Why sales team require advanced mode of information exchange:
If we consider this plot, we can see that most of the client-salesclerk interaction is made at the time of purchase. Now say the sales-clerk is having insufficient information to reply to the client when is asked a product/service related query. That instance required the salesman to look for information from some external source or ask his manager. In the purchase phase, the time that he has for the same is amazingly less. It’s like if even he/she started thinking for more than a minute, the deal is gone. Such scenarios are mostly generated in case of organizations where salesclerks have direct interaction with clients/ customers. Hence a lot of questioning and answering takes place. Most evidence of such cases are seen in payment card companies. Reinvent the way data is exchanged in the traditional system.
Let us discuss about this segment then and analyze the situation of Sales people in direct communication with customers. In industries in like payment card, most of the times, the decision of the customer is different. It is directed towards purchasing a product/service is much dependent on the way they are influenced by the salesmen. Also, Salesmen should be geared up for answering. It is related to their queries and problems with a particular product/service. For these two things to go in proper order, each of the salesman involved should be equipped with this much knowledge and skills. Sales managers can’t even think of taking a minimum margin of error in these cases. So what can they do? They have to reinvent the traditional system of information exchange.
What can be done
Here are some of the ways they can ensure that their employees be prepared to delivering the right information to their customers:
- Sales Training: Instructor led or Digital Training at frequent intervals is , so that organizations can regularly update the salesclerks with awareness regarding newer products/services. But don’t you think it will be too cumbersome to handle and still might leave some employees with an information not that sufficient.
- Web storage of data: Organizations can store all the product/service related information on a server and then allow the employees to access the web portal at the time of need. But what if the internet connection goes weak at the time when a salesclerk is looking for an information to respond to the query of a client.
- An alternative: What is that? Considering the possible limitations in the above mentioned cases we could think of reinventing the system to reduce the dependencies on: Internet connectivity; Instructor for training; attending frequent training sessions. It seems good to have a system which can cutoff these dependencies and better if employee could just focus on handling the client rather than spending the time and energy looking for the information.
The solution
In such places, SMS( Short Message Service) is the only channel for delivering performance support. We think of redesigning the traditional SMS technology. So that an employee can seek any sort of business related information by just sending a text SMS. Infact much of the population is not having smartphones or laptops to utilize internet facility. SMS channel will also enable them to get any information at any time within a minute. Organizations now just need to connect the SMS channel with the web server. Any salesclerk could ask for any information by just typing the relevant keywords and sending the message to the server, where the preset information is stored. This is how we reinvent the traditional information system.
This can take the information exchange system to a new level and ensure 100% productivity of each sales person.
