Development Plan for

Telesales Project
Case: Company X

LAHTI UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED

SCIENCES LTD
Faculty of Business and Hospitality
Management
Degree Programme in International
Business
Bachelors Thesis
Autumn 2016
Alexandra Maksheeva
Lahti University of Applied Sciences Ltd
Degree Programme in International Business
MAKSHEEVA, ALEXANDRA: Development Plan for Telesales
Project
Case: Company X
Bachelors Thesis in International Business, 42 pages
Autumn 2016
ABSTRACT

In 2016, Company X made a decision on a new sales and marketing

strategy for their company. The strategy included implementation of
telesales tasks as a daily routine for the customer support team (CST)
employees as a way of increasing sales and raising brand awareness. The
thesis aims to analyze the telesales implementation from the CST
perspective. Another aim of the thesis is to build an analysis-based
development plan for further improvement.
The theoretical framework is based on secondary data research, compiled
from reliable published and electronic sources. The theoretical part covers
concepts and terms from the sales area, including explanations of
telesales concept and its necessity for case company corporate goals. In
addition, there is also a brief description of what has been done before and
during the implementation of telesales project.
As for the empirical part, a qualitative research was carried out by semi-
structured in-depth interviewing. The interviews were collected from case
company employees, who are the actual doers of the telesales for the
company. The interview results are described in the form of a report, which
provides an overview for employees feedback.
Afterwards, the theoretical and empirical parts lead to the development
plan for a telesales project, which is the main objective of the thesis.
Actions of the development plan are placed over a timeline in order to
provide a clear action plan.
To sum up, the thesis is considered as a reliable and valid research,
conducted for Company X. It can be used for the corporate needs and can
be modified and applied as is needed.
Key words: telesales, development plan, customer listening, selling cycle,
decision-making
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank everybody who supported me during the period of the
thesis creation. Special thanks to my family, who was my solid support
during this challenging time.

I am very grateful to Peter Nurmi for his support, patience and help during
thesis conduction.

I wish to express sincere gratitute to my colleagues from Company X for

their incredible support and inspiration.

Great thanks to my friend, Anna Golubeva, with whom we spent long

autumn evenings writing our thesis works. She was my sunshine during
the thesis conduction.

In addition, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Riku Nummikoski for

his wise guidance and helpful comments during the thesis writing process.

Furthermore, I am thankful to my language supervisor, Tarja Ahonen, who

was very patient with my language and provided incredible support.

Finally yet importantly, I would like to thank Marja Viljanen for her
readiness to provide immediate help and guidance.

Lahti, Finland, November 2016

Alexandra Maksheeva
CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Thesis Background 1
1.2 Thesis Objectives, Research Question and Limitations 3
1.3 Theoretical Framework 6
1.4 Research Methodology and Data Collection 6
1.5 Thesis Structure 7
2 PREFACE IN SALES 9
2.1 Selling Process 9
2.2 Telesales and Telemarketing 11
2.3 Sales Field Definitions 12
3 PREPARATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF TELESALES
PROJECT 17
4 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH FROM CST PERSPECTIVE 18
4.1 Interview Structure 18
4.2 Interview Design 19
4.3 Data Acquisition 20
4.4 Data Analysis 20
5 THEORETICAL RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT PLAN:
PROSPECT PERSPECTIVE 22
5.1 Decision-making: Definition, Process, Heuristics 22
5.2 Perception 26
5.3 Listening Perception 28
5.4 Customer Listening 30
5.5 Customer Resistance 31
6 DEVELOPMENT PLAN 35
7 CONCLUSION 36
7.1 Answers to the Research Questions 36
7.2 Validity and Reliability 37
7.3 Suggestions for Further Research 38
8 SUMMARY 39
REFERENCES 40
LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1. Crucial Points of the Purpose Statement 4

FIGURE 2. Thesis Structure 8
FIGURE 3. The Classical Research Model (Keegan 2009) 21
FIGURE 4. Decision-making Process (French et al. 2011) 23
FIGURE 5. Steps in Business Buying Process (Solomon et al. 2009) 24
FIGURE 6. Factors Affecting Perception (Robbins et al. 2010) 27
FIGURE 7. Attribution Theory (Robbins et al. 2010) 28
LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1. List of Situational Factors Influencing Perception of Telesales

(Roux 2008) 34
GLOSSARY

B2B: Business-to-business

B2C: Business-to-customers

CRM programs: Customer Relationship Management programs

CST: Customer Support Team

HR: Human Resource

IDI: In-depth interviewing

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

Lead-gen: Lead generation

NEE: North East Europe

RTP: Returnable Transit Packaging

1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the overview of the thesis framework. In the

beginning, it describes the background of the thesis, which is followed with
clearly stated objectives, research question and limitations. Furthermore,
the chapter explains the theoretical and empirical frameworks and finishes
with a short description of the thesis structure.

1.1 Thesis Background

Plastic packaging is a significant part of the global economy; its production

has increased by 20 times over the past 50 years and is expected to
double again in the next 20 years. This has happened, is happening and
will happen again because plastics have come able to serve more markets
throughout the years. Plastics packaging has always been and is going to
have the largest usage 26% of the gross quantity of plastics used.
(World Economic Forum 2016.)

Increased volumes of plastic packaging are determined by economic,

timesaving, productive and recycling benefits. However, the obstacles of
plastics industry have great impact on the business environment. One of
the obstacles is the recyclable rate of plastics: it is only 5% (in comparison
with paper and iron & steel, which are 55% and 70-90% respectively).
Second, is the negative impact on nature and its environment. Third, is
connected with fragmentation of plastic market and economy. Lack of
standardization and coordination in the value chain results in the poor
organization of production process. To conclude: building competent after-
use plastics economy is the main prerogative in the plastics industry.
(World Economic Forum 2016.)

