From the street to the store: Why more telcos are choosing PSI for their retail channel
The highstreet store has become a less prominent feature of businesses everywhere, including for telco brands. Many alt-nets choose to only sell online and door-to-door, while a number of telco giants are shifting their focus to digital.
However, although stores aren’t necessarily the primary sales outlet they once were, they can still be a flagship presence in a city or a small but meaningful presence in a community – and with the right technology to manage leads, the store can remain a powerful sales channel.
Why Vodafone Ireland chose PSI for stores
Vodafone Ireland, for instance, first came to PSI so they could get their own field sales team on the streets – and they’d seen great outcomes. It was a hit with reps and back office teams. Productivity was up. Morale was up. And a new bar had been set for customer experience, lead management, and sales performance.
After seeing these results, the Vodafone team realised that there was no reason their stores couldn’t function to the same gold standard. Because PSI can run on a rep’s tablet as effectively in a store as in the field, there was nothing stopping them from multiplying their success in retail.
How the store can become a smarter lead generator
In their stores, Vodafone Ireland didn’t have the same level of lead capture that they had grown accustomed to in the field. But by introducing PSI into their stores, they could have the same system across all channels, and the back office could receive the same standard and type of data from field sales, tele sales and in-store sales.
“Now all customer details are taken on a tablet in-store, and that information goes to the same back office team that process field sales – and they contact the customer.” says Michelle Brazzill, Channel Partner Manager at Vodafone Ireland. “So we’re leaving sales people to do the sales and office people to do the processing.”
With all the validations and logic built in, the PSI software quickly became popular among both sales reps and processing managers. The Vodafone sales reps found the PSI customer acquisition form so simple to use, so fast to take a customer through, and meanwhile those in the back office could quickly find all the information they needed with very few manual inputs.
The store as part of a multichannel approach
By using PSI across multiple sales channels, it gives you far more flexibility, and visibility, when it comes to following through with sales. An initial conversation in a store can quickly become a phone call the next day, and if the person isn’t ready to make a commitment at that time, a field sales agent can follow up weeks or even months down the line – and when they do, they can be fully up to speed on the prospect’s situation.
This sort of insight-informed multichannel approach can bring a massive uplift to both lead generation and the completion of sales. And with one source of data for all your sales, it makes reporting on this upward trend far easier.
Some brands may prefer to reserve their stores for lead capture only. That’s exactly what Three is doing with PSI’s technology. Three’s teams don’t complete sales in-store, but use PSI anyway to provide an effortless experience for both rep and customer – reps working on other channels can then follow up later.
Protections against fraud and misuse
PSI for stores runs using the same kind of technology that’s behind our Touchstone Embedded web sales product. That means compliance is baked into the customer journey, and you won’t need to worry about too-competitive sales reps, or falling afoul of customers using dodgy account details.
It’s so secure that there’s little stopping you from putting PSI straight into the hands of your customers, even if no reps are on hand. A fixed tablet, like a self-checkout, can be a great option for crowded stores that don’t want to miss a single opportunity. In this scenario, your reps could be there to answer questions and build rapport instead of giving their attention to data input. If you’re looking to reinvent how your stores approach the customer experience, it’s worth exploring this option.
To learn more about how telcos are using PSI, see how Vodafone Ireland created a highly successful field sales team or see why telcos are choosing PSI’s pre-configured sales software.
Data and reporting: how PSI unlocks clarity, performance and intelligence for telco sales teams
In the telco industry, data is crucial for field sales teams. Sales teams need to understand how they’re performing to ensure they aren’t overlooking opportunities, exhausting resources on overworked areas, or being let down by reps who aren’t pulling their weight.
Because of this, data and reporting has always been a core element of PSI’s field sales solutions. With PSI, telcos can effortlessly:
- Capture real-time data from almost every point of interaction
- Connect to reporting suits like Power BI for bespoke reporting
- Manage rep performance and boost campaign efficiency
With that capability, the PSI system doesn’t just help you to sell more and manage your teams more effectively. It also helps your commercial leads to deliver more intelligent and reactive campaigns.
Data that gives you visibility of progress
When you’re digging into data and reporting, the critical factor is detail. You need to know far more than how many contracts were signed each month – you need to know which areas those contracts came from, whether they were upgrading customers or customers won from other providers, which field sales reps were involved in the sale and which ones aren’t performing as well.
PSI Territory Management is designed to give telcos that level of actionable insight into their campaigns. The PSI system records every action and interaction a rep makes while they’re out on their route – that means every door they knock on, every conversation they have with a lead and every outcome from those conversations.
