4 Principles Why Proactive Approach is Crucial in Sales Outsourcing

Why Is Initiating First Contact With Customers Important In Sales Outsourcing?

Sales outsourcing has been a fundamental solution for SMEs aiming for better profitability. There is a higher chance to get your annual profit by offshoring salespeople than by creating your own.

Besides profit, outsourcing sales teams also prevents you from exerting effort in recruitment. Especially if you always need to hire new agents to fill those vacant positions.

A recent study shows that the annual attrition rate for sales reps is as high as 34%. This is not good considering all the time you have to utilize just by training your in-house team.. Most companies spend 26% of their time training agents and newly hired employees.

Once done training, a sales personnel only allot 35.2% of their time selling the products. The rest of their time is for solving after sales issues and lead management. Outsourcing these tasks will help your team focus on core business functions.

Be that as it may, not every company is fully utilizing the potential of outsourcing their sales team. Some would just like to hire agents that will assist customers calling their business. However, there are other ways to engage with your prospects to gain more traction compared to your competitor. This is where proactive sales pitching comes into place.

Unlike a response-based sales approach, proactively calling your prospects gives you an advantage. Moreover, this allows you to discover other markets where your business can thrive.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the 4 critical reasons why proactive approach is critical in small and medium enterprises:

More Product Information Doesn’t Mean More Sales

Most companies tend to swamp their catalog or advertisement with information about their product. 68% of businesses believe that more information generally helps customers buying decisions.

This belief is one of the reasons why 75% of new products failed to reach their target sales during the first year. Customers prefer to use their usual item than reading the long list of reasons why yours is better.

On top of that, there is an 18% decrease in sales rate for those companies that tried this type of strategy. That’s why having a proactive sales personnel to explain your product is better rather than putting all that information to read.

Sales agents should assume that the customer already knows your product at the basic level. 77% of prospective purchasers already did their research before talking with an agent. The role of your agent is to discuss the importance of these basic features.

However, you shouldn’t force your customer to purchase your product. 86% of professionals agreed that helping customers consider all possible options is important. You have to appeal to their emotions and explain how your product will help them in their daily activity. They will never get these explanations if they’re reading your catalog or online ads.

Reduce the Sales Cycle

Having a proactive sales team also reduces the purchase journey of your customer. As mentioned, customers would like to research the product first before calling the company. It might take them a long time already just by gathering information about your service. Then they will call your company and will have to wait for someone to answer the call.

65% of customers said that they’ve been spending too much time purchasing compared to what they’re expecting. The call queue in inbound sales service plays a big factor in prolonging the sales cycle.

However, initiating contact with your customer reduces the time they have to wait for someone to answer their phone call. It will make the sales process faster and you can also close more business deals. A proactive approach makes purchasing easier by 86%. Imagine how many additional sales you can close just by having a faster transaction with customers.

You Will Reach Them in the Most Convenient Platform

Having an outsourced sales team opens up to more channels where you can reach your customers. Initiating contact with your buyers helps them prioritize your services first. It is because they no longer have to look for your contact details.

You can maximize its potential by having a proactive approach when interacting with your prospects. Instead of waiting for them to contact your business, your sales agents can check which platforms your customers use the most.

Here’s the top 5 platforms your clients use to purchase product:

This data shows that more consumers preferred to exchange messages through chat. It makes conversation more convenient and they can do it anywhere regardless of the noise condition. Moreover, chat provides real time responses from live sales agents rather than sending emails.

However, most sales professionals still use email to communicate with B2B clients. 86% of sales people send email since they can put all the details of the product that the B2B prospect needs to know.

They’re also using more traditional approaches like phone calls since it’s more formal compared to chat messaging. 78% of corporate managers and decision makers made an appointment from an invitation through email or cold call.

Higher Appreciation for Your Company

Initiating contact to offer your product shows you’re paying attention with your customers. Your sales agent can help them in deciding which product is more useful for them. They can easily make a decision if someone is guiding them throughout their research. Sales people can provide scenarios where each product is useful in certain situations.

Prospect buyers like a company that will make their purchasing process easy to comprehend. No wonder 62% of consumers prefer proactive sales people than reactive sales teams.

Customers think that corporations with a proactive process are always one step ahead. They have more chances to anticipate issues and eliminate challenges customers will face in the future.

Outbound sales calls are also useful for after sales support. In fact, 78% of buyers expect a quality assurance call after buying your product. It shows how you appreciate their business and how you take care of them as your customers.

Who Are The People Behind a Sales Outsourcing Team?

A successful sales outsourcing campaign isn’t just in the hands of the sales associate. There are several people working together to create the best strategy to close business deals. In fact, the average number of people involved in the sales purchase process increases from 5 to 7 persons now.

Having said that, hiring all these people will cost you more time and money. You need to invest in recruitment and training them. However, as mentioned above, the average attrition rate of employees is not favorable for small and medium businesses. 