Thesis author believes that to make plastic industry more organized,

responsible companies with recycling policies need to be encouraged and
supported. An example of such a company is Company X. It is one of the
leading manufacturers of returnable plastic packaging for material
handling. The company has been working with returnable transit
packaging (RTP) for more than 50 years. Their forefront is caring about
the environment in a way that is cost-effective for business and least
harmful for nature. Their products are standardized and ISO certified.
Mission statements of case company claim that the company takes
 2

responsibility for their production and uses recyclable materials. (Company

X 2016.)

According to the latest Moodys report, Company X has a stable outlook

and is showing significant improvement during several years. However,
according to the report there is a threat from competitors in product
copying and pricing pressure, which may affect standardized products.
(Moodys Investors Service 2016.) TechNavios report, which is about
global RTP market, claims that increasing competition and pressure on
standardized products leads to a new trend among key players. Trend is
about raising brand awareness among customers and consequently,
increasing sales revenue with it. (TechNavio 2016.)

In the beginning of 2016, Company X joined the trend of building

marketing and sales strategies in order to raise brand awareness and
increase sales. One of the major areas is building platform for creating a
telesales team inside the company. The idea was to implement both cold
calling to possible customers and warm calling to old customers into
everyday task of the customer support team (CST). In Company X, CST
people are responsible for order handling, invoicing, organizing deliveries
and documents for flawless export and import of goods. And starting from
this year, also for cold calling.

In the North East Europe (NEE) branch, preparation started in April and
actual calling started in May. First, old customers customers were
contacted. Afterwards, CST contacted new leads. After several months of
activity there is a need to have an analysis of work which was already
done, and a new strategic plan is necessary to be built. This is the subject
of this thesis. The focus of the thesis is on the telesales campaign
implementation process, its benefits and drawbacks and mitigation of
these drawbacks. The empirical part of the thesis consists of qualitative
interviews, conducted among CST employees in several offices of the
NEE region: Baltics, Russia, Finland and Scandinavia. The result of the
thesis is to report the telesales project and development plan. The
outcomes of the thesis are important for companies who have already
started their telesales campaigns/projects in order to raise brand
awareness and become successful after a certain period of time.
 3

1.2 Thesis Objectives, Research Question and Limitations

The main objective of the thesis is to create a development plan for the
telesales project in the NEE region. The second goal is to create a
summarizing report based on the qualitative interviews with CST
employees, which is the base for the development plan. In addition, this
thesis aims to:

Introduce concepts of telesales and telemarketing, explain the

differences between them and state why the company chose
telesales for increasing sales activity and raising brand awareness;
Give brief outlook on the terms which are used in the sales sphere
in order to make it easier for the reader to understand the subject of
the thesis much deeper;
Support theoretic framework with a chapter about decision-making
behavior, which is created by a literature review.

In order to get the reader through a study plan, researchers place

signposts. First is the purpose statement, which forms a central foundation
for the study. (Creswell 2014.) The purpose statement of this thesis is to
analyze beginning and current situation of telesales campaign in Company
X NEE from the CSTs point of view to find out the spheres and parts to
upgrade and suggest improvements for companys further telesales
activity. Second signpost is a research question, which narrows the
purpose statement to forecasting about what result will be gained
(Creswell 2014). In order to create a suitable and correct research
question, which would fulfill research idea, the author of thesis made a
diagram, which is displayed below, Figure 1.
 4

Find out Analyze

spheres to situation of
upgrade campaign

Suggest
improvements

Research question

FIGURE 1. Crucial Points of the Purpose Statement

From analysis of the main points of purpose statement, the research
question of the thesis is:

How to improve implementation of telesales campaign, so that it will be

normal everyday practice for CST employees and effective in generating
corporate planned outcomes?

In addition, sub-questions are necessary in order to define manageable

portions of research question and keep the research focus (Fawcett &
Pockett 2015). Author of the thesis created sub-questions for deeper
understanding of the research question:

1) What is the difference between telesales and telemarketing?

2) How did telesales campaign start in Company X?
3) What was experience and challenges connected with telesales for
CST employees?
4) How did telesales work out for the Company X?
5) How do prospects feel when they get a cold call?

In order to validate the research question chosen, the author of the thesis
used the Goldilocks test to find out whether her research question was
too big, too small, too hot or just right. Too big question means
that it requires significant research. Research question of this thesis needs
 5

qualitative interview with open-answered questions. Too small question

means that it is probably of the small scope. Given research question is
quite big, due to the area of cover (NEE region) and problem cover. Too
hot question means that it is likely to touch sensitive topics. Authors
research question is not going to cause such problems. Eventually, just
right question means that it is correct for researching at this time, by this
researcher and in this framework. Current thesis research is right at this
time because several months passed since telesales campaign started in
NEE region. Researcher is suitable, because she is provided with
information about case company. Framework is correct because this
research does not require case company to reveal a lot of private
information. (Saunders, Lewis, Thornhill 2009.)

There are certain limitations to this study which make results of the paper
critical and close to reality. To begin with, the thesis is narrowed down for
Company X, which means that results can be applied only to that
company. Other companies might use this research in order to have
general understanding of the research subject and get certain advice in
dealing with telesales campaign in their own company.

In addition, there are also limitations connected with the qualitative

research made. To begin with, language issues: English is not a native
language for the interviewer or interviewees. It increases risk of
miscommunication, which may impact the end result. Next one is timing,
researcher had very limited amount of time for interviewing, which was
provided by supervisor. Following limitation is connection issue since
most of the interviews were completed via Skype and sometimes
connection was a little bit broken, which could also influence the data
analysis. Last limitation is amount of interviewed people. The only CST
employees that were interviewed were from the Finnish, Russian and
Baltics office. However, not all CST employees in Scandinavia were
covered with interviewing due to their unavailability or sick leave. This
factor, certainly, narrows down the validity of Scandinavian research.

