It’s very easy to attract the wrong people to work in telesales. Problem is, getting it wrong it could have a terrible impact on your business… before you realise it. So how do you find telesales staff who make a positive impact on your business?
So, why is it important to your business to attract staff effective on the phone?
Over the last few years I’ve seen the role of ‘telesales’ raise its profile within businesses. No longer is telesales just aimed at ‘sales’ people. Telesales, telemarketing, business development all play an important part in all types of companies. Whether it’s accountants, charities, service industries, solicitors or manufacturing, all of them need good telesales staff.
What makes a person effective on the phone?
If I had a pound for all the times I’ve been asked that question I could have retired years ago. The first thing to consider is what do you want that person to achieve for your business?
Telephone tasks can range from, ‘upselling on incoming orders’, ‘making appointments’, ‘identifying opportunities on incoming calls’, ‘selling our products or services over the phone’, ‘ringing our dormant customers and seeing if they will buy from us again’, ‘I want my staff to find jobs for the unemployed people we work with’, ‘I’d like someone who can ring employers to raise awareness about apprenticeships’ and the list goes on.
So being clear about the role you have to fill is vital… before you interview. After that there are certain pitfalls to avoid in interviewing. Here are some of the reasons companies end up with the wrong people.
- They believe everything the individual tells them at the interview is true.
- They fail to carry out a thorough telephone interview but instead resort to a one to one interview.
- They don’t aim to understand more clearly what the candidate’s previous roles were.
- They have poor inductions for individuals and ‘assume’ they will know what they are doing.
- They fail to share key benefits of their products and services. Without that information, the sales person can’t relay this comfortably over the phone to their customers and prospects
- They refrain from carrying out any refresher training with the individual again because they ‘believe’ they’ll know what they are doing.
- They use the standard interviewing skills of recruiting face to face and go on their gut feeling they’ve got the right person.
- They fail to set targets to measure success.
If any of these apply to your company, you need to address them, before they cost you time and money.