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.
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.
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.
Get ahead of your telco competitors with offline capabilities
The connected world has made life much easier but while networks are getting better and faster, there are still black spots. In our personal lives, the minutes lost to poor network connection might mean waiting for a video to load or for a call to reconnect.
But in a sales situation those vital moments of disconnection could translate into uncaptured data, frustrated potential customers, missed orders and lost revenue.
Pair this with the high expectations customers now have when it comes to synchronicity and seamlessness and it's easy to see why offline capabilities are an absolute must. Particularly for the telco industry, which should be at the cutting edge of connection. Field sales teams need to be able to close leads without limitations, otherwise there will be a limit on revenue.
Stu Holliday is the Chief Commercial Officer for ZYBRE, and he’s worked with field sales teams throughout his whole career. He says, “There’s definitely a knock-on effect of not being able to complete an offline order, on the customer, rep and business.”
But surprisingly, most sales software doesn’t include offline working as a key feature, and the bottom line of telco companies suffers as a result. If field sales teams find themselves in badly connected environments 15% of time, that’s a 15% increased likelihood of lost sales, reduced productivity and decreased team motivation.
Selling reliable connectivity anywhere
During new customer acquisition and customer onboarding, clients are looking for a reliable service. When companies try to sell connectivity but don’t have a dependable connection themselves, that reliability is challenged. This occurs in both urban and rural areas but for telco companies like Ogi, for whom remote regions hold much of their customer base, the impact will be even more significant.
Paul Main, the National Sales Manager of Be Fibre told us, “It is part of the government’s maUnlessnifesto to bring gigabit broadband to ‘every home and business across the UK’ by 2025. However, 4G connectivity only covers 85% of the UK so finding a mobile sales solution that operates ‘out of network coverage’ will play a critical role in ensuring we keep the promise.”
Some impacts are obvious. At the point of closing a sale or a key stage of data capture, stalled sales software forces customers to stand around in frustration and might lead to failed orders.
Elsewhere, let’s say a sales rep invests time in delivering a presentation to get a new business client on board. But after their winning conversation they can’t complete the sale – simply because they’re offline. Here it’s a double hit. The business loses revenue and the rep’s motivation also suffers.
Stu says, ‘’It’s not just about having good connection to be able to increase the speed and number of orders being processed, but it’s also about the effect on the mental state of the sales rep too.”
“Salespeople will get demotivated if they’re pressing confirm on an order and it’s not going through,” Stu says. “You’ll see their body language change, they may feel under more pressure to complete sales and therefore start pushing harder than they should for a new order.”
It’s all easily avoidable. Our sales software is designed specifically with telco field sales in mind, which means it’s designed to stay connected at all times. It does a lot more than simply allow a rep to fill out a form offline. Our software functions in its online capacity even when it’s offline.
How is that possible? Let's explain this key feature of ours.
How we designed our online platform for an offline frontier
When one of your reps is offline, our systems can detect this. And instead of simply waiting for an internet connection, our software responds intelligently, going via an offline route to update the server. This allows the rep to continue to collect customer data as part of the offline sales process, with the device then syncing this data once a connection has been made again.
Stu says, “PSI’s ability to process and timestamp an order offline automatically, is a game changer.”
“If you’re asking reps to select offline, load the new CAF, submit the order then try to turn it online again, productivity can be hugely impacted. Whereas the PSI system means performance is consistent and reps can sell whether they’re in rural areas, the top of a high rise or even at an underground business.‘’
You could say we’ve worked around the imperfection of the 99% connected world. And we’ve done it with a creative software solution that works how a customer looking to buy a connectivity package would expect.
This key feature also means our offline capabilities are fully GDPR compliant. The system still functions as one device processing the data in one fixed moment.
Of course, just like all modern cloud-based systems, the customer doesn’t know anything different has happened. The whole process is smooth and contained. And with less chance of sales breaking, teams are free to grow leads and own more effective territory management.
Sales software built by industry-vertical experts
PSI’s sales software are alone in offering this vital key feature. You can line up all the sales or lead capture products on the market, and PSI is the only option with GDPR-compliant, offline capabilities built in.
