• silicon.com
• Technology
• Software

By Natasha Lomas, 17 March 2009 12:12

Asset management group Standard Life has boosted its sales capacity by deploying webconferencing software to its telephone sales team.

The sales team deployed Cisco's WebEx online meetings software in June 2008, following a three-month trial of the technology. The company's 40 telephone-based account managers now have the ability to give virtual presentations and communicate with more than one client at once.

Lawrence Cook, national sales manager, intermediary sales, at Standard Life, told silicon.com the sales team had previously relied on phone calls to contact existing customers and new sales prospects as, with account managers having around 100 clients each, face-to-face meetings were rarely feasible.

However the WebEx software enables sales staff to share digital content from their desktop PC - including PDFs and PowerPoint presentations - with one or more clients while conducting a telephone conference call.

"We get great feedback from the brokers that we deal with who say it adds a whole new dimension to their communication with us," said Cook. "It's a time saver for them - because it means they don't really need people to come in and see them. A lot of what would be done face to face can be now done with webconferencing."

According to Cook the company now supports around 80 per cent of its customers with virtual sales presentations - and has also reached a bigger audience as a result. He estimates 20 per cent of sales presentations are given to more than one client at once, enabling the team to increase its overall sales capacity by five per cent.

"There's no doubt in my mind that - having been involved with selling for the last 20 years - face-to-face selling, pound for pound, minute for minute spent, is more effective, because human beings influence each other with more than what they just say.

"But in many parts of the business it's not economic or efficient to be able to meet everybody face to face. The sheer time and logistics of doing that mean that all but the fattest margins and biggest customers need to be done on a more remote basis because it's a more efficient model," he told silicon.com.

Cook said the WebEx software, which runs in a browser window, was deployed in "a couple of weeks" on the company's existing IT kit.

Standard Life also considered Lotus Notes Sametime but, while it worked well in-house, Standard Life encountered "significant technical problems" when using it externally so decided to go with WebEx instead, Cook added.

Standard Life's account managers received about two to three hours training on the system, according to Cook, but he says staff learn the most when left to their own devices.

"It's a bit like when you bring home your new DVD recorder: don't try and memorise the whole instruction manual straight away - just learn to do the basics and get used to doing that and then what you'll tend to find is that people will then dive in and explore a bit more. I think we made a mistake initially by trying to train people to do everything," he said.

The company is considering deploying WebEx to its field sales staff and field sales support staff in future. "Even though the field guys obviously see people face to face they can't see all of the people all of the time," Cook added.