Furthermore, author would like to include time as a limitation. The

development plan was started in October 2016, due to the time limitation
of the thesis deadline. Moreover, this happened because the process of
implementation finishes up in the end of September 2016. Due to telesales
being an ongoing project, it continued after the events, which are
described in the Chapter 3. To sum up, limitation for this thesis is that
 6

some parts of development plan could be carried out after the thesis was
ready.

1.3 Theoretical Framework

One of the most demanding parts of research building is the statement of

theoretical framework that created the researchs design and the
interpretation of the data (Fawcett & Pockett 2015). This part gives a brief
overview of the topics used for the research process.

Chapter 2 explains the concept of telesales as part of seven-step selling

process and what differs telesales from telemarketing. In addition, it
explains the concepts, which are used in salespersons life such as lead,
prospect, customer and etc. in order to make it clearer for the reader to go
through the empirical part. In addition, the chapter covers the influence of
telesales on corporate activity in order to be logically connected with
Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 covers the background for the empirical research. It explains

Company Xs setting of goals and expectations before starting the
campaign, how it was prepared, how it was started, carried out and
implemented.

After the empirical part, comes Chapter 5, which informs the reader about
the secondary data research about customer perspective on telesales. It
gives general information about decision-making process and perception
as well as customer reaction on calling. Chapter ends with subchapter
about phenomenon called customer resistance, which explains
prospects behavior during the calls. This chapter was created in order to
expand the basis for the development plan. It is not only based on the
result of empirical research from CST point of view, but also add customer
perspective to the development plan.

1.4 Research Methodology and Data Collection

This sub-chapter covers the research methodology and data collection

methods, which created the empirical part of the thesis. This part starts
with the research approach, then is followed by the data collection method
and then finishes with sources used.
 7

There are two kinds of research approaches: deductive and inductive.

Deductive approach is about the development of the theory, which
requires accurate testing. Inductive approach is about generating data and
building analysis and theory upon it. (Saunders et al. 2009.) Consequently,
since induction highlights close meaning of the research context, the
approach of this thesis research is inductive.

There are two types of data collected: qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative data is based on the context expressed through words and
analysis conducted through use of conceptualization. Quantitative data is
about numbers and number analysis made with help of statistics and
diagrams. (Saunders et al. 2009.) This thesis uses qualitative data
collection methods, which consists of qualitative interviews with open
questions.

In this research two types of data are used: primary and secondary.
Primary data is new data created for the specific needs of a research.
Secondary data is reanalyzed data from published or electronic sources
for needs of research. (Saunders et al. 2009.)

1.5 Thesis Structure

The thesis is divided into seven chapters. First chapter gives brief
overview of the background of the thesis, its objectives, purposes and
limitations, states a research question and gives theoretical and empirical
framework. Second and third chapter are theoretical: they explain
concepts used in sales sphere and is about the creation and
implementation of a telesales campaign in Company X. Fourth chapter
belongs to the empirical part of the study: interviewing CST employees
and it also contains report based on the results of interview analysis. Fifth
chapter provides secondary data analysis of customer perspective on cold
calling. Sixth chapter gives development plan for Company X for telesales
campaign. Seventh chapter answers the research question, draws
conclusions and gives suggestions for improvement. Figure 2 illustrates
the entire structure of the thesis.
 8

Introduction

Sales sphere concepts

Telesales in Company
X

Empirical part

Theory about decision-

making

Development plan

Conclusion

FIGURE 2. Thesis Structure

 9

2 PREFACE IN SALES

2.1 Selling Process

The seven steps of selling is a traditional framework of sales process,

described in various sales textbooks and periodicals. This sequence of
steps is considered to be the basis of sales education and base for the
process of making sales. In the beginning of 21st century the traditional
framework started to change due to world digitalization. However, despite
this fact, seven steps of selling are still useful for a salesperson. (Moncrief
& Marshall 2005.)

Typical scenario, created by this framework, consists of following

sequence:

1) Prospecting,

2) Pre-approach,

3) Approach,

4) Presentation,

5) Overcoming objections,

6) Closing,

7) Follow-up.

This framework, without the last step: follow-up, existed in sales textbooks
for more than 80 years. Follow-up step was added recently, about 20
years ago. (Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

The first step of the selling process is prospecting. Prospecting is the

method of seeking for potential customers, known in the sales sphere as
prospects. Reason for prospecting is to expand the customer database as
companies always have a risk of losing customers. Therefore, prospecting
is usually a screening procedure of qualifying the prospect. (Moncrief &
Marshall 2005.)

Next step is known as pre-approach. This step includes all activities after
prospecting but before actual personal contact or visit with the customer.
 10

Sales calling or telesales is part of this pre-approach step. Sellers do the

prospect research and discover prospects needs while calling or
contacting customer in non-personal way e.g. emails, surveys,
correspondence. Putting together new and relevant material, which will be
suitable for sales call itself is also part of the pre-approach step. In
addition, pre-approach tasks include talking with gatekeepers, researching
the customer (individual and corporate), mentally getting ready for the
approach and presentation and screening customers office while entering.
(Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

Following step is approach. On the sales process timeline, it happens

during first minutes of actual sale. Importance of this step is in gaining
trust in audience and establishing the first rapport with client, using certain
tactics and strategies. This includes small talk, handshake, eye contact or,
in a nutshell, making good first impression. (Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