Paul says that this technology “will continue to allow us to push into UK rural areas that we have been unable to reach previously, serving our communities better and delivering our promises.”
We pride ourselves in providing a unique customer service to the telco industry and always scan the market to see what problems are arising so we can provide solutions from automation to multichannel sales.
All PSI products come with this dedicated industry expertise and focus built-in to the design and configuration, so you know you’ll always have the best systems running. Get in touch to book a demo and see it in action
Futureproof your organisation with end-to-end sales software
Not all sales solutions were created equal. Some are effective in initial lead capture, but for the telco industry in particular, it’s vital to allow businesses to fully map customer journeys and control sales processes within an end-to-end solution.
Lead capture versus end-to-end
Lead capture represents the wide start of the sales process after which teams need to convert leads into customers. New customer acquisition is full of contact points at which the sale could break down and businesses face increased risk of potential customers changing their mind if their sales process has to pause for breath. It’s ultimately down to the point of sale, and all lead capture tools can do is kick start the sales journey.
In contrast, end-to-end sales software can record all a customer’s information in one place after just one conversation, including installation dates if the customer is happy to decide there and then. Your backend systems will have all they need, and the customer won’t have to give it another thought.
The ISP and managed IT services provider Ogi discovered this when we set them up with an end-to-end solution that replaced their previous software platform.
“PSI enables us to complete a quick sale in 10-15 mins from start to finish,” said Alexander, Breverton, Telesales Manager at Ogi. “This probably would have taken a couple of days in our previous out-of-the-box solution.”
Any further communication then becomes an opportunity to nurture the relationship rather than hassle the customer for more information. With all a customer’s information neatly contained in an end-to-end sales solution, companies can also sell more enhanced services, such as add-on connectivity packages, or they can ask for Trust Pilot ratings, which are more likely to be higher after such a seamless customer experience.
Future-proof your organisation’s sales
So what if you’re a new contender in the market and you only want lead capture right now?
Well, with PSI’s sales software, businesses can choose to pay for an initial lead capture tool and build on it later as their needs and budget evolves. Other sales solutions don’t offer this option, companies would have to onboard a whole new system at a later date – often with great upheaval and expense.
With PSI, you can scale your sales solution easily whenever you’re ready. This makes it a great tool for businesses and startups with growth ambitions.
So if your new company’s eventual aim is to have a multichannel sales process with an automated customer onboarding journey, we can facilitate that step by step. We can give you a sophisticated lead capture solution as you start out and then build it out into an end-to-end solution later once you have the scope to take full advantage of it.
By choosing a solution that's ready to scale with you, when you do need an end-to-end solution, you'll find it much easier getting the internal buy-in you need. You won’t need to convince field sales teams or C-suite execs to invest time and energy in onboarding and training for a second piece of software – everything will already be in place.
Scaling with a team of experts
PSI offers a consultative approach to sales solutions. Our software is able to handle nuance and it can be reflexive to fit around your businesses growth goals.
We know that the more flexibility and data companies have available, the more they’ll get out of not just a sales solution but also business growth. In territory management for example, additional customer data captured in end-to-end sales software can be assigned out to field sales teams working in both on-net and off-net services.
Likewise, when growing an alt-net network, data can be entered into the PSI systems as the network is being built so that sales reps know which addresses already have build-out processes in the pipeline and which don’t.
With our software, your teams can also use the data to know when leads are coming out of another contract, so that they can target them with a sales campaign once their contract end-date draws closer.
Beyond standard SaaS. This is a partnership
We work with scalability and partnership at the forefront of all we do. If a business is currently using a field sales agency as its core team but wants to move longterm to an in-house telesales team, our sales solutions make that transitional period as easy as possible.
Sales agencies often use software platforms that work for their broad needs, not for a specific business model, target audience or growth area. When companies decide to part ways with that agency, all the initial customer data that’s been captured is owned by the agency. That makes any sort of transition a difficult prospect, and inevitably leads to lost sales.
In contrast, PSI’s sales software offers longevity. If you want to put a sales agency on our software, you can. And if you want to switch agencies, you can do so without losing any data – and the same goes if you want to take sales in-house. In short, with our software, your teams won’t need to start from scratch when you decide to grow.