With so many points of data capture available, PSI’s Territory Management platform provides a more granular degree of real-time data tracking than other sales platforms are capable of. It’s about more than just being able to connect to systems like Power BI – it’s about feeding those systems the kinds of metrics they need to build accurate in-system reporting dashboards, and give you a clear overview of what’s going on with your sales reps and customers.
For Kelco Communications, a Vodafone Ireland partner, PSI’s granular level of reporting was integral in helping them understand not only their day-to-day sales results, but also which areas were being overlooked and where to focus training. Aoife Carr, Order Processing Manager at Kelco, says: “We needed concrete visibility of progress – to track metrics on a daily basis, and on a monthly basis.
“PSI keeps track of individual reps and their progress, the amount of sales we’re able to put through, and we use this reporting in our commission structure for reps.”
Report on every element
For an industry so driven by technology, telco sales and back office teams often have to rely on manual data collection and reporting – sometimes even resorting to paper and pen.
The problems with that should be clear enough. For one, it’s incredibly inefficient to have teams manually transferring data from one system to another and building reports that should be automatic. And that’s assuming all of the data makes it across correctly, and isn’t copied incorrectly or lost altogether.
That kind of frustration is exactly what PSI exists to tackle. Everything the PSI system records has a reporting code, meaning any detail can be easily extracted and reported against in a matter of moments.
Then there’s the nuance that’s contained within that data. While other sales platforms might tell you that 20% of customers in an area said no, PSI can deliver the why behind those answers. For example, you can see if those customers aren’t interested because they’re locked into current contracts, and therefore plan for your reps to return when those contracts are ending.
With radio selection, you can drill down into exactly the data you need to see and interrogate specific details, rather than trying to make sense of unstructured free text. You have complete control over what you want to examine, allowing you to aggregate your data and run reports that will give you true clarity.
Michelle Brazzill, Channel Partner Manager at Vodafone Ireland, highlighted PSI’s depth of reporting as crucial to Vodafone Ireland’s field operations. “The reporting aspect of PSI means we can report on anything we want,” Michelle says.
“Now we can dig down into how many doors have been knocked vs opened vs opportunity”.
The building blocks of business intelligence
The snapshot reports and dashboards that the PSI platform creates are perfect for giving sales managers a clear overview of their team’s performance, but that’s not all the insight that PSI is capable of delivering.
For one, it’s not just sales teams that can benefit from the volume of raw data that PSI collects. Once that data has been pulled into a reporting suite like Power BI, it’s possible for marketing, finance and operations to all get reports on the aspects of sales activity relevant to them.
That makes it possible to add a new layer of business intelligence on top of the performance analytics. As well as knowing which reps are performing well and which would benefit from more training, you can see which products perform best across different territories and demographics, or understand the trends affecting each campaign area and where to focus your resources for warming up or selling to customers.
It takes someone from the data science world, not the sales team, to analyse that level of information and translate it into a clear vision for the business. Involving a data architect ensures there’s someone able to keep the large amounts of gathered data organised into what’s relevant to each team, meaning everyone can get the full benefit of PSI’s data capture capabilities.
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.
Leads +, Sales + oder Enterprise: Ein Leitfaden zu PSI für Käufer:innen
Leads +, Sales + oder Enterprise: Ein Leitfaden zu PSI für Käufer:innen
Bei der Suche nach der richtigen Plattform zur Optimierung Ihres Vertriebsprozesses spielt nicht nur der Preis eine Rolle. Vielmehr müssen Sie eine Vertriebssoftware finden, mit der Sie Ihre aktuellen Anforderungen erfüllen und gleichzeitig Ihre zukünftigen Ziele erreichen können.
Möchten Sie die Leistung Ihrer Vertriebsteams im Außendienst analysieren? Möchten Sie einen ganzheitlichen Überblick über die gesamte Sales Journey erhalten? Vielleicht möchten Sie aber auch mehrere Vertriebskanäle an einem zentralen Ort zusammenführen?
Die Vertriebssoftware von PSI ist in drei Ausführungen erhältlich: Leads +, Sales + und Enterprise. Leads +, Sales + und Enterprise. In diesem Leitfaden stellen wir Ihnen alle drei Optionen vor, damit Sie das richtige Paket für Ihre Anforderungen auswählen können.