Presentation step is the main part of sales visit or sales call and it ought to
appear after salesperson has found customer needs. This step can be
completed with one or even multiple presentations during certain period of
time. Goals for sales presentation depend on the type of customer. For
instance, if the salesperson is dealing with the buyer/customer for the first
time, the goal will be to provide plentiful information for sufficient
understanding of products/services benefits which possibly can be done
by having a presentation with a product demonstration. Since this step is
very crucial and complicated, preparation is essential and necessary.
(Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

After the presentation, customers will have certain questions, comments,

opinions and hesitancies which can be classified as objections for the
salesperson and consequently, overcoming objections is the next step for
the salesperson. Despite the fact that objectives can hold the sales
process, usually they should be taken as a positive and useful thing. This
is because with the help of unfolding objections, correct customer needs
can be revealed. (Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

Following after overcoming the objections, comes the close. Close is

determined as successful completion of selling presentation finishing into
commitment to buy the product or service. As soon as objections have
been resolved, salesperson should ask for the business and thus start the
process of closing the sale. This step is always considered to be
 11

complicated since many customers do not ask for order. (Moncrief &
Marshall 2005.)

Last step is follow-up, which implies that sale does not stop with order
acceptance. Fairly, salesperson needs to put effort to make sure that
customer is satisfied and happy with product/service, with delivery and
everything, which was promised was carried out. Thank-you letter and
following phone calls asking if customer is happy are good examples for
follow-up step. (Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

During the last thirty years, seven steps of selling have been transformed
into a more advance sales process, which has become relationship-
oriented. This happened due to certain factors such as development of
technology, increase of strategic role of selling inside the companies,
team-based approaches for sales and increased buyer knowledge and
sophistication. Nowadays, this so-called evolved selling process includes
such things as Customer Relation Maintenance or CRM and Database and
Knowledge Management. (Moncrief & Marshall 2005.)

All things considered, telesales is part of the approach and presentation

steps for the current case company since the main objective for the calls is
to raise brand awareness and increase sales, meaning present company
and its products.

2.2 Telesales and Telemarketing

In the business world there is a confusion between the terms

telemarketing and telesales. Aim of this sub-chapter is to put clear
distinction between these terms by giving definitions, explaining concepts,
stating benefits of those and in the end, give brief explanation why
telesales is better for Company X.

In general, telemarketing and telesales belong to the type of service, which

involves interpersonal communication with consumers and business
customers that takes place over the phone. (Solomon, Marshall, Stewart
2009.) Telemarketing is a service, which creates interest, generates
opportunities, gives information and records customer feedback, set
appointments and expands leads by phone. Telesales, on the other hand,
is a service that sells corporates/companies products or services straight
to the customer by phone. In other words, telemarketing generates
 12

prospects, lets people know what companies have to offer them and gives
a chance for both client and business to investigate more about each
other. Telesales turns opportunities into customers and client base for the
company. (Dickens 2015.)

Since the primary aim of the thesis focuses on telesales, the following
information on this subchapter will only be about telesales in order to avoid
confusion for the reader. Benefits of telesales start with profitability for
business markets. Business-to-customer calls have smaller profitability
result than business-to-business because it costs far less to keep in touch
with small customers by phone rather than visiting them personally by
salespeople. (Solomon et al. 2009.) Moreover, expanding customer base
by turning difficult leads into customers is also very beneficial, allowing for
company to increase revenue. In addition, telesales creates a professional
image and impression for the companies. (Dickens 2015.)

To sum it up, telesales is better for Company X than telemarketing

because it allows opportunities to turn into customers, reaching difficult
leads, decreasing travel costs for salespeople, expanding customer base
and raising brand awareness among old and new customers.

2.3 Sales Field Definitions

This sub-chapter aims at providing definitions with explanations of the

terms used in the sales field in any company and which might not be
familiar for the reader of the thesis. Author provides explanation of the
most common terms of salespeople, which were used in the thesis. Terms
are given in the alphabetical order.

Business-to-business selling (B2B) interaction between two or more

organizations, where main purpose is to sell by meeting primary needs of
organization for a particular product or service for corporate operations.
(Solomon et al. 2009; Kotler & Armstrong 2012.)

There are three types of buying activities: straight rebuy, modified rebuy
and the new task. A buying activity is called the straight rebuy when
companies already have a supplier and places a reorder. This reordering
process is always a routine and involves only little amount of members of
the buying center. Usually these members are purchasing agents and
 13

users of product. In general: user asks the purchaser to replenish the

stock. Little evaluation of information is expected. (Clow & Baack 2014.)

When buying center assesses and considers alternatives, this type of

buying activity is called a modified rebuy. Modified rebuy purchase is able
to happen due to four reasons: dissatisfaction with current supplier,
alluring offer from another vendor, termination of contract agreement with
ongoing vendor, limited practice with the good or service. (Clow & Baack
2014.)

When a customer company starts to consider new good or service for the
first time or customer decided to come back to the purchase which had
happened long period of time ago, it is called a new task purchasing
situation. Normally, this type of purchase requires the participation of a
large number of buying center members. Great amount of time will be
spent to collect information and assessing vendors. (Clow & Baack 2014.)

Buying center it is group of individuals who has purchase decision

power on the behalf of the company, which makes buyer decisions more
difficult. Buying center includes five particular roles such as:

Users employees who are actual users of service or product;

Buyers employees who are responsible for purchasing;
Influencers people, who obtain specific knowledge of
product/service needed to buy and therefore can influence
purchasing decision with advice and opinion. For example, if a
company buys computers for corporate needs, influencer (who is IT
specialist in this case) can provide advice on which software is
needed, what programs is necessary to install and etc;
Deciders individuals who hold power to authorize and approve the
purchase decision;
Gatekeepers employees who manage information flow for the
members of buying center. (Clow & Baack 2014.)