We know the telco industry and our end-to-end software means you can feel secure in the knowledge you've not only got the right software behind you, but the right team of experts too. Get in touch and future-proof your business with a solution that’s ready to scale with you.
Knock down the data silos: How multichannel sales software can help your company work smarter
Customers are hopping sales channels more than ever before, but their expectations are also rising when it comes to getting a consistent experience across all those channels — whether that’s a brick-and-mortar shop, website, app, social media interaction or call to a contact centre.
Despite the fact that customers expect a seamless experience, most companies are a long way off delivering it. According to a NICE/BCG study, 97% of customers use multiple channels to interact with brands, but in doing so 76% are met with a poor and disjointed, experience. Naturally, this has major implications for brand reputation, customer loyalty and missed sales opportunities.
Companies need to focus on creating an entire customer journey that has no cracks and utilises automation where possible. And a simple place to start is with a platform that bridges the gaps between sales channels, sales reps and onboarding teams.
The trouble with legacy systems
To break down silos and implement an effective multichannel sales strategy, it’s not enough to launch an L&D programme or gather employees for a town hall style event. If you’re going to see behavioural change across your organisation, you need systems that support it, incentivise it, and make it effortless. That’s where multichannel sales software comes in.
Companies might find themselves in the position of having different software for each sales channel. One legacy system might have been great in the past for telesales, but completely unusable for field sales teams, so different sales software might have been a necessary outlay at that time.
But disjointed software, or worse, no software at all, results in an inconsistent and silo-based experience for customers, as well as for employees. If telesales and field sales teams have no consistent platform, it can lead to customers being targeted in an uncoordinated way from both sides, increasing the chance of a broken sale
Collaboration between teams
Sales teams are traditionally harder to unify than most. Part of this is due to a well-intentioned but perhaps outdated approach, where organisations would encourage sales team members to compete with one another, rather than collaborate.
Even for the wide range of organisations striving to do something different, the old competitive approach is reinforced by a legacy reward scheme – in which sales reps receive commissions on an individual basis, based purely on the sales they close.
It’s a reward system that’s impossible to change properly without new technology. But when field sales and telesales teams use the same multichannel sales software, they can be incentivised to collaborate easily.
If a field sales rep knocks on the door of someone who’s interested, but not quite ready, a call back can be requested at a time that suits the customer. Using multichannel sales software, the telesales agent who makes the call gets that warm lead, and if a sale is closed, both agents can share the commission on the sale.
The software captures who has spoken to the potential customer and when, so the joint effort of the sale can be rewarded. And that reward is certainly justified, since their collaboration provides customers with a more a seamless experience that inspires more trust in the brand and a greater chance of retention.
Real time data reporting
The right multichannel sales platform will support better data collection and reporting – which is the lifeblood of non-siloed teams.
Using multichannel sales software, webforms update the system immediately. Automation means there is no waiting for data to be collected from emails or paperwork and uploaded manually to a system.
Extracting sales data from a single platform rather than waiting for it to be collated from multiple sources helps teams to be more agile, reacting fast to areas that are underperforming. It can provide a single view of all sales leads, including history of contact with a customer, and it can be used to view any outstanding actions, e.g., if a customer has requested a call back, and if so, when they’d like it and through what channel.
This can remove duplication between sales teams and allows them to focus on potential customers that are more likely to convert on a given day. If someone has recently completed a web form for instance, your teams could spot that they registered interest in an upcoming product such as 5G or full fibre, and they can knock on their door already knowing who they are and what they care about.
That means no customer has to tell you who they are twice, no customer has to explain their situation twice, and no customer has to turn reps away twice. If there’s a second conversation, it’s more likely to be a welcome one, and it’s far more likely to become a conversion to decrease customer churn.
A seamless customer experience
By unifying sales teams onto a single multichannel sales software platform, siloed working can be consigned to history. Teams are incentivised to work together, customers receive a more seamless experience, and the rewards are seen at a bottom line level.
