Sales Training Success Story                           

Situation
Valmont, a Fortune 500 company in the industrial lighting industry was losing market share. A morale issue in their inbound customer service department resulted in poor customer service and there was an overall lack of sales focus in the customer service organization. In addition, the field sales representatives were not developing their territories to the satisfaction of management, instead preferring to call on well-established customers with whom they were friendly. To help improve these situations, the company called in Impact Learning Systems.

Action Taken
First, we interviewed customer service employees and developed an employee satisfaction survey to determine the reasons for the poor morale. We then worked with management to be sure all employee issues were satisfactorily addressed so that the unit could once again strive for excellence in service.

Next, we evaluated the types of calls coming into the call center. We then developed marketing strategies, call maps, and mini-scripts for each call type, and developed a Reference Guide containing product information, script components, and answers to frequently asked questions.

Training for the customer service representatives consisted of telephone sales skills training, up-selling and cross-selling skills training, and practice using the Reference Guide. Training for supervisors consisted of a monitoring and coaching skills program.

After interviewing the field sales staff and doing ride-alongs, we created a course to help sales representatives identify the most promising accounts in their territory. Each representative also developed a time management plan to focus on the largest and most promising accounts. We then conducted telesales training to teach representatives to prospect, sell, and manage their smaller accounts by telephone so that they would have more time for face-to-face visits with larger accounts.