Cold calling it is another term for telesales or telemarketing. Word cold

is used because salesperson contacts prospects without any first
introduction or arrangement and salesperson does not know prospects
personally. (Solomon et al. 2009.)
 14

Customer Relationship Management or CRM it is crucial business

strategy that coordinates internal processes and external networks in order
to invent and bring value to a focused group of customers profitably. It is
based on first-rate customer-related data and facilitated by information
technology, called CRM software. (Buttle & Maklan 2015.) CRM programs
support companies with databases to customize products and
communications with customers in order to get higher revenues and profits
(Clow & Baack 2014).

There are three types of CRM: strategic, operational and analytical.

Strategic CRM is an essential customer-oriented business strategy with a
goal of gaining and retaining profitable customer. Operational CRM is
focusing on the computerization of the process connected with customers
such as selling, marketing and customer service. Analytical CRM is the
process when companies convert customer-related data into actionable
understanding for strategic and tactical objectives. (Buttle & Maklan 2015.)

However, as it happens with all crucial management activities, there are

five frequent misunderstanding about CRMs nature (Buttle & Maklan
2015):

Misunderstanding 1: CRM is simply database marketing.

Reality: CRM is much broader than database marketing. Database

marketing is only small part among CRM functions.

Misunderstanding 2: CRM is a marketing process.

Reality: CRM functions include different types of marketing activities,

however it also has vast amount of selling activities and service functions
as well as it is a good aid for employees connected with human resource
(HR).

Misunderstanding 3: CRM is an IT concern.

Reality: There is no doubt that IT is a necessary base for CRM to existing.

However, outstanding CRM implementation includes involvement of
employees creating and implementing process that bring customer and
corporate value.

Misunderstanding 4: CRM concerns about loyalty schemes.

 15

Reality: Some CRM implementations are connected to the loyalty

schemes, some are not it depends on the company activity and
business.

Misunderstanding 5: Any company can execute CRM.

Reality: Any company can implement strategic and operational CRM

because their nature is universal and adaptable. However, analytical CRM
is grounded on the customer-related data and if company misses this kind
of data then analytical CRM cannot be executed. (Buttle & Maklan 2015.)

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a set of measures aiming at those

aspects of organizational performance, which are the most crucial for the
present and future prosperity of the organization (Parmenter 2010).

Lead (inquiry/er) is someone who is interested for more information

about product or service (Obermayer 2007).

Lead generation or (lead-gen) marketing term, which means

transforming of potential customer interest (inquiry) into companys
products or services (Greenberg 2009).

Opportunity it is record of future sale or other kind of revenue creation

(Buttle & Maklan 2015).

Prospects people who have answered profile questions, which allows

effective discovering of needs in order to understand their buying
motivation and degree of interest (Obermayer 2007).

According to Buttle & Maklan (2015) possible sources of B2B prospects

can be:

Feedback and referenced from satisfied clients,

Online resources (search engines, corporate website, social
media),
Networking,
Promotion (exhibitions, seminars, workshops, tradeshows,
conferences, events),
Bought lists,
Telemarketing.
 16

Return On Investment or ROI it is direct financial influence of

companys expenses of resources such as time and money (Solomon et
al. 2009).

Sales Stages as soon as lead is received by salesperson, it starts to go

through filtering process which will define either lead will be disqualified or
it follow up to the next step. Here are the steps of the Sales Stages
pipeline:

Sales Lead or Sales Ready lead it is a qualified lead, which got

approved by the seriousness of the customer;
Discovery mutual decision between companies if they want to
collaborate and if the needs of the buyer are met by the seller;
Validation Stage of sending samples, showing demonstrations,
webinars in order to prove validity of the offered product/service;
Working Opportunity when leads have high possibility to create
revenue for a salesperson;
Proposal or Quoting sales presentation or pitch in the written form
in order to raise prospect interest;
Negotiation/Sales Pending stage where sales negotiation takes
place;
Closing the sales: either it is won or lost. (Obermayer 2007.)
 17

3 PREPARATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF TELESALES

PROJECT

This chapter was created in order to give a summary of the telesales

project in Company X. Aim of the chapter was to explain the background
of telesales, its preparation in NEE, implementation and carrying it out.
Events, which were described in this chapter happened in the period
starting from February 2016 and finished in September 2016. The
telesales project is still ongoing in the company, so this chapter reported
past events due to the deadline of thesis.
 18

4 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH FROM CST PERSPECTIVE

This chapter provides information about the empirical part, which was
created in order to answer the research question and achieve the goals of
thesis. The chapter explains qualitative research in the form of semi-
structured in-depth interview, design of the interview, process of collection
of the data and data analysis. In addition, author created a report, which
contains CST feedback on the telesales process: their attitude towards it,
experience and feelings. Report also contains suggestions for
improvement from CST employees and discussions about telesales
implementations and development.

4.1 Interview Structure

For thesis purpose there was created an in-depth interview in order to

collect necessary information for the answering of the research question,
which was stated in the first chapter of the thesis.

In-depth interviewing or shortly IDI is the interviewing, which aim is to

acquire full understanding of the thinking which influences behavior and
attitudes towards the subject of research interest. IDI consists of
interviewer and interviewee who create one-by-one dialogue, where leader
is interviewer and the purpose of this dialogue is to determine the personal
matter of the interviewee regarding the subject of interview. (Roller &
Lavrakas 2015.)

The interview design can be done in three types: structured, semi-

structured and unstructured. Structured interview is formal type, with
interviewer asking the exact number of questions prepared beforehand
and in the exact order. Semi-structured interview is basically a
conversation between interviewer and interviewee with prepared set of
questions. However, the order and modification of questions can be
changed in order to match the case of interviewee. Unstructured interview
is generally a monologue said by interviewee, which can be directed by
interviewer. In most cases, interviewer takes a place of active listener,
while interviewee keeps on talking. (Roller & Lavrakas 2015.)