Leads +
Leads + ist unser unverzichtbares Vertriebstool für den Außendienst – eine umfassende Plattform für die Verwaltung von Vertriebsgebieten, mit der Sie Kampagnen steuern und Ihre Mitarbeitenden zu Höchstleistungen antreiben können.Mit diesem Paket erhalten sowohl Ihre
Außendienstmitarbeitenden als auch Ihre Vertriebsleiter:innen mehr Möglichkeiten. Im Rahmen von Leads + kann Ihr Vertriebsteam im Außendienst eine unbegrenzte Anzahl von Adressen und Leads bearbeiten und eine taktisch bessere Strategie zum Umgang mit ihnen entwickeln.
Mit dem Opti-Route-Algorithmus können Sie die Routen für die einzelnen Vertriebsmitarbeitenden optimieren und stellen so sicher, dass alle Bereiche ohne Überlastung bestmöglich abgedeckt werden. Zudem können Sie die in Leads + erfassten Daten in Echtzeit an Ihren Prozess für den Vertriebsweg über das Internet übermitteln.
Bei der Arbeit im Außendienst haben Sie dank GPS-Tracking und Echtzeit-Tools für das Management von Vertriebsmitarbeitenden jederzeit einen genauen Überblick über deren Leistung. Sie erhalten Rückmeldung zu jeder einzelnen Kontaktaufnahme und können so aussagekräftige Daten im Hinblick auf die Optimierung zukünftiger Kampagnen sammeln.
Die Funktionen von Leads + bilden die Grundlage für all unsere anderen Pakete, denn wir wissen, wie wichtig der Vertriebsweg Außendienst für Telekommunikations- und Energieversorgungsunternehmen ist. Unabhängig davon, ob Sie Ihren Multichannel-Vertrieb ausbauen möchten oder bereits auf diesem Gebiet etabliert sind: Sie müssen stets in der Lage sein, Ihr Vertriebsgebiet und Ihre Außendienstmitarbeitenden zu verwalten.
Sales +
Basierende auf unserem Toolkit zur Gebietsverwaltung erweitert Sales + die Funktionen auf ein umfassendes Vertriebspaket.
Der gesamte Verkaufsvorgang, von der ersten Kontaktaufnahme mit potenziellen Kund:innen bis zum Geschäftsabschluss, wird an einem Ort abgewickelt. Dazu gehören neben der Terminplanung, digitalen Verträgen und Bankvalidierungen zum erfolgreichen Abschluss auch Dokumentenvorlagen, ein Kundenportal für Dokumente sowie Kommunikation per E-Mail und SMS. Die Interaktion zwischen Kundschaft und Vertriebsteam ist in jeder Phase des Prozesses nahtlos. Darüber hinaus können Sie die gesamte Kommunikation an Ihr eigenes Branding und Ihre rechtlichen Anforderungen anpassen.
Dadurch müssen weniger manuelle Maßnahmen zur Abwicklung des Prozesses durchgeführt werden und es gibt keine Datenlücken, die den Verkauf gefährden könnten. Ihr gesamtes Team kann an einem Ort und nahezu in Echtzeit auf alle benötigten Informationen zugreifen und wird zeitnah über den genauen Bearbeitungsstatus eines jeden Verkaufs informiert.
Mit Sales + verfügen Sie über sämtliche Ressourcen zur Optimierung Ihres Verkaufs- und Bereitstellungsprozesses und fördern so Ihr Wachstum. Dabei kann sich Ihr internes technisches Team auf die Steigerung des Geschäftswerts konzentrieren.
Enterprise
Mit Enterprise können Sie die Zufriedenheit Ihrer Kundschaft steigern und Ihr Vertriebsteam mit einem nahtlosen Multichannel-Betrieb unterstützen, indem Sie alle Vertriebskanäle in einen einheitlichen Prozess integrieren.
Enterprise vereint alle Vertriebskanäle in einer einzigen Lösung, egal wo sie ihren Anfang oder ihr Ende haben. Die Customer Journey beginnt mit dem Besuch eines Mitglieds des Vertriebsteams beim:bei der Kund:in und endet online? Der Verkauf wird im System als durchgängiger Prozess behandelt. Auf diese Weise gibt es keine Verzögerungen beim Wechsel zwischen den Kanälen und es besteht keine Gefahr, dass Kundendaten verloren gehen oder doppelt erfasst werden.
Enterprise zeichnet sich außerdem durch noch mehr Flexibilität aus. Sie haben die Möglichkeit, benutzerdefinierte Journeys, Workflows und Datenberichte einzurichten. So können Sie die PSI-Plattform auf Ihren bestehenden Vertriebs-Workflow abstimmen und ihn uneingeschränkt optimieren.
