy companies more assurance in case they do find themselves facing a customer complaint. The PSI system gives companies a clear trail of evidence so that they can know exactly what happened with any given sale, and the information can be retrieved in minutes rather than weeks should a brand need to protect itself.
At PSI, we also made it easier to ensure that reps have received the right field sales training. Ireland’s energy companies can upload training materials directly to a rep’s device so that they always have access to what they need, while the ability to capture and report on rep performance data gives a clear indication of where each member of the team needs to focus their training.
Ireland’s energy companies know that perfect onboarding builds customer trust
While ensuring customers are protected from mis-selling is a key part of making your door-to-door sales a success, it’s not the only aspect. Protecting your brand in the field is also a case of building trust with consumers, which includes delivering an efficient, reliable customer experience as much as it does managing rep behaviour.
When the process relies on paper, for example, it’s easy for mistakes to harm your brand reputation even if your sales rep did everything right on the doorstep. Ireland learned early how paper forms could get lost or damaged in the time between completing a sale and returning it to the back office team. And when it did reach the back office, it might have been sitting there for a week waiting for manual processing.
If customers are left waiting too long to hear back about the status of their order – or worse, if their details are lost altogether – it’s easy for them to form the perception that your company isn’t looking out for them.
Ireland’s energy companies eliminated that risk by doing away with the core problem. Once a sale is captured in PSI, it immediately comes off a rep’s device and is sent to be processed. Everything is automated, removing the delay that always comes with manually handling data. It’s also simple for sales teams to upload additional documentation like landlord’s consent, reducing the chance of broken sales.
We’re also continually evolving the PSI platform to give Ireland’s energy companies more tools for building trust with customers. During Covid we integrated remote signatures, allowing reps to send contracts and documentation to a customer’s own device, where they can review and sign at a safe distance. This functionality also gives customers another way to enter their bank details if they don’t want to hand them over at the door.
And in an age where the security of customer data is paramount, PSI makes it easy to comply with regulations like GDPR. Customer bank details are purged as soon as a sale is approved and the system automatically clears all sensitive customer data after three years as standard, and can be configured to purge more regularly if needed. PSI is also designed to take field sales agency partnerships into account, by making sure that agencies can’t see any company and customer data beyond what they need to fulfil their role.
If you’re ready to take your sales campaigns to the next level, speak to us to find out more about how PSI can help, or read our guide to PSI’s 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.
Brand reputation and field sales: the untapped competitive advantage
Let’s say you’re a sales rep knocking on the door of a potential customer. The door opens. You’re greeted kindly enough. You begin your pitch about fibre-to-the-home, and you think you’re onto a winner. But then they stop you.
Oh, someone already came by about that – and we’re not sure we want to hear it again. The last person didn’t give us a lot of space. In fact they signed me up to something I didn't know I was committing to.
Poor practices serve no one, so you'd be forgiven for thinking situations like this were long dead, especially considering the UK's history with field sales and fines. We thought these were relics of bygone decades. However, if you browse TrustPilot it tells a different story, even for long established players in the market.
Even so, we were surprised to be having a discussion with a telco who was experiencing these issues recently – via another company on the same wholesale network. We’re talking misrepresentation, putting pressure on prospects, and getting customers to sign up to things they hadn’t agreed to.
The thing is: in our experience it doesn’t take much to fix the issue. Whether you’re a wholesale provider, ISP or sales agency, you have a lot to gain from viewing compliance through the lens of your brand reputation.
The situation for telcos and sales agencies
If you’re struggling to stop poor behaviour in your field sales reps, we empathise. You can define what you want reps to say and do, and you can communicate this to them, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll do it.
We’re not out to blame the reps either. Poor behaviour is more of a symptom than a cause. It's a tough climate out there, and if a sales rep needs a commission, they may well bypass what they’re told to do so that they, or their family, can make it through pinch point moments of the cost of living crisis.
While bad actors exist, the core of the issue isn’t the reps or the management, it’s the level of control that management have. And whether you’re outsourcing your sales, scaling your organisation or recruiting for a project in a new region, that control is hard to keep hold of.
For telcos and the sales agencies that work with them, ramping up those new projects is a lot of work. There are considerations around what you’re selling, the commission structures, the tech you’re using, the people you’re hiring… and it often needs to happen very, very fast.
So how should we handle field sales? How do you optimise your performance while dealing with so many variables? How do you manage risk, meet targets, and make sure the brand’s reputation is intact?
Play the long game as well as the short
In the telco industry, particularly at the beginning of a new project, it’s very easy for sales goals to become about two things: numbers and speed. And there’s good intentions behind this: to get people out there, make it all happen, get the sales flowing… and worry about the rest later.