This study uses the semi-structured interview type because the interview
was done with people from different cultures and different level of
experience with telesales. That is why the order, amount and formulation
 19

of question was different in order to match the interviewees way of

answering.

4.2 Interview Design

According to Roller and Lavrakas (2015) IDI design consists of nine steps
for interviewing such as:

Identifying research question,

Choosing right interviewees,
Selecting an interview method and mode,
Deciding on type of recording of the content of interviews,
Creating the interview guide,
Carrying out the pilot interviews,
Choosing the right location (in case of personal interviews),
Having agreement with interviewees,
Conducting the interviews with use of proper interview techniques.

Since the research question is connected with the improvement of

telesales implementation for the CST employees, to make it more efficient
in achieving the corporate goals, therefore, the purpose for semi-structured
interviews for this thesis is to acquire the primary data on the feedback of
CST people towards the telesales. CST perspective is significant in this
research because CST employees are actual doers of the phone calls;
they are the ones, who have this task on the daily basis. Moreover,
marketing director who is the coordinator of this telesales project in NEE
also answered several questions of the interview. This happened because
she also attended the interviews with every interviewee as a supervisor.

After the goals for the interviews were set, the interview mode was
selected semi-structured in-depth interviewing. Reasons for the authors
choice for this type of interviewing was explained in the previous sub-
chapter. The mode of the interviewing used was the personal interviewing.
However, several interviews were done via Skype due to it being
impossible for author to be in other branch offices in person due to the
time constraints of the thesis.

After choosing the type of recording (which will be explained more detailed
in the next sub-chapter), the author developed the interview guide as a set
 20

of bullet points of the information, which was necessary to acquire for

further research.

Following the creation of the interview guide, author designed an interview,

which consisted of 12 questions and three sub-questions in case of
clarification. In total 15 questions were prepared beforehand to be asked
on the interview.

Unfortunately, the pilot interview was not conducted due to how busy CST
employees were in autumn time, when thesis author conducted the
research.

4.3 Data Acquisition

For the more complete picture of telesales in NEE, CST employees were
asked from different offices.

Interview results were acquired during one day: 29th September 2016 in
office of Company X. As it was said earlier in previous chapter, there was
interview personally and via Skype. The language of interviewing was
English with all interviewees. Length of interviewing was on average 30
minutes per person.

Interviews were carefully recorded on tape in order not to lose the valuable
peculiarities of the speech and answers. Interviewees were asked
beforehand whether they agree to be recorded. Nobody had negative
reaction with voice recording since researcher assured that all the results
are going to be anonymous and the actual voice record will not be heard
by anyone or used for any other purposes except the researcher and for
research purposes.

Moreover, before starting the interviews, thesis author explained the

purposes of the interviewing, purpose of this research, how the research
results would help with continuing with thesis and why the interviewee was
important to be interviewed by thesis author.

4.4 Data Analysis

For the audio or video record of interview, it is useful to translate this

unsorted data into written text or in other words, create a transcript. Such
 21

transcripts represent detailed and available version of the data. (OReilly &
Kiyimba 2015.) Before starting data analysis, author made a paper
transcription of the voice recording in order to study carefully the
information, which had been said by the interviewees.

As it was mentioned before, in this qualitative data analysis the author

used inductive reasoning for better understanding the data collected. As
for the research model, the author decided against her choice on the
classical research model.

Classical research model represents research as a staged process, which

consists of several steps following each other in the linear way. Only when
previous step was completed, researcher can move to the next one.
When the research problem is found and research question is stated,
researcher can start gathering the data, which is unorganized or dirty at
first. Afterwards, data is cleaned or structured for the further analysis.
After analyzing, comes the organized and logical outcome of the research.
(Keegan 2009.) Figure 3 below gives brief overview on the classical
research model.

Definition of Unstructured Analyzing and Structured

research data interpreting and logical
question collection data outcome

FIGURE 3. The Classical Research Model (Keegan 2009)

The results of data analysis was presented in the next sub-chapter in the
form of report about what feedback CST employees have about the
telesales and what was their experience with it.
 22

5 THEORETICAL RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT PLAN:

PROSPECT PERSPECTIVE

In order to create a development plan from a wider perspective, author of

the thesis decided to conduct a secondary data analysis in order to
understand the prospects perspective on the telesales and
communication over the phone. This chapter introduces basic concepts of
the decision-making process and narrows down to the customer listening
and reaction to the telesales. Chapter finishes with summary, which gives
a brief overview on customer behavior and reaction to the telesales.

5.1 Decision-making: Definition, Process, Heuristics

Everyday people deal with infinite range of decisions, which they need to
make. Any choice of any importance between several alternatives is a
decision-making. In a nutshell, decision-making process is the cognitive
process, which happens while choosing between possible alternatives.
(Gilhooly & Lyddy & Pollick 2014.)

Generally, decision-making process can be divided into four steps. First

step is to determine the problem or opportunity and in addition, true nature
of the problem is necessary to be evaluated. The next step is to recognize
and analyze alternative ways of action and detect criteria for evaluation of
alternative. Afterwards, on the next step people make a choice for a
selected course of action and finally, decision is carried out. In order to
have clear vision of the steps of decision-making process, Figure 4 is
presented below. (French & Rayner & Rees & Rumbles 2011.)
 23

Make
Detect and choice for
Indentify the analyze Carry out
problem picked the decision
alternatives
alternative

FIGURE 4. Decision-making Process (French et al. 2011)

When it comes to the business buying decision-making process, this
process is narrower, particular and detailed because it relates to the
complicated and challenging process of choosing product or service in
order to fulfill needs of company. Since the goal is to become attentive to
the corporate needs and meet them, business buying decision process
gets more sophisticated. (Solomon et al. 2009.)

