Growing "online" Sales in India (Part 1)
Outside of e-commerce, most online Sales in India is driven by an assisted channel i.e. call center / Tele-Sales Reps. How do you start building this out? Let's dive deep
In the early days of your product - you’ll find customers visiting your website - picking a product & paying for it… this is the exception - not the rule!
To truly cross the Chasm from “niche” to “emerging” (forget “mainstream”) in India - you will need to layer on Sales assistance online & offline.
If you want to scale your performance marketing budget to > ₹5L per month - you’ll need a sizeable Tele-Sales team to run an Inside Sales process.
If you want to to scale to millions of users on your app - you’ll need a sizeable Tele-Sales team to run a Customer Support process.
If you hire 100s of FOS to sell your product offline - you’ll need a sizeable Tele-Sales team to run a FOS activation & support process.
MOST “online” sakes in India are actually assisted and you’ll be surprised how categories like grooming / beauty also fall into this bucket. Folks in India LOVE to speak on the phone before buying - so how do build an “assisted” Sale channel?
In an older post, I explained how you can start building your Sales Org - in this 2 part series - I’ll explain how you can build a Tele-Sales Org (“online Sales” for your investors)
There are 4 topics to cover (2 in each part):
Org Structure & Compensation
Location & Infrastructure
Process
Reviews
Why invest in a Tele-Sales Team?
This is a question YOU need to answer quite early into your journey; here are some reasons why you might need to invest in one:
Your customer support number / tool is being bombarded by “Sales” related questions instead of “Post Purchase” related questions
Clearly, your buyer persona is interested - but is apprehensive / not willing / not sufficiently informed about your product to self serve
Keep an eye out for FAQs here - you can use this for Sales Training & customer facing collateral
Your self serve funnel is < 40% of your total inbound leads
This might seem like an arbitrary number - but if you have a Cost Per Lead of ~ ₹50 to ₹150 - you can work the Math’s to understand why it makes financial sense to have Sales assistance.
You will require a Tele-Sales team EVEN if your final GTM is offline heavy
Most FOS (Feet On Street) teams are supported by a “call center” where the Reps focus on FOS activation (follow ups), FOS FAQs (trouble shooting) and FOS co-ordination (Ops work like client visits or cheque pick ups)
A Tele-Sales muscle is MUCH harder to build than FOS - you have to integrate 3rd party tools & build an office for this.
A well established Tele-Sales function in your company provides a clear stream of user feedback
With call recordings & call dispositions (i.e. post call remarks written in the CRM) - your Tele-Sales Reps provide a wealth of insights
Your PMs, Engineers, Marketers & Designers benefit from having this interaction audit trail (which doesn’t exist in field Sales)
In fact, a motivated & well equipped Tele-Sales team will help you find / accelerate your product market fit (if any)
Reminder: It is entirely possible to slowly move your online Sales from assisted to unassisted. This should organically happen as your team refines ad targeting, streamlines the purchase journey & tailors the website / app to handle usual customer objections…
Example: We did a 90 day project to productize our Sales led motion learnings - self serve is now 2% of Sales v/s 0% earlier (and self serve will become ~10% of our business by end of year)
Topic #1 - Org Structure & Compensation
Quick heads up that the structure & compensation I am suggesting is what is followed in Mumbai for insurance Sales; this might be different elsewhere.
I’ll skip the “senior” management layer of a Tele-Sales Org - these structures are fractal i.e. if you want to see one level above the Ops Manager - the VP - just draw 4 sets of Ops Manager’s to visualize the scale. Furthermore, at “senior” levels - compensation and span of operations varies to a great degree.