This short termism does help with speed to market, but it often produces a lesser set of results. Potential customers aren’t just for lead generation, and customers don’t just exist for the moment they sign on the digital dotted line. You want them to stick around, and to think well of the brand the reps are representing.
That starts with compliance. Better quality interactions with reps will lead to fewer broken sales and less churn, and this becomes your competitive advantage.
How to set yourself up for success
With the right systems, processes and technology, you can see the sales results you need while building a robust brand reputation. Here’s what you need:
Smart systems and structures
The structures you put in place will reinforce the culture you do or don’t want in your sales teams.
In particular, it’s worth thinking about how your pay structures work. Commission-only based pay often leads to ‘sales at all costs’, but there are innovative ways to approach this that incentivise reps in smarter ways and inspire collaboration between sales teams.
Training and monitoring
A high sales employee churn in the telco industry means that training is a constant need and can end up being very costly. There are ways of delivering this training via device and games… but there’s also something to be said for pairing up experienced team members with more junior members in the field.
Experienced reps count for a lot here. A new ISP we worked with chose to hire a team consisting only of experienced sales reps. Combined with our muliichannel sales technology, this ensured they only delivered best practice. As a result, they were able to penetrate a market and their brand currently has an excellent 4.4 out of 5 Trustpilot score. One reviewer commented: “For once the man who sold me the product was true to his word.”
Training and experience only gets you so far, however. Like this ISP did, brands need to monitor their reps to ensure the training sticks and the experience is formed of good habits. That’s where sales technology comes in.
Technology and effective territory management
We’ve seen this aspect go wrong in two different directions. For ISPs and wholesale providers, we’ve seen them opt for whatever technology their sales agency is using, without thought for how suitable it is for their product and market, and their overall business needs beyond this one team and channel. On the other end, we’ve also seen sales agencies forced to use the technology, if any, that their client insists upon. Both approaches can lead to a poor technology fit.
The technology you need to monitor compliance is easy to define: it should provide real time data reporting fit for the telco industry. While to avoid mis-selling, you want technology that puts that data to work across your sales cycle, automating route generation so no rep prematurely knocks on the wrong door.
BillSave is a sales agency that uses our sales software in their pitch to clients. Their team recognises how important the compliance aspect is to what they do, and they’ve found that educating their potential clients here has helped them to win contracts.
Investing in the right kind of technology has paid off for other kinds of brands too. When UNICEF put their donor teams back on the streets after the initial COVID waves, they could do so with real time oversight of the teams, so they could be sure the team were working in the correct areas, and biding by the rules and guidelines.
To learn more see how end-to-end sales software can futureproof your organisation check out our free report on whether you should build, buy or customise the software you need.
Multichannel sales tech: How it fits together to give you a competitive advantage
In capped industries like utility and telco, you’re often targeting people who are already with a competitor and likely don’t actively switch providers. To stand a chance of winning these customers and their long term loyalty, you need to build trust through flawless customer experiences – that’s where multichannel comes in.
Your customers live in a multichannel society now. The standard is instant, convenient, frictionless onboarding – and anything less than this feels jarring. Customers expect to interact with brands face to face and over the phone and web, without needing to join the dots themselves.
Many utility and telco companies are working with legacy systems. Which means any that can master the complexities of this new multichannel playing field will gain a distinct competitive advantage.
What kind of system is needed for multichannel sales?
As McKinsey’s telco report Change the channel: A new multitouch point portfolio outlines, multichannel sales tech is what will set future telco industry winners apart. But it needs buy in from everyone in the business to bring all channels and departments together:
“Delivering a multichannel strategy and enabling cross-channel customer journeys usually requires significant changes in IT platforms,” the authors write.
“Target IT capabilities to be developed include, among many others, a cross-channel product advisory engine, a fully multichannel architecture offering, an agile operations platform supporting real-time automated processing, fully online event-driven CRM, and a fully parametrical product catalog.”
However, a complex system only needs to be complex under the hood. For sales reps it should be effortless – an automated breeze that enables them to whisk people through a tailored customer journey and close deals almost instantly anywhere, anytime.
Off-the-shelf options that try to achieve this are rarely a good fit for telco and utility companies. They’re designed for different customer journeys and fewer processes, so they create additional friction for sales teams and anyone trying to manage the back end.
To make cross-channel integration work behind the scenes, and to make it work effectively for customer journeys in utility and telco, often requires many tailored APIs. Zoom in on the multichannel architecture and it’s clear that this can’t be the work of just any developer.
Multichannel architecture: how it should fit together
When we configured our multichannel sales tech for Ogi, an ISP and managed IT services company, the engagement was as important as the delivery.