Thus, outsourcing your sales team is the ideal solution to improve your closing rate. They could provide you people with expertise in several fields like nurturing clients. Moreover, they can assign a team that will monitor your sales growth.

Let’s take a look at some people behind a successful outsourced sales team:

• Sales Support Representative

Sales representatives assist and connect with customers who have interest in your product. As your first line of communication, they should have the patience to persuade them into buying your product. Outsourcing companies also provide you an omnichannel to reach a wider range of customers.

• Content Writer

The function of a content writer is to create messages to attract more leads and prospects. Their main focus is to provide clear communication materials that you can use to build relationships with your clients. 

Aside from writing, content writers also have to find the best way to describe your product. They have to study your customers’ behavior to create a successful content piece. BPO companies have several software that generates customers’ data. You can use this to identify the most effective approach in writing content.

• Corporate Trainer

They are responsible for providing skills training for your sales team. Corporate trainer will help sales representatives to focus on core areas that will benefit your business. On top of that, they can also relay protocols and monitor if agents follow these rules. Call center companies have dedicated trainers for their sales outsourcing service.

• Quality Assurance Analyst

Their main function is to ensure the high quality of every business transaction. They keep track of interactions between the agents and prospect clients. In addition to that, they can provide recommendations to the team on potential improvements. 

Among those outsourcing countries stated, India and Philippines compete with the pricing. It’s true that Indian BPO offers cheaper service. Unfortunately, that’s the only advantage they have over the Philippines outsourcing industry.

• Business Development Representative

Their responsibility is to connect with the leads and set up an appointment with them. Most of the time, these leads already have an initial contact with your business. However, BDR can also make the first contact through email or phone calls. 

These agents are useful for a B2B transaction since they can set up a meeting with the decision maker if they reach their secretary or staff.

There are some BPO companies that train their sales representative to be a BDR too. Although you can have two separate agents for this function if you want your sales rep to focus on closing sales. You can let them call those appointments BDR set up for your business.

• Customer Success Manager

As the name suggests, they are responsible for managing the overall operations of your sales team. They connect your business with the third-party service provider. This manager approves recommendations to optimize your team’s performance. It is their job to identify issues arising before it can affect your team’s performance.

Although you can hire your own Customer Success Manager, it will be better to outsource it as well. Sales team members can easily approach the manager if they’re just nearby. On top of that, it might be hard to manage an overseas team since they can’t discuss face-to-face.

How Much Do Sales Outsourcing Services Cost?

Offshoring may seem costly. However, you need to consider a lot of expenses that make in-house teams more expensive. These in-house costs includes:

• Insurance and retirement benefits
• Commissions and bonuses
• Back-office personnel
• Continuous software upgrade and maintenance
• Facility

By outsourcing your sales team, you eliminate these possible expenses since the BPO company will take care of everything. 

However, some are just concerned about the salary of the outsourcing agents. So, here’s the salary comparison between US sales reps compared to your possible outsourcing destination:

Meanwhile, here’s the estimated salary of a Sales Manager in each country:

As you can see, there’s a big discrepancy between the annual salary of the US sales team compared to these outsourcing countries. You get the same service quality or even more if you outsource with the right BPO company.

Philippines Outsourcing Vs India’s BPO Services

Among those outsourcing countries stated, India and Philippines compete with the pricing. It is true that Indian BPO offers cheaper services. Unfortunately, that’s the only advantage they have over the Philippines outsourcing industry.

The Philippines totally outclassed Indian BPO in terms of service quality. Many businesses preferred to outsource their sales team in the Philippines because of their neutral accent. Having an understandable accent is a great help to persuade customers into buying your product. Thus, it’ll be easier for your company to close more sales.

So, having the most affordable price in the market is not a guarantee that you will have a faster return of investment. You need to ensure that you’re getting what you paid for when you outsource your sales process.

Aside from quality, cultural compatibility is also one reason why the Philippines is the “Call Center Capital of the World”. Having an identical cultural background makes the Filipino representative more relatable compared to India call center agents. 

Around 68% of consumers said that a pleasant conversation with a representative is the key to a positive service experience.

If you’re still not convinced that the Philippines is better than India because they’re more affordable. Remember that 64% of people consider quality business interaction more important than pricing. So, if you’re still not improving because you worried about the price then maybe you’re targeting the wrong goal.

Sales Outsourcing Firms in the Philippines

If you  are a small or medium business looking to outsource your sales team then go to Magellan Solutions. We have more than 17 years of experience providing service for SMEs from different industries.

We are an ISO certified BPO company that strictly follows a high standard of service from recruitment to on-boarding process. Besides that, we guarantee a fortified protection for your data. Our tech support team has different security protocols to prevent online breaching.

Our Business Developers can help you in setting up your key performance indicators (KPI). KPIs will guide you and monitor the progress of your business with us.

We also offer guaranteed flexible pricing options based on several factors like service and number of agents you need. Magellan Solutions understands that start-up businesses have limited funds in outsourcing services.

Contact us today and get a free 60-minute business consultation. Please fill out the contact form below.

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