Ops Manager (₹6L to ₹8L cash p.a.) has 10+ years of Tele-Sales experience
Manages 4 team leaders each with 15 Reps
Usually has 1-2 HR and 2 Quality Analysts aligned for support
Eligible for quarterly Sales incentive (~0.5% of Sales done by their Org)
Team Leader (₹3L to ₹3.5L cash p.a.) has 5+ years of Tele-Sales experience
Team Leader :: Rep ratio is usually 1 :: 15
The TL will give 1-1 mentorship & motivation to the Reps; will audit calls and will review productivity reports (fancy way of saying will ensure Sales happen)
Eligible for monthly Sales incentive (~0.5% of Sales done by their team)
Quality Analyst (₹3L to ₹3.5L cash p.a.) has 5+ years of Tele-Sales experience
Quality Analyst :: Rep ratio is usually 1 :: 30
The QA’s primary job is to run:
Training sessions & certification exams for new Reps
Conduct on-job training for refreshing memory or explaining new topics to ALL Reps
Providing need based coaching with a TL to lower quartile performers
{Various types of} HR (₹2L to ₹5L cash p.a.)
Broadly split into Recruiting (more experienced job profile) and “People” (hopefully not the “rangoli HR” variety)
Expect 10% to 15% of a Tele-Sales team to run away each month for multiple reasons; hence recruiting is important
{Various types of} Tele-Sales Rep (₹1.8L to ₹2.8L cash p.a.)
The educational qualification, language skills & past work experience of each Rep has a sizeable impact on CTC.
You need to figure out your ideal Rep persona - ours is HSC (12th) pass, ~ 1 year of experience with a family member running a shop (understands our buyer persona well); earns about ₹17.5K fixed per month
Eligible for monthly Sales incentive (~1 to 1.5% of Sales done by them) plus prizes from Sales contests
In a larger Sales Org - there would be the equivalent to an Ops Manager for HR and Quality as well - but, let’s be honest - if you have the requirement to set up such a big Sales team - why are you even reading this blog?
Topic #2 - Location & Infrastructure
“Location, Location, Location” - the maxim of the real estate industry
While building a Tele-Sales team - you need to fully appreciate that infrastructure is as critical as your hiring process. You cannot handicap your team by picking a location which doesn’t have optic fiber internet, fault tolerant electricity and good railway connectivity.
Near a BPO hub v/s remote
I haven’t seen successful implementations of remote Tele-Sales but the entire industry survived during Covid-19
Personally, I’ve found being located in Mahape, Thane is a huge advantage since the larger BPOs provide a constant stream of fresh talent.
Plus, the large BPOs have created a 3rd party ecosystem of software resellers, recruitment agents, hospitality units etc which let you scale fast without making any investments yourself
In-house v/s outsourced
Most large companies like Kotak, Swiggy etc outsourced Tele-Sales to BPO vendors
We experimented with outsourcing - but the cost was quite high & the feedback loop was elongated.
IMHO, you’re better off investing in your own team & facility - lets you control the entire process & accelerates your feedback loop.
Dialer v/s using handphone
Dialer refers to any software which lets your Reps auto dial customers, track calls & schedule calls.
This is an eternal struggle - large & successful Sales teams I’ve interacted with are split here - a dialer lets you call more with less strain on Sales but the handphone dialing gives you almost x2 connectivity
This is a clear trade-off. I personally prefer a dialer (cloud based) for reasons we’ll cover in Part #2 (related to Dispositions)
Locality requirements
Nearby railway station to draw in working population (especially if you are near a labor hub like Thane)
Have larger employers located nearby (they do the brand marketing to draw talent in - you poach the talent by offering an “on roll corporate job” versus an “off roll BPO job”)
Facility requirements
A server / break out room for team interaction or sorting your GSM gateway SIM cards for dialing
Outdoor & indoor canteen facility (your office will be packed to max capacity - where do people each lunch?)
A training room / meeting room where your Quality Analyst can help coach Reps / do small group meetings
Closing thoughts
At some point in your company building journey, building a Tele-Sales Org will become a compulsion. Most Indians prefer assisted Sales (especially for online transactions).
In Part #1 - we have covered Org Structure & Compensation and Location & Infrastructure. In the next part - we’ll go into the Operating Process and Reviews.
Thoughts, comments & feedback are welcome!