Despite delivering their best efforts and leveraging state-of-the-art technologies and systems, telemarketers often face low employee engagement, which always has a notable impact on their business. According to Gallup, a company known for opinion polls, the worldwide figure for employee engagement stands at only 13%, where 63% of them are disengaged employees, and 24% are labeled as being “actively" disengaged. This means they lack the motivation to contribute discretionary efforts towards their organizational objectives, are unhappy, unproductive, and negative in some cases.
These grim figures are based on Gallup's new study on the State of the Global Workforce in which they surveyed 142 countries. What this means is that only one out of eight workers – 180 million being the total figure of the study – is committed to their job and contributes positively towards the goals of the organization.
Talking just about telemarketers, in most companies, only 13% of reps generate around 87% of the business, according to the Sales Benchmark Index report in 2008. This is a grave issue that managers and the company management need to rectify as soon as possible. Read on to learn how to do it.
The Common Practices of Driving Engagement
When it comes to boosting your sales team's engagement, most organizations usually follow a traditional data-driven approach. This is something as follows:
- Identify an issue.
- Employ the simplest conceivable and possible solution to it.
- Devise and deploy a process for it in a day or two.
- Test it.
Unfortunately, most companies don't follow a sustainable approach, a procedure tailored towards the objectives of the employees and the company as a whole, when it comes to enhancing employee engagement. This becomes evident because of the following reasons:
- Most contact center agents, including SDRs, face high levels of stress.
- Lack of financial stability.
- Do not have the required technology solutions to meet their work.
How to Have More Engaged Employees?
Aiding your agents with an accurate B2B telemarketing list and auto-dialers is a prerequisite, but that is only half of the job. If you want to sustain a high-performing sales team, adopt and apply employee engagement strategies that align with their individual needs, aspirations, and objectives. Here are a few employee engagement ideas:
- Devise performance plans that increase your company's business and focus on employee growth and productivity at the same time.
- Celebrate the success of your sales team and spread the word.
- Introduce and implement competitive and rewarding strategies.
- Use elements such as sales goals to fire up the zeal of your agents.
How to Motivate Your Sales Reps Without Money
Does your office space have a variety of inspirational messages tacked onto the walls of the sales floor — posters like the cute kitten clinging to the branch of a tall tree with words encouraging it to simply “Hang in There.” While kitschy, these posters do little to actually motivate or inspire sales reps with the difficult task of completing successful sales and service calls.
Maintaining positivity and productivity is a challenge, and managers need inspiring, effective methods to motivate salespeople without using cash. With a bit of creativity and effort, managers can incorporate non-money incentives to encourage their team to reach the next level.
7 Employee Engagement Strategies to Keep Your Sales Reps Happy
In sales, the solution to any type of problem is to spend or invest money — when quotas are low and leads are scarce, the best way to bring in that revenue and get sales teams up and active is with more cash, right? But money isn’t the only way to encourage people to work hard and succeed. With a bit of creativity and a strong understanding of your sales team, you can develop effective methods to keep spirits high and encourage worker productivity without relying on monetary motivators.
Toss your motivational posters in the trash and consider these sales motivation tips:
#1 Develop a Sense of Purpose
Make your sales efforts more than just a daily grind. Most individuals want to feel like they’re providing value. For some, that value is hitting tangible, attainable goals. For others, it could be helping people with a problem. Determine what drives every person on your sales team and help develop those motivations and purpose.
#2 Encourage Autonomy
Employees who feel that they’re trusted and independent are often more motivated. Anyone who has been watched or micromanaged understands the level of stress and discomfort this management style causes. Transforming your company culture and letting salespeople have control over their schedules and develop their own sales techniques will promote a healthier work environment and provide opportunities for growth.
#3 Create an Engaging Work Environment
Research indicates that an individual’s work environment plays a role in their overall employee happiness and productivity. Having access to privacy, quiet, quick lunchtime naps, and natural lighting encourages sales team motivation. Even if you can’t build walls or add windows, try encouraging breaks, sprucing up the environment with brighter paint, adding plants, or regulating office temperatures.
#4 Have Tangible Milestone Rewards
Add a bit of personality and fun to your workspace by gifting tangible rewards. These don’t have to be monetary incentives — think of quirky office trophies, free lunches, or other items as part of a benefits package that your team will work hard for.
#5 Remember Regular Recognition
An old, dated saying is, “A job well done is reward enough.” While many workers do find job satisfaction in their workplace, receiving regular validation and kudos is a great way to encourage them to keep working hard. Recognize sales reps that have gone the extra mile for their accomplishments, letting them know you value their work by talking about recent accomplishments or an exciting new project they’re starting.
#6 Allow Occasional Spiffs
Spiffs probably have the highest percentage on the ‘sales motivation spectrum'. After all, everybody likes to have cash or bonuses as rewards. Whether you are targeting a blitz campaign or want to skyrocket your numbers by the end of the month, spiffs work wonderfully till the time they reach your entire sales staff. You, however, need to be careful with this motivational strategy, as lack of proper monitoring often leads it to become counter-productive.
- Regular spiffs, as time passes, may stop motivating your agents and they may demand an increase in remunerations to achieve similar results.
- Uneven distribution of spiffs over time may develop a preconceived notion among some employees that however hard they try, they would not be able to get any bonus; spiffs would always be won by the top agents. This may lead them to ignore the contest and the overall results would suffer.
#7 Use Gamification Methods to Align Your Agent’s Focus With That of the Organization
Given the increasing decline in employee engagement, businesses these days are taking the help of gamification to help motivate their employees towards work. Simply put, game mechanics or gamification means using the concept of game-type thinking in non-game applications. According to this method's fundamental aspect, employees stay motivated when they see their scores visually. Therefore, the performance scores of your sales leaders and other members of the team can help keep your team engaged in their work if they are represented in an attractive visual way. Examples of gamification include:
- Displaying a google apps slide on your floor's TV in an elaborate way.
- Showing your dashboard created from CRM on a screen.
Rise the Employee Engagement Level with TelephoneLists
Gamification platforms these days have become a lot meatier and are not just limited to presenting achievements and tracking KPIs – all thanks to predictive analytics! In fact, some gamification platforms are already using science and data to motivate their employees. After all, any sales team comprises unlike individuals who have different needs, aspirations and are, therefore, moved by different kinds of motivation.
Beginning employee engagement, however, first requires understanding your rep's performance curves – KPIs, leading sales indicators, etc. Supply your reps with basics such as effective telemarketing scripts, accurate cold calling lists, and professional automated dialers to facilitate their work, and, harvest their job satisfaction and level of engagement.