Friday, November 12. 2010Outbound Selling From Sri Lanka....John Linton ...a very promising start. We sent one of our business sales supervisors to Colombo for a few weeks last weekend and yesterday was her fourth day 'on the job'. I guess you can pretty much discount Monday which was a 'familiarisation day' so there has been three days to agree and demonstrate the concepts and become familiar with the new software that has been developed. We appointed two of the most successful inbound residential sales people to be trained as supervisors for this new venture with the plan for each of those two to have 6 to 9 out bound sales people by early 2011. If these two teams worked out we would add a third outbound team in April 2011 while retaining the current inbound team. Wednesday of this week was the first day of 'cold calling' and to make it as painless as possible in this start up phase we have decided the first task is to contact our own customer base and offer them the opportunity of resigning with Exetel for a further 12 month contract on one of our new ADSL2 plans. The objective was to counter the Telstra Retail campaigns that have produced a constant churn away that is higher than we would like although Optus tell us the 'loyalty level' of Exetel ADSL customers is higher than all other Optus wholesale ADSL2 customers.....whatever....it is too high for us to continue to 'endure'. Wednesday saw 8 and 10 'sales' made by each of the trainee supervisors with some changes needed to be made to the software. These changes were rapidly made and Thursday saw the sales per person double to 19 and 22 per person.....with the changes to the software making the difference together with a slightly refined approach. So progress has been rapid with the target, once everything is fully in place, of 50 upgrades per day per person plus 5 add on new sales of mobiles or VoIP. Clarissa will begin the training for the second two people on Monday with two more starting the following Monday with the aim of having two 'teams' of 3 people each by the time she leaves at the end of November. The trainee supervisors will then continue to add reps as quickly as new personnel can be found for the replacement of the current inbound sales people. So the theory is to have ten people resigning 500 current ADSL customers a day (10,000 per month) by the end of January....and reaching a figure of 20,000 re-contracts per month by the end of March 2011. After that the, by then, very experienced outbound sales personnel will begin to be transferred to other programs. That's the plan and like all plans the numbers on the spreadsheet look just fine. Acquiring the required number of people of the required standards and training them and integrating them in to the current teams remains a difficult set of issues. However the start of doing something never done by Exetel before is very positive and it's something that cannot be easily copied by our competitors for financial and other reasons. At least that's the theory. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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Am I missing something here? Thursdays blog post say "Exclusivity - Not Something Sensible People Should Do....." and then todays post is all about trying to get your residential customer base to re-contract with Exetel? Wouldn't that kind of make them exclusive?
Comment (1)
You're missing something - perhaps everything.
Calling a customer asking them whether they want to upgrade their plan at no cost to a better plan is hardly going anywhere near "exclusivity". Comments (8)
Interesting to read about the measures you're putting in place here.
I think one thing I take out of this is how flexible your staff appear in terms of being willing to go on secondment overseas and take on that sort of role. I know you've written about concerns over how you transition some of the management tasks to other people, but that's the sort of thing that suggests that done in stages they'd be willing and able to take on those increased responsibilities. Comment (1)
Hi John
I thought 'cold calling' was when you call someone you have no relationship to, whereas 'warm calling' is when you call someone you do have a relationship to? If you're warm calling customers, I'm happy. I feel cold calling is not a good behaviour because it can result in all sorts of unknown problems for the recipient - such as breaking a hip running to get the 'phone call from the grandson' I hope you can stick to warm calling only. Cheers, Mike. Comment (1)
John,
I'm curious to know how this plan works with Exetel's aim to move their growth and development away from residential ADSL. Is the movement of residential ADSL customers too large to keep the business sustainable while you try to redirect your focus towards corporate clients? Comments (2)
I don't really understand what/why you are asking.
Obviously we wouldn't do something that wasn't beneficial to Exetel. Comments (8)
You've made it clear previously that Exetel doesn't get much value from residential ADSL and that you'd be shifting your focus towards business customers. I always got the impression that you meant to reduce your residential ADSL customers, or at least to stop growing them.
This policy/program that you've put in place, if I understand it correctly, is aimed at retaining your residential customers, which I thought was in contrast to exetel's business goals. But quite possibly I've misunderstood what you mean regarding exetel's residential adsl position and you want to retain your customer base (though not grow it). Comments (2)
We have no desire to lose the residential customers we already have.
We just don't see a way of growing our residential base at the moment but would like to do whatever we can to slow/stop the current churn away level. Comments (8)
I'd sure like you to offer a VOIP ATA box deal, maybe something like sign up for 12 months, get a discounted VOIP ATA at $10/month for a year. A bit like your "free" wireless account deal you had a few months ago (or $5/month with a modem). I'd like to move a couple of relatives over to VOIP using ATA boxes etc. but the cost is a bit prohibitive at the moment.
Comment (1)
We have been trying to find a suitable modem/router/ATA for a while - without success.
We are still trying. Comments (8)
Love the focus of trying to keep current customers instead of spending a fortune chasing new customers. I wish Telstra and the banks would consider this approach!
I think an x dollars per month modem upgrade option on 12 month contract re-sign would be a great option. Too many people don't want to pay for a router upfront. Comment (1)
I'm not sure I understand what you mean?
Customers would already have a modem. Do you mean a more advanced modem with ATA for VoIP capability? Comments (8)
I'd dare suggest 'the magic box' is already manifest in the form of Google's Android device.
One doesn't need an ISP to supply that. They can be had for 150 AUD What is more value is Exetel not withdraw from its supply/admin of premium hsdpa (post + pre-dated) access/accounts Comment (1)
Would this be open for Agents to contact their own clients (current Exetel customers) and make the same offers?
Comments (3)
What I am asking for is whether the option to re-contract an Agent's customers on the same basis, ie no plan cost change, new contact, free upgrade to ADSL2.
Comments (3)
It's available from the user facilities.
Any customer can choose a new contract and get a zero plan change. Comments (8)
My Naked DSL service doesn't allow a plan change other than with a $20 fee and there is only a change within the Naked group being possible. This group also has much less peak quota than other ADSL2 options comparing to the OTL-A through OTL-D and AAA though AAD plans.
My Exetel/Telstra ADSL2 service shows some change plan options with $20 plan change fee, other options seem to be there with no plan change cost though. I can also see options for OTAA, OTBB, OTCC and OTDD which are not current plans, but they do have the 12 month contract and they are higher cost plans than the currently otherwise equivalent OTL-A, OTL-B, OTL-C and OTL-D options. Note that the OTL-A, OTL-B, OTL-C and OTL-D plans show a zero cost line rental, whilst the OTAA, OTBB, OTCC and OTDD plans show with a line rental component of $30 per month. Comments (3)
Naked plans are difficult to 'automate' if the user is changing to another infrastructure (Optus or otherwise).
We need to find some sensible way of doing that. However this blog is not the place to do that. Comments (8)
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