Let’s talk about tele-(s)hit-sales

The decades-old practice of telesales is surging high in Indian startups. Who likes it though?

Haven’t we all received numerous telesales calls from charities and banks like HDFC? Were they fun? Did you speak to the person at length regarding the product being sold? Nope.

Did you cut the call just after hearing a ‘Hello madam, I am Sanjana from HDFC bank. We are giving personal loaa…. “? Did you mark the phone number as spam? Did you hate the annoying experience of speaking to a stranger? Yes.

Why do large companies and startups in India use telesales as a sales channel?

1. Availability of labor — Indian labor is so cheap that companies do not mind spending a portion of their growth money on telesales, and let it do what they have been doing for decades and achieve 2% conversion.
2. Target market — There is a certain target audience in India that believes in what a telesales person ‘says’ on the phone, and are ready to make a purchase (either by inviting the company rep to their home for payment collection, visiting an agent in their town/city or online via UPI / card). We will come to this bit later in the post.
3. A way to test an experiment — Developing incoming purchases (inbound) through marketing and branding, takes time and money upfront before one collects sufficient data to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Tele-sales is a quick way to just call up a lead, and ask her if she likes the product.
4. Inertia — Industries like financial services carry on with telesales because ‘it is how it has always been done’. Industry veterans cannot do away with a sales channel just because it is not quite efficient (in somebody’s opinion).

Why do telecallers tele-call? What’s going on in their minds?

1. Survival — If given an opportunity to work at a place that is not noisy, that pays decently well (with the possibility of incentives that are ACTUALLY given out), and where one gets respected and understood, and where one can learn new skills for personal and professional growth— who would not move?
2. Burnout — Tele-sales is repetitive and exhausting work. Think of it as lifting a heavy brick from the ground up to your height without stopping for hours at an end. It is LABORIOUS, with no scope of learning or growth. It is closer to blue-collar work than one realizes — that takes an immense toll on tele-callers’ emotional and mental wellbeing.
3. Succeeding — What skills are needed? Ability to learn a script, speak a language, and ‘sell’. There is no barrier to enter the job market. Successful tele-callers either use outright lies (I have been conned by a sales guy from Porter once), or psychological tactics (think Jhamtara — a slight exaggeration but you get the point. I have been conned by a contractor recently) to convert the lead into a sale.
4. Failure — Everyone fails in telesales because firstly the job is very difficult, misselling is the only known way to make some extra bucks for yourself and your family. Someone else will pick them up anyway.

What are the problems that I would’ve liked to solve, and how?

1. A work-life of dignity for telecallers
2. Higher conversion rate and NPS

The reason a certain segment of leads marks telecalling as spam, is that they are ‘busy’ individuals, who take advice from known and trusted individuals, buy reputed brands, could be called ‘educated’, ‘sophisticated’, ‘polished’ or ‘elite’, and can evaluate products and services on their own using logical and rational methods. Cold-calling this segment will see low conversions for sure. Identifying these leads through lead scoring, and kicking them out of the telesales process is wise if a brand were to market its products from other channels. A reputation once lost is rarely regained.

Hey, a quick idea — does true-caller profile its customers if they mark cold calls as spam and why? This data could be of great use to brands to optimize their telesales funnel.

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok certainly profile all their users. Do they profile basis a customer's likely and preferred sales and marketing channel? For example, ‘Call me’ or ‘Do not call me’.

If a user marks ‘Do not call me’ on Instagram, the platform advises the brand to leave him out of the telesales funnel as part of lead gen output or just does not show the ‘Call back’ action-based advertisements to that user. This would result in better quality leads and a higher conversion rate for brands. In high trust societies, this will solve for spam telecalls. In low trust societies though, this would not work.

One could also optimize for lead forms on websites by asking a direct question if the lead is comfortable with call back and an ideal time and day for call-back. An ‘elite’ user would like to be treated differently and could be assigned a tele-caller (conversationalist) who speaks fluently in the user’s preferred language.

What happens when leads are of better quality? The conversion rate will naturally increase even with an average sales skill set. Misselling drops if the incentives are still competitive. However, if the incentives are not attractive and call for a very high number of sales or revenue to get a buck, then misselling will not stop. Instead, pay what is promised. When misselling drops and customer service is on point, NPS will be high.

To improve the work-life of tele-callers, limiting the number of hours of calling and providing tele-callers with upskilling resources, as well as, fairness in treatment and payment of incentives in a timely manner could bring some dignity into the job. Why upskilling won’t hurt? It will help the tele-caller leave the company on a good note. Since entry to telesales job is easy — telecallers can be replaced easily. Why reducing the # of hours won’t hurt? — It will actually increase the productivity of an average tele-caller, and with high-quality leads — they are bound to ‘win’. Fairness in treatment will create a high trust environment on the floor leading to higher team performance, and healthy competition.

But hey, nothing can solve for a hateful, greedy capitalist who wants to ounce out every drop of sweat from individuals who are at his mercy for roti, kapda, and makaan. When will slave mentality go away?