After much hype about electronic media and the new ways to reach consumers, companies are still ultimately turning to the personal approach to woo customers, increase market share and build their brand.
The Appco Group, Southeast Asia’s largest face to face contact company has been winning new business around the region and creating extraordinary success stories along the way. In this edition we focus on Singapore where almost 300 Field Reps are out contacting the public through a variety of channels including Residential, Events and Business to Business.
Clients such as SCB and HSBC banks as well as the country’s largest telco, Singtel are all aiming to increase the size of their Appco outsource sales force by 100% by year end while the programmes being run for the Charity sector clients, Singapore heart Foundation and Singapore Cancer Society have already generated over 3 million dollars of new funding.
It’s all about the People!!
An extremely successful internal training and promotional structure attracts graduate degree holders and entrepreneurs to join Appco’s team primarily because of the opportunities to advance quickly through the ranks into managing their own office. The quality of people in the sales force representing Singapore’s biggest names is therefore second to none and is often credited with being the industry standard . With 11 offices and client demand meaning expansion plans to grow to over 20 offices in the next 12 months it’s easy to see why this is the “go to” firm when it comes to Outsourced sales teams
So why all the buzz about outsourcing your sales team?
Return on investment, cash management and massive customer base increases to name a few. Managing your own sales team in house has traditionally been the best option for service companies in Telco, Banking and Insurance but with Appco’s arrival into Singapore these traditional ideas are changing. An outsourced sales team means a fully focused, highly motivated team that has the fit and feel of your organisation without the fixed overhead. The idea certainly isn’t new but handing your brand over to just any company has long been the risk companies have had to balance with the hunt for more market share. With Appco, clients have track record, testimonials, experience and professionalism through a culture of customer service excellence that gets ingrained into new recruits and is part of the organisation’s DNA. Appco believes that the true measurement of its performance is not how our Field Representatives behave with positive customers but with those that don’t sign for a service on the spot.
Can face-to-face sales ultimately replace above the line media?
Probably not, nor would Appco want it to. The complement of a broad media campaign and targeted direct sales to “finish the job” is now being touted as the ultimate combination in Marketing and Sales. This is being played out in Singapore with an island wide promotion of Singtel’s new MIO TV system. TV, Billboard and Newspaper are all exposing the Singaporean consumer to the features and benefits of the new technology but the customer will still be unclear about all the features, have questions or be too busy to get down to a Hello outlet all of which will result in less take up simply because of a lack of personal touch.
Appco solves all those problems by not only closing the partially convinced customer that needed more information but also those that didn’t even know the product was in the market.
What’s next in Singapore?
Expansion in our Telco, Fundraising and Credit divisions as well as new programmes in our Lifestyle Division which engages clients such as “Room Service”, Singapore’s best Food Delivery Service and the very stylish 789 restaurant down at the Esplanade are all developing well and we look forward to focusing on this new sector of the company in future editions.