Wenn auch Sie Ihre Vertriebskampagnen effizienter gestalten möchten, kontaktieren Sie uns. Wir erklären Ihnen gerne, wie PSI Ihnen weiterhelfen kann.
How PSI’s sales software raises the game for customer experience
When it comes to improving your customer experience, it’s all too easy for software platforms to promise the world. If marketing were gospel, almost every field sales solution on the market would be a silver bullet, with its one unique feature ready to transform your customer journeys overnight.
But the reality is that customer experience doesn’t work like that. There’s no single box you can tick that will flip your CX to first class. In truth, what makes the biggest difference is multiple marginal gains – which you can only achieve by drilling down to every facet of your customer journey and making improvements across all areas of your organisation.
In the years we’ve been supporting telco and energy provider sales teams, seamless customer experience has regularly been highlighted as part of what sets PSI’s sales solution apart. And how we do that isn’t by promising one golden feature, but by giving sales teams the tools to sharpen up every aspect of their customer journey.
Removing friction from customer sign-ups
When you want to understand what your customer experience really looks like, there are few people better placed to ask than your sales reps. After all, they’re the ones speaking to your current and potential customers every single day, seeing both their frustrations and their delights as they move through the stages of signing a contract.
That’s why it’s always important to us when our clients’ sales reps return positive feedback on both their own experience of using the PSI system, and on the ease it delivers for their customers. The PSI system is designed to remove as much friction as possible from the customer journey, and that in turn creates a slicker sales process from the rep’s perspective as well.
With PSI, customers can get their contract documents and summary emailed directly to them by a field sales rep on their doorstep, and can review and sign their contract on their own device. That gives customers more control and ownership over their contract, but it also means that they aren’t left waiting for someone in the back office team to log their details and chase them up at a later date.
Providing a more efficient sign up process also means there’s less risk of customers falling through the cracks while their details are passed from one team to another.
Rep management that builds brand trust
Customer experience isn’t all about how quick and simple it is to sign a contract. In the telco and energy sectors, trust is a huge component behind customers choosing one provider over another, and the more they trust a company and its sales reps, the better their experience.
And while products, service and pricing all play into building consumer trust, your field sales team also has a significant role to play – and one that PSI’s Territory Management solution can go a long way towards helping them fulfil.
It’s no secret that poor territory management can lead directly to poor brand reputation. Picture this scenario. You send out your field reps on a Monday, and one of them knocks on every door along their route. But when it comes time to record the results of those visits, they don’t bother because the form is too long-winded to fill out.
The following week, another rep knocks on those same doors again because they aren’t aware that the previous visit took place. If those leads said they weren’t interested before, they’re now going to be frustrated at being ignored, and they’re less likely to trust your brand as a result of that customer experience.
Recording customer dispositions is straightforward with PSI, meaning you can get all the information you need about each customer interaction while ensuring potential leads don’t get overworked because of incomplete records. And with rep management tools like GPS location tracking, in-system training and real-time performance metrics, you can be certain that your field reps are giving customers the best first impression of your brand.
A system that keeps selling – even when offline
Sometimes a customer’s experience when speaking with your reps can feel outside of your control. That’s often the case in rural areas or connectivity blind spots. You can put the best rep team possible out in the field, but if nothing will load when they’re trying to showcase deals or complete a sale, their professionalism and ability to deliver a pitch are going to be completely overshadowed.
Offline functionality is a core feature of PSI’s sales software, and contributes to customer experience in a number of ways. For one, it ensures that reps always have all the address and route data they need to execute a campaign.
But when the rep is at the customer’s door, it also means they’re able to show the full range of products and packages available as easily as if they were online. Reps can focus on delivering their pitch without dreading a spinning wheel or a blank loading screen, and customers can see the same deals as others in better connected areas.
And if the customer does choose to sign up, they’re still able to do so even if the rep’s device is offline, meaning they won’t need to wait for a slow mobile connection to catch up – or have to wait to complete the sale at a later date with another rep. The sale will process quickly, and the system will update and complete validations as soon as the rep achieves connectivity again.
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.
How our pre-configured sales solutions give customers a head start
When people hear the term “pre-configured”, they might think that’s code for constraints and limitations. They picture an off-the-shelf solution that might meet a need right now but offers little room for customisation – the software equivalent of a microwave ready meal.
Now to be fair, there’s some software out there that fits this bill. It’s stretched thin to serve a too-broad audience, and in an attempt to meet the needs of a thousand dissimilar businesses, it fails to satisfy most of them.
