To Market Blog

Telesales training for office interior companies. We have often been commissioned to work with office interior and refurbishment companies. The development programme will often include the classroom based training, but office fit out companies are often also interested in knowing how to build a more successful telephone based sales team. The first stage of a training and development programme is to carry out the 2 hour on site team audit. By observing the team and listening in to calls, we can gather a lot of useful information. The following is an extract from a report with an office design and refurbishment client who was concerned about the low levels of outbound calling. (The names have been changed to protect the ……….. !)  

“This is the single biggest area for improvement. You have targeted them to make 10 calls per hour, but Sarah admitted she doesn’t achieve this. Her reasoning is that she gets drawn into doing other tasks, setting up computers, downloading software, research etc.

The more I think about Sarah, the more I think she is a good administrator who will gravitate towards administrative tasks when she can. I am not sure whether this is what you want. She spent ages showing me the administrative back-up system and how it all works. 3 times I had to ask her to make some calls ! There were a few other things I found interesting. She told me that she spends half an hour per week cleaning up the data from last week, why ? Each of you should ensure that you put the data in clean in the first place. She also described to me that she’d spent 3½ days cleaning records on the database. Undoubtedly this is useful, but does it add to the bottom line  ?

Sarah also has lots of lists around her, there appear to be paper call lists (not on the screen ) plus her pink highlighted list. There are just lots of bits of paper – it should all be on the computer ! When doing our own telemarketing we don’t operate with any paper at all, just a note pad, pen and the sheet where we record our activity per call. And even this tick sheet gets binned once we’ve entered it onto screen at the end of the day.   

There was also one point where Sarah made what I thought was a telling comment “I like my people” referring to the people she speaks to. This sums up the fact that I think she is in a comfort zone. The danger is that your system will allow them to perpetuate trawling through a comfortable list rather than finding new ones. Admittedly your purchase of Glenigan leads helps you find new prospects. Sarah mentioned that there is an idea currently about reducing their database to 500 records each. I think that this would merely shrink their pot and cause them to spend more time speaking to the same old people. Given their hours I believe Sarah should be running a pot of around 1,000 and Chris 500. However there should always be pressure on to add new ones and cull old ones.”

In the audit report, we then went on to suggest the client aims to “enhance your present system of activity monitoring so that it produces weekly graphical statistics.” At the moment this isn’t done. it becomes much easier to manage performance up when you at least know when you’re starting from.

If you think a team audit would benefit you and your team you can follow the link here http://www.tomarket.co.uk/teamaudits.php or call us to discuss how it would work in your organisation.

 We work with companies involved in commercial interiors, office refit, office refurbishment, office furniture lines, space planning, furniture supply,canteen furniture,boardroom furniture,office storage suppliers. And we have worked with companies across the region in Cambridge,  Newmarket,  St Neots, Ely, Kings Lynn,  Haverhill,  Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Northampton, Leicester, Loughborough, Coalville, Coventry, Daventry, Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Derby, Nottingham, Melton Mowbray, Hinckley as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Cambridgeshire.