UNICEF Ireland uses PSI’s software to bring unity to all their interactions with potential and current donors. Justin Killeen, Pledge Manager, had this to say about their donors’ experience:
“When there’s a sign up, it's immediately in the PSI system… whereas other systems can take up to a week for the data to be accessible.
“With charities, brand is really important and you have to be so careful. With the PSI tools, you can see where your teams are going, who they’re talking to, their routes and the info they’re capturing.
“If a potential donor calls to check something, we can very quickly click on the system and see the info captured and confirm questions to customers straight away.”
To learn more about the tools you need to knock down silos, check out our thoughts on whether you should build or buy multichannel sales software.
Boosting your customer and employee experience using effective territory management
Customer experience and the bottom line are inseparable. According to McKinsey, companies that prioritise positive customer experiences see a 20% improvement in customer satisfaction, a 15% improvement in sales conversion, a 30% lower cost-to-serve and a 30% improvement in employee engagement.
Speaking of which, employee experience is almost equally important to a company’s bottom line. Happy employees are less likely to become quiet quitters or churn with the latest wave in the great resignation. They’re more likely to feel they belong and bring their all, resulting in more positive customer experiences.
There are no instant miracle-grows for employee and customer experience. To address them properly, it often requires major transformation, from product to organisational redesign.
For telcos and utilities that use multichannel strategies, though, there is low hanging fruit to be picked at the first point of contact – and this all comes down to effective territory management.
Territory management underpins customer experience
Whether they are approached by a rep or browsing online, customers can need time to make a decision, particularly if it’s one that ties them into a commitment of 12 months. In telcos and utilities in particular, it’s also extremely likely that the potential customer already has what you’re selling, and won't want to be hounded by a sales team to make the switch.
Knowing that a rep is going to call is more likely to result in a better customer experience than a call out of the blue, or worse, a call when the potential customer has made it clear that they won’t be interested in switching for several more months.
Customers have never had more choice than they do now and a negative experience with a brand is something that will stay with them, and may even translate into PR damage through word of mouth and social media.
Conversely, a positive experience created by a rep calling at an agreed upon time, i.e., doing what they said they were going to do, builds customer loyalty and trust in a brand. On one level, it’s a small thing, but these small things are what differentiates one brand from another in a crowded market. And these small moments can only happen if the right tools are in place to ensure communication with potential customers is coordinated carefully.
How multichannel sales tech helps
By using a territory management tool from the very start of your scaling journey, you make achieving market penetration far more likely. For Ogi, a new contender in the ISP and managed IT services space, it enabled them to use product and campaign data to deliver great customer experiences at scale.
Alexander Breverton, Ogi’s Telesales Manager, said that without the right solution for the task, “we wouldn’t have had the success we have had, it’s safe to say.”
Great customer experiences are fed by great data. If a rep can find out if a potential customer is happy with their current supplier or products, and record that data, and learn when they may be free to make the decision of staying or moving to a new contract – all this can later make the difference between a smooth sales process and a missed opportunity.
By recording all this with smart multichannel sales software, sales reps will be prompted when to re-establish contact. A second team won’t try to contact the same person too early or through an unpreferred channel, and they won’t start by asking the same questions as before. It’s a simple thing, but valuable to customer relationships.
Effective territory management tools can also be used to plot routes for reps based upon previously recorded customer data, anticipating what customers in certain areas might want or need. This could help create more of a bespoke and targeted approach, saving time for sales teams and potential customers by pitching products more likely to be more relevant to their needs.
The quality of territory management affects employees directly
For employees, effective territory management makes their entire experience less frustrating. They get better sales results by wasting less of their time contacting people who don’t want to be contacted.
Also, using the data recorded through initial contact, reps can be provided with warm leads to reach out to, once the potential customers are out of contract. This is more likely to increase conversion rates than knocking on doors of people who may not be interested.
All this equals better sales results. And this in turn leads to better pay and happier reps who are more likely to stay in their role.
Effective territory management can also be used to allocate field sales teams workloads more evenly, based upon their hours, their location and transport situation. Instead of being given an unknown number of doors to knock on in a housing development, they can know their exact routes and how many households they need to visit, which can help to make sales targets more motivating and less daunting.