But to think of pre-configured software in these terms does it a huge disservice. At PSI, our goal with a pre-configured solution isn’t to sell to as many companies as possible. Instead we’re only looking to serve the select sectors we work in – telco and energy. And we’re essentially packaging up the systems that are best practice in those industries.
It’s not a limitation, it’s a head start. We can continue to build upon the solution, evolving and further customising the platform to your needs after you’re up and running – and crucially, making sales.
So what exactly do you get with a pre-configured sales solution?
The first thing is speed. We’re using a tried-and-tested recipe that’s based on our learning from all the custom implementations we’ve built up until this point – and by using this recipe, we save you a lot of headaches, and you win back a lot of valuable selling time.
While every telco is unique and will have their own requirements that others don’t, there are some things that every telco sales solution needs to have – a set of products, address data, a sales form, customer communications, and so on. It doesn’t make sense to use valuable time and resources building each of those elements from scratch for every project when they already exist.
Rather than starting from a blank slate, a pre-configured solution means you’re able to begin with all the essential elements you need to complete a sale or speed up a delivery. And because it’s already fully wrapped up, it’s a solution that you can go live within a matter of weeks, compared to the many months you’d need to wait for a fully bespoke solution.
And even though it’s pre-configured, that doesn’t mean you get what you’re given. There is still room to add your own branded communications and logos, to tailor things to your product list, and to incorporate any additional questions or adaptations to the customer journey once the core foundation has been laid.
But as well as speed, you’re also getting expertise. PSI’s pre-configured sales solution is built off the back of every one of our previous integrations, strengthened by every learning we’ve gained when things have gone right, and when we’ve had the chance to learn or refine our platform.
It’s also designed specifically for the telco and energy sectors, meaning it’s sophisticated enough to incorporate ever-changing industry-specific regulations and security factors into the sales process, and update quickly to meet new requirements.
Don’t let sales platform perfectionism hold you back
With any software product launch, there’s an important balance to strike between achieving a comprehensive solution and a solution that doesn’t take an age to build. There’s no use rushing out a platform that’s lacking the features your sales team needs to do their job – but at the same time, too much perfectionism can stop a product from ever going live.
The advantage of a pre-configured platform is that “complete” and “quick” don’t have to be mutually exclusive – and just because a solution comes configured a certain way on day one, that doesn’t mean it’s the only shape it’s ever going to have.
With PSI’s pre-configured platform, you launch with everything that’s already designed and built, then add on additional features as and when you need them after launch. When you have a day one solution that’s already deployed and working, it’s not a huge project to scale it up and add in multiple channels later.
Even if you had the luxury of resources and time to launch with everything on your features list, sometimes that’s still not the best way forward. You often have to try things out in the field before you know for sure what needs to be added or what isn’t working. Otherwise, you can delay the launch for the sake of custom features that are based on untested assumptions.
For instance, we previously worked on an extensive custom build for a client that wanted to focus on sales rep engagement right from the jump. So they asked for features like a step counter and an integration with Spotify to make routes more interesting, as well as leaderboards and gamification to incentivise sales performance.
But when they launched the platform, those features went largely unused – it turned out the reps cared more about completing sales and getting paid than having fun on their routes.
A faster launch is a safer launch
When you’re building a fully bespoke solution from a blank slate, delays have the potential to derail the entire project. The longer it goes on, the greater the risk that you’ll just never go live – the business will move on in the background and targets will change, and the goalposts for your solution keep getting moved as the specification tries to keep up.
Then there’s the human element. If your sales team aren’t fully invested in the project, they’ll start losing confidence in it as delivery drags on. Even if they are invested at the beginning, there’s the possibility that they will also disengage if the solution takes too long, or even move on from their role before seeing it through to completion. Whatever the case, that kind of engagement is difficult to win back once it’s been lost.
One of the easily overlooked benefits of launching with a pre-configured sales solution is that it keeps the momentum of the project high. Rather than everyone getting excited during the planning phase but tiring through the months it takes to piece that vision together, they can have access to the staging system within weeks and start getting to grips with a real, working product.
That can also help with change management. There’s nothing worse than spending months building a complicated system, only to reach UAT and find that someone has new suggestions they haven’t voiced before, or an emotional reaction to the change that derails the launch.
On the other hand, when they can get their hands on a pre-configured solution within weeks, your team can get comfortable with the way the system works – and they can bring up any changes that need to be made well before it reaches user testing.
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.
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.
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.