How about a team audit on your lead generation team? You have a team making outbound calls to generate new business. You may call this your new business team, or your lead gen team or perhaps even a telemarketing team. To me this is different to a telesales team which takes orders with revenue over the phone.
If it’s telemarketing or lead generation, chances are they are working alongside another team : your field based sales team for instance. You perhaps buy-in leads of suitable prospects alongside contacting your existing and lapsed customer base. All of this is a good idea. Increasing market coverage helps combat customer churn. However if you have great customer service and good products or services – then hopefully churn isn’t a major issue.
How about a skills audit for your team?
Why not set up a quick and easy team audit on your outbound telemarketing team? You’ll have your views on how effective your telemarketing team is no doubt. Some of them may be great and some less so. You want to ensure that they are constantly striving to produce more. That the top performers are constantly looking to raise their game. And, the weaker performers are aiming to become average. To stay ahead of the game, to stay ahead of the competition is vital in your competitive environment. You want to make sure that your customer base responds better to your team than anyone else’s. This requires constant input and nurturing. Winning teams win because they have a hunger for winning and with that comes a desire for continuous improvement.
You may already spend some time with your team, sitting with them while they make calls. The likelihood is that although you know you should, there never quite seems enough time. If you’ve got your team back in the office again now, post-Covid why not book To Market to do it for you? There are many reasons why an independent team audit could give you great benefits. Consider these…
Benefits of a team audit
- You benefit from the experience of having someone carry it out who specialises in working with phone teams. So, you get some cross-sector expertise.
- The person carrying out the audit is independent. They will give you their views, with no prior knowledge of anyone or anything. It’ll be reported as is. You can accept it. You can ignore it. It’s your choice.
- It signals to the team that you’re interested in developing them.
- You may be considering training for them, and this is a good litmus test prior to training to identify any issues.
You can find out more about team audits here on the website. The beauty of a team audit, is that it only takes a couple of hours and it’s carried out onsite while your team is working. So it’s non-invasive.
And the investment is only a few hundred pounds.
Team audit – how it works
It is a simple process. I come in for 2 hours and sit with 4 members of your team while they are making their calls. You will be asked to select your 4 with a cross-section of abilities, so that I can form a representative view. There is little benefit in giving me your top performers as I won’t get a representative view. Conversely there is little point in giving me your lowest performers or problem children. Again I’ll go away with a view of what your team needs and it won’t be a realistic, balanced view. They carry on their job in the usual way, with me sitting alongside them for 25 minutes or so. I can learn a lot by doing this, even in this limited period of time.
I am interested in looking at;
- Their skills
- The process (i.e. how they go about their job role)
- The computer database (in terms of how it’s used)
- Their approach to the calls
- Support systems
You then get the choice of the verbal debrief at the end of the exercise, or for a few £s more you get a written report too.
The report – food for thought
You can use the report in many ways. Many clients will share it with other colleagues – stakeholders in the department. This can then be used as a discussion document. It also means for you the manager that you have a checklist of things you can work on or improve for the team. Clients frequently and proudly let me know about some of the things they’ve done for their team. This may include a new chair or reorganised seating etc. Alternatively you may use bits of it in discussion with team leaders, supervisors and managers.
You report will also provide the basis for the modules selected for your training programme. Finally of course it also gives you the chance to review the issues reported on ahead of the planned training. More than 90% of team audits To Market carries out are precursors to the full 2 day training course.
If you are ready to book a team audit for your team, let us have some details here.
Hopefully you can see how straightforward this is. Alternatively if you want to discuss training or team audits drop us a line to info@tomarket.co.uk or simply call 01858 461148.
Other training ideas
We also have a range of audio CDs available for you if you’re looking for ideas on how to get more out of your telemarketing, telesales, business development or lead generation team. Have a look at some of the products we have for sales teams here. Again these can be a useful supplement to the programme you undertake with us. With a pre-course team audit, plus the 2 day masterclass and the CDs as part of the after sales pack you should be able to ensure that the learning is embedded and your team can increase productivity and success rate. Then hopefully a successful team becomes self-perpetuating.
To Market helps develop and train teams across the Midlands : Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Peterborough, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Hinckley, Nuneaton, Daventry as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and the West Midlands