Everyone wins
By using the right territory management tools, you can collate data that goes way beyond customer surveys. Reps can be sent to the right places, at the right times, to pitch the right products. Customers can be contacted at the time they want to be contacted and be provided with information that’s relevant to their needs.
Customer and employee experiences are built upon effective territory management, and when the experience is positive from the first interaction, that’s what your brand will be known for from the very beginning – and this is particularly important if your brand is new to the market.
To learn more, see how our multichannel software helped the new telco brand Ogi to grow or get in touch to schedule a demo.
How to build a business case for new multichannel sales software
If you’re a sales manager or director, and you see the strain your current system is placing on keeping your teams and customers happy, how do you convince those with a tight hold on the purse strings to loosen their grip slightly – and invest in realising the true potential of your sales success?
Here we lay out the business case for new multichannel sales software and three key points to include in your pitch: consumer centricity, ease of control, and automated compliance. All of which combine to improve sales beyond business-as-usual.
Keep customers on side at every touchpoint
Firstly, multichannel sales tech stops customers falling through the cracks. Some will never talk to a salesperson on the door or phone, others will never make a purchase decision online, and many won’t stick to a single channel.
According to McKinsey, over 50% of customers seek three to five off and online sales channels on their way to making a purchase. If you want the loyalty of that 50%, you need to break down the silos and create a seamless customer experience across all sales channels – and to do that you need the right tech.
Keeping tabs on all channels is vital if they’re going to work effectively in harmony. This can be a difficult task, though, particularly if to generate the data you need you’re relying on your sales teams’ manual reporting – which equates to less time spent closing sales.
The right sales software will be intelligent and efficient. It’ll keep your sales teams focused on their primary task and, at the same time, make them better informed with data captured across all sales channels. This helps them to close sales that would otherwise slip away – and this creates a significant ROI over time.
Automated multichannel compliance
Compliance with sales and data regulations is a major selling point when it comes to building a business case for investing in a multichannel sales solution. While the initial outlay for buying into a new system may seem like a large investment, it would pale in comparison to the cost of a fine for mis-selling a product or service, or mis-handling personal data.
Automation is key to a successful multichannel sales solution; removing some of the manual admin processes in closing a sale can save time between sales, yes, but more than that, it means your compliance is on autopilot, ensuring that nothing is being mis-sold. The right multichannel sales solution can also do the heavy lifting for you as regulations change around selling in your industry and being able to react quickly means your teams can keep selling.
The extra level of control is important for compliance, but also for customer retention; customers who are mis-sold products and don't come away with a positive experience are likely to look elsewhere.
Ease of control
The right multichannel sales system will give you control of sales and onboarding processes, territory management, and lead capture.
Sales managers can get a real time overview of sales data across all channels via a dashboard. This means they can identify inefficiencies easily, allowing them to make adjustments and see the impact of those adjustments in real time. This is an invaluable asset when trying to hit targets and KPIs, rather than having to wait for a reporting team to collate data and react based upon historical information.
For effective territory management, routes can be sent automatically to different representatives, ensuring no crossover or miscommunication. This also cuts down on the resources needed for assigning territories to sales representatives. Data collected and centralised within one system, means campaigns can be driven by business intel to improve overall conversions and results.
A watertight multichannel sales system will enable you to focus efforts in a strategic way. Without it, your sales teams can be knocking on all doors and calling all numbers, only to discover people who don’t want to buy or aren’t in a position to buy yet. Likewise you can miss potential customers who are ready to purchase.
The right multichannel solution will enable your teams to capture missed sales opportunities. They can then schedule a follow up at the right time from the right channel, whether that’s email, a phone call or showing up at their front door – ensuring no opportunities are ever missed.
Ultimately, that’s what multichannel sales software is unless you invest in it: a missed opportunity. It’s an investment, of course, but the return on that investment can be felt from all angles as you close more deals, waste less time, capture missed sales, ensure 100% compliance, and gain the ability to track that ROI in real time.
To learn more about how PSI’s multichannel sales software might help your business grow, take a look at the case studies of how we helped SSE Airtricity and Ogi. Alternatively, get in touch and see how our team can help you to build a business case for investing in multichannel sales tech.