There are five steps for the business buying decision-making process.
They are: identify the problem, seeking for information, alternative
assessment, selection of the product and vendor and assessment of the
post-purchase. In order to get a better picture of the business buying
decisionmaking process, Figure 5 is presented below. (Solomon et al.
2009.)
 24

Step 1: Identify the problem

Purchase request Create buying center

Step 2: Seek for the information

Understand product
specifications Find potential suppliers Analyze quotations

Step 3: Alternative assessment

Assess proposals Sample evaluation

Step 4: Choose product and vendor

Purchase order given

Step 5: Assessment of the postpurchase

Surveying Reports

FIGURE 5. Steps in Business Buying Process (Solomon et al. 2009)

Theorists in the field of decision-making process claim that there are two
different approaches to decision-making: classical and behavioral (French
et al. 2011).

Classical decision theory is based on the person, who is acting in the

world of complete certainty (French et al. 2011). In other words, it is
consumer/customer with rational perspective. Perspective is considered
rational when customer obtains all information about the product,
considers advantages and drawbacks of the each alternative and makes
logical, rational decision, based on this complete information. As a result, it
is expected from marketers and sellers to emphasize appropriate qualities,
benefits and features of the product in order to meet the needs of rational
decision-making process in customers mind. (Solomon 2013.)
 25

On the contrary, if to recall that many of peoples everyday small

purchasing decisions is not following these logically rational steps, but
happen spontaneously and with no planning. For instance, like buying
candy while waiting in the queue in the supermarket or pastry because of
the smell next to the entrance to the supermarket these and other
phenomenon give birth to the new perspective in decision-making
process-behavioral theory. (Solomon 2013.) Behavioral decision theory is
grounded on the idea that people make a decision regarding to their
perception about situation given (French et al. 2011). In other words,
people are involved in the decision but they cannot explain it rationally.
That is why nowadays marketers do care more about attention-grabbing
packaging rather than on the factual details. (Solomon 2013.)

One more hard proof of the behavioral model of decision-making is

phenomenon called heuristics. Heuristics or so-called rules of thumb are
simplifying strategies which people use in the decision-making in order to
do it quickly. Heuristics are beneficial if they cope with uncertainty and
limited information and knowledge. On the other hand, they can also bring
to methodic errors. (French et al. 2011.)

In order to give to the reader idea about what heuristics are, author of the
thesis gives below several examples of heuristics which are used while
making purchase decision.

Possibly one of the most frequent heuristic is brand loyalty. Brand loyalty
is sequence of repeat product purchases together with optimistic attitude
toward the certain brand. This repeatable buying sequence in behavior is
grounded on the assumption that the brand makes products, which are far
better than the products of other brands of its competition. (Solomon et al.
2009.)

Another very common heuristic is country-of-origin. Country-of-origin is

generally an association of certain products with particular countries where
products tend to benefit from these correlations. Consumers usually rely
on this heuristic when other information is, in order to make a purchase
decision. (Solomon 2013.)

Product signal is also a very frequent heuristic, which determines

customer choice. Product signal is judgment of the item by its appearance.
 26

That is why it is easier to sell an old car with new polish than an old car
without any additions to its appearance. (Solomon 2013.)

Elimination-by-Aspects rule applies when buyer makes assessment of

brands with use of the most important criteria and eliminating the others in
order to make purchase decision. (Solomon 2013.)

Generally, customers tend to make decisions irrationally or from

behavioral perspective, when product/ service choice depends on the
perception of the customers, which comes from the amount of the
information available.

5.2 Perception

Perception is a process by which people set up and explain their sensory

impressions as to understand their environment. Subjective perception can
considerably differ from the objective reality. Studying of the customer
perception is significant for understanding the motives of their behavior.
(Robbins & Judge & Campbell 2010.)

There are number of factors which explain why individuals might perceive
same thing differently. They are divided into three groups: personal
characteristics, target factors and situational factors. Figure 6 after this
paragraph gives brief overview of the factors. (Robbins et al. 2010.)
 27

Target factors
Novelty and motion
Sounds and size
Backgrounnd
Proximity and similarity
Perceiver's Situational factors
characteristics Time
Attitudes Work Setting
Motives and interests Social Setting
Experience
Expectations

Perception

FIGURE 6. Factors Affecting Perception (Robbins et al. 2010)

One more thing, which proves that human perception is irrational, is

attribution theory. Attribution theory is a pursuit to interpret if individuals
behavior is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behavior
means behavior, which is believed to be under control of individual (in his
mind). Externally caused behavior is situational, which was imagined to
force individuals behavior. (Robbins et al. 2010.)

According to Robbins et al. (2010), the behavior interpretation is based on

three factors:

1. Distinctiveness: whether individual shows different behavior in

different situations.
2. Consensus: whether individuals show similar behavior in same
situations.
3. Consistency: whether individual shows regularity in his/her actions.
 28

Therefore, human perceiving of other peoples behavior comes through

stages of:

1. Observation what actually individual has done.

2. Interpretation whether this is distinct, consensual or consistent
behavior.
3. Attribution of cause whether action was under personal control or
influenced by something external.

Figure 7 explains three stages of perception from attribution theory.

(Robbins et al. 2010.)