We worked with Ogi to shape a customer journey for field, tele and web sales, and we identified what APIs we would need to pull in and push out the relevant data.
While some systems might make use of only four calls, more sophisticated systems like Ogi’s can make use of up to 12 API calls. These can include requests, such as for product, address data and so on. They can also involve many outbound calls, sending information for payment verification, to book installations, to 3rd party systems and other sales processes.
All this makes the tech simple but specialised on the surface, enabling Ogi’s reps to make contact with potential customers and close deals in record time – without stalling points in the process – on the phone or in the field.
Beneath the surface, the cross-channel integration makes it possible to analyse sales performance metrics in a new way across field, tele and web sales. Ogi can see where they can retarget prospects that don’t complete the sales cycle, or where customer journeys needed to be tweaked further.
What’s an affordable route?
As a new contender in fibre, the Ogi team says they struggled to compete on price against other providers, so they needed to offer a great customer service as a USP.
“The sales processes we had in the business before PSI were not fit for purpose,” says Sally-Anne Skinner, Chief Revenue Officer at Ogi. “We would not have been able to go out to market and deliver the scale that we have and the penetration that we have without significant amounts of customer dissatisfaction and pain and resources.”
An out-of-the-box solution wouldn’t integrate field, tele and web sales in the way they needed. But sophisticated solutions are usually built gradually over many years, often from the ground up. Ogi couldn’t afford to wait.
They needed a seamless multichannel experience. Although customers would never think of it in these terms, in a multichannel world, they are coming to expect tailored customer journeys, unified by an automated backend system.
Using our full suite of products – Fusion Core, Pulse, and Touchstone – Ogi were able to create this seamless end-to-end sales journey across the three sales channels that they operate in. It was a world away from their former solution.
“If we were still using that solution,” says Alexander Breverton, Telesales Manager at Ogi, “we wouldn’t have had the success we have had, it’s safe to say,”
To learn more, see our case study deep dive into how PSI helped Ogi scale and penetrate their market
Don’t be the Last Utility Provider to Take Advantage of a Proven and Lucrative Go-to-Market Strategy
Success in the utility industry is all about market share. However, since every household, business, and office space is already a consumer, the only way to acquire new customers is to convince prospects to switch providers. Which is typically easier said than done, that is until now.
Once a thriving go-to-market strategy, field sales was virtually abandoned due to rogue reps using misleading sales techniques, which resulted in an industry with less than a credible reputation. Today, door-to-door sales is making a strong comeback – primarily due to technology that is helping energy providers to better control the sales process and manage field reps.
Field Sales is Alive and Profitable
When done right, field sales is a powerful go-to-market strategy. As one of the few sales types that puts the sales rep face-to-face with the prospect, it allows the rep to immediately respond to any concerns the prospect may have about changing providers. For example, we’ll assume that the rep is meeting with a consumer that has never switched providers. Perhaps this prospect had encountered difficulties in accessing online offers, or they just hadn’t had the time or inclination to search for an energy provider that could provide a better deal. Face-to-face selling brings the best offers directly to the consumer, without them needing to initiate the switching process. And in the UK, where the rep needs to demonstrate the amount of money that can be saved by switching providers, they’re able to immediately provide a price comparison at the prospect’s door.
A recent Forbes article highlighted that changing energy providers is easy and can save utility users, on average, a few hundred pounds a year, however, nearly 11 million people in the UK have never switched. Echoing these observations, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), Britain's independent energy regulator, concluded that while the price cap saves consumers up to £100 a year, they can save even more – up to £150 a year by simply switching utility providers.
The financial benefits speak for themselves, however in a market that’s ripe for switching providers, one has to wonder why more energy providers aren’t taking advantage of this golden opportunity. History clearly shows that field sales, when done right, encourages people to change providers in a way that other sales and marketing tactics simply can’t. A formula for successful field sales can be found in Ireland. In the Emerald Isle, energy and telco companies have mastered door-to-door sales, and it’s no coincidence that this country has one of the highest switching rates in the world.
While some UK utility companies are testing the waters of field sales, it’s the innovative providers that are at the core of the door-to-door sales comeback. By revamping their sales techniques, implementing technology, and operating within government guidelines, they’re capturing the lion’s share of this vast, yet static market.
Put Your Field Sales on the Road to Success
Regardless of whether you’re one of the Big Six utility companies or a smaller provider, running a successful field sales operation takes forethought and the right technology. One thing is clear, however, to remain profitable now’s the time to implement a field sales strategy, and it starts with clearly defined processes and a well-executed plan.
