Background
A Retail Energy company was utilizing a Door-to-Door (D2D) sales channel across all of its markets.
This channel was the company’s largest volume producer and sales were conducted by 3rd party sales vendors.
The sales vendors had to go through a vetting process to bring on individual sales agents; which including training.
The D2D sales channel is a complex channel to manage due to the high attrition rate of the sales agents and the high scrutiny from the regulatory overseers.
Issue
The Retail Energy company had a threshold/target of a customer complaint ratio compared to total sales.
While there were internal procedures for onboarding and quality control, it became apparent that the procedures in place were not sufficient as one of the key markets for the energy company became a high risk market due to regulatory audits and the increase in customer complaints.
Below are some key issues:
- Lack of transparency of between Sales and other internal groups such as Finance, Compliance, and Operations
- Sales managers were operating in silos and in communication with each other
- Customer complaints continued to rise
- Sales vendors were not held accountable for their lack of quality sales 5. Sales activity within the impacted market were suspended
Approach
The entire sales process was reviewed from top down to identify gaps in people, process, and systems.
From there, the sales ecosystem was defined to show the current state of internal relationships with the other internal stakeholder/support groups.
Various workstreams were created so that there could be a deep focus on the specific area, with an centralized Executive Committee to review overall progress and ensure while there were different workstreams, all of the pieces had to fit together in a new and improved manner.
Some of the decisions that had to be made:
- Organization structure
- Compensation
- Which processes to keep and which to eliminate
- Sales vendor onboarding
Solution
The D2D sales channel was redesigned from inside out with changes to people, process, and systems.
- New Sales Operations group formed to focus on quality and onboarding
- New standard contracts developed that had quality KPIs
- Internal transparency between Sales and other groups
- Sales teams were held accountable for their vendors’ performance
- New Sales Incentive Program created to include quality KPIs
Results
The redesign project was rolled out across all markets:
- Reduction of customer complaints by 30%
- Reduced overall spend on sales vendors due to compensation tied to quality KPIs
- Energy company strengthened their relationship with the regulators
- Transformed sales culture to be focused on quality vs just volume
This project established a solid foundation for the company and has continued to be a market leader in quality sales.