More than a sales tool, our Fusion software platform enables you to manage and track the sales processes of your field reps. From business intelligence to lead management and fulfilment, our comprehensive platform gives you everything you need to improve sales, elevate performance, improve compliance, and gain market share.
With our comprehensive platform, you’re able to quickly and effectively connect people, processes, and data for a competitive advantage. With PSI as your partner, your field sales efforts will consistently be:
- Compliant
- Safe
- Controlled and well-documented
- Highly efficient
Are you ready to gain more market share? Contact us to see PSI’s Fusion platform in action.
Leading the Way Through Compliance, Customer Experience and Competitiveness
Regardless of whether your organisation sells energy or telco products, regulatory compliance isn’t an option. With regulators such as Ofgem and Ofcom expanding their scope on an ongoing basis, the regulatory landscape is a moving target, putting you at a distinct disadvantage.
Although it’s mandatory, how does your organisation view compliance – as a necessary evil or as a means to improve the customer experience and perhaps even gain a competitive advantage? This blog explores the intersection between compliance and customer experience, how it can improve your competitive standing, and the tools and technology you need for a customer-centric approach to compliance.
Compliance and Customer Experience: Better Together
For many organisations in regulated sectors, the thought is that they have to make a choice – satisfy regulators or satisfy customers. Like a needle and thread, compliance and customer experience go hand-in-hand. Although a difficult balance, there’s a direct relationship between being compliant and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
Let’s take a look at a few scenarios, one that takes a siloed approach to compliance and customer experience and the other that puts the customer at the centre of compliance.
Scenario 1: Disconnected compliance and customer experience
Using one of the most common reasons for lodging a complaint, billing, we’ll assume that your organisation has recently seen a spike in the number of complaints. Regardless of whether the customer wasn’t transferred to the right person or department or their complaint wasn’t properly acknowledged or handled, the end result remains the same – a formal complaint being lodged with the regulatory agency.
Scenario 2: Integrated compliance and customer experience
We’ll use the same set of circumstances, however since you’re taking a customer-centric approach to regulatory compliance, the outcome is much different. Not only are customers immediately transferred to the right person or department, but the first few calls set the wheels in motion to determine the cause of increased billing complaints. In this case, you had a technical issue with your billing system, which failed to notify customers of the upcoming rate increase. To rectify the situation and decrease the number of incoming calls, you immediately send all customers an apology notice along with an explanation of the rate increase.
While this situation is rather benign and easily rectified, there are others that could have a not so clear cut resolution and/or result in personal damage. It’s important to remember that the goal of regulators is to protect the customer. Put another way, their purpose is to ensure that organisations aren’t taking advantage of customers, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Compliance: A Continuous Cycle of Improvement
Staying compliant entails continuous improvements where any complaint, error, or mistake is reviewed and acted upon. Once corrective measures have taken place, you need to use the situation as a learning initiative and determine how it can be embedded within your processes such as workflows, training, etc., to ensure the same situation doesn’t happen again.
It’s also important to remember that the frequency of compliance changes will require ongoing enhancements on your part, from the processes, tools, and technology aspects. With sales reps in the field, you need to do everything possible to ensure they are able to deliver great customer experiences and operate within regulatory guidelines.
This means providing them with the technology and tools they need to efficiently do their jobs while remaining compliant. Technology that is making a difference includes auto-populating as much customer information as possible, delivering logic-driven questions to their device to ensure that the right product is offered to the right customer type, providing the ability to validate customer data while at the door, and delivering continuous learning electronically. In addition, when a problem arises you need the ability to access the details around the issue. This is where having intelligent insights can help to know why the issue occurred, rectify the situation faster, and reduce complaints.
Is Compliance Part of Your Company’s DNA?
Too often organisations approach compliance and customer experience from different vantage points, with compliance falling under the purview of your legal department and customer experience the responsibility of customer-facing employees. This siloed approach makes it difficult to remain compliant and deliver exceptional customer experiences simultaneously.
When compliance complements the customer experience, it becomes part of your processes and workflows, basically becoming embedded in your organisation’s DNA – giving you a competitive edge. You're more apt to pick up early warning signs of possible compliance risk and be able to proactively take the necessary actions. Doing this, however, requires the right tools and technology. Technology and tools that only a company that has extensive energy, telco and regulatory compliance knowledge can provide.
At PSI, we have experience in helping regulated organisations take a customer-centric approach to regulatory compliance. With us as your partner, you’ll be able to cost-effectively bridge the compliance and customer experience gap and take a leading role in your industry.
Do you want to improve regulatory compliance, deliver outstanding customer experiences, and gain a competitive advantage? Contact our team today to learn how we can help you make compliance a core component of your company’s DNA.