Interpretation
Action External
Distinctiveness Internal
Consensus
Consistency
Individual Attribution of
behavior cause

FIGURE 7. Attribution Theory (Robbins et al. 2010)

5.3 Listening Perception

This sub-chapter was created in order to give brief overview of the types of
human listening, because different situations require different listening and
therefore different kind of perception occurs. In the business world it might
happen that during calls people might not understand each other due to
the poor listening skills. Consequently, author sees an importance to
include this sub-chapter for the readers to gain a better understanding of
listening behavior in case of each listening type. In the end author gives
small description on how language has an impact on listening perception.
 29

In general, researchers highlight several types of listening, which people

naturally have. One of them is informative listening, when listeners
primary goal is to understand the message. Listeners remember as much
information when the meaning they give to messages is similar to what
sender wanted to pass. In other words, informative listening is listening to
understand the message. If there is case that sender intends to keep
attention of the listeners, (s)he should remember three things:

Expand vocabulary of listener, so that he will understand,

Keep his/her concentration,
After completion of first two, information will go straight to listeners
memory. (Kline 1996.)

Next type is relationship listening, which occurs when purpose of listening

is to help sender or improve the relationship. Focus is on understanding
the feelings of sender. In order to effectively understand the sender, there
are three key behaviors:

Attending: or paying real attention. Most important here is listeners

reaction to the senders speech,
Supporting: being patient and concerned about the sender,
Empathizing: in other words, feeling and thinking with sender. (Kline
1996.)

Following type is appreciative listening, or listening for enjoyment. What

identifies the appreciative listening is response of the listener, his reaction.
Appreciative listening depends on how well sender presented the
message, perception of listener and listeners previous experience. (Kline
1996.)

Art of critical listening is also significant in any sphere of life, especially

when being at the working place. Critical listening gives birth for critical
thinking as well. These two qualities always play together. Critical listening
allows understanding of speakers credibility, his/her logical arguments
and psychological appeals or emotional element of communication. Last
one is especially important with critical listening, because it makes easier
for listener to identify the focus of the speakers message. (Kline 1996.)

Last type of listening is the most crucial one, because this is base for the
other four types. Name of it is discriminative listening. This is important
 30

because it makes four types much stronger to perceive. What

distinguishes discriminant listening from others is ability to detect changes
in rate, volume, force, pitch, pauses, emphasis and other nonverbal cues
in senders speech. (Kline 1996.)

In addition, nowadays there are researches, which prove that language

influences human perception. It happens because language gives a
medium to illustrate people, places and events, which are currently out
from current context. (Landau, Aziz-Zadeh, Ivry 2010.) Moreover, mother
tongue of person shapes his/her thoughts about many aspects of the
world, which also includes concepts of space, time, casualty and
relationships. Therefore, while listening to the speaker telling the story,
listener should always remember about cultural difference in the mindsets
in order to understand his/her point of view. (Moxley 2016.)

5.4 Customer Listening

In telesales context, message senders and receivers are not able to see
each other and entrust that much on nonverbal communication. Only
verbal and paraverbal meanings are available. That is why customer
listening becomes very crucial for telesales agent as it helps to adapt to
the customer needs and then build strong relationships. (Koehl & Poujol &
Tanner 2016.)

Generally, customer listening belongs to the relationship listening type.

Customer listening is the cognitive process of sincerely sensing,
interpreting, assessing and responding to the verbal and non-verbal cues
of present customers or potential leads. In order words, customer listening
is listening behavior of telesales agent towards potential customers over
the phone. (Koehl et al. 2016.)

Listening in general includes four steps or SIER:

1. Sensing (hearing all stimuli which comes from sender),

2. Interpreting (finding out meaning of what was said by sender),
3. Assessing (conversion of what was heard into information and then
sorting out data which brings importance),
4. Responding (building of answer which implies the understanding of
the message heard).
 31

However, customer listening process narrows down to the three-step

process: Hearing, Processing and Responding where telesales person
moving through this sequence, firstly, would hear actual meaning of the
words without paraverbal cues, then process the total message with
paraverbal cues and afterwards, reply to the customer in order to carry on
the conversation. (Koehl et al. 2016.)

In order to strengthen customer listening, the empathy is necessary to be

present together with customer listening. Empathy has three forms:
thought (verbal perspective), emotion (emotional perspective) and action
(readiness for interactional adjustment). In other words, empathy is active
form of listening, as it puts listener to someone elses shoes. (Koehl et al.
2016.)

All things considered, there come four dimensions of the customer

listening: passive, active, adaptive and assertive listening. Each of these
dimensions can be correlated with step of the listening process. For
instance, starting from passive listening this listening is only about
listening to the message over phone, being welcoming and responsive.
This perspective does not demand asking about customers needs and
correlates with Hearing step of listening process. Opposite to passive,
active listening requires expressing empathy and curiosity by asking
questions and approving main points. Telesales agent aims at continuous
conversation, which is compared to Processing step of the listening
process. (Koehl et al. 2016.)

On the contrary, adaptive and assertive listening is together compared to

the Responding step of the listening process. Adaptive listening is about
giving responses adapted to messages sent by prospect. Assertive
listening comes when agent actively responds to the client with showing
his/her professionalism and at the same time respects prospects needs
and does not jump to the hurried conclusions. (Koehl et al. 2016.)

5.5 Customer Resistance

Despite the fact that telesales agents are willing to listen to the prospects
called because they had been trained for that, still nowadays the
phenomenon of the customer resistance is very common among cold-
calling. The study of Dominique Roux (2008) explored this phenomenon by
analyzing of individuals perception on telesales. This sub-chapter is
 32

presented to describe the findings of the study, as it will be useful in the

building of development plan for the Company X.

Researcher claims that customer obtain series of beliefs about him/herself.

First belief is about own mental state and mental processes. Second
concerns about persuasion and influence techniques and third connects to
experiences that company has in those techniques. These three beliefs
are the base for so-called marketplace metacognition. In general,
marketplace metacognition is customers awareness about persuasion
techniques, their current state and effectiveness and customers own
perceptivity to them. Cognitive models like that are different for every
person and are connected to the previous experience, culture,
environment and social interactions. Therefore, marketplace metacognition
can be considered as a perspective of the prospect to the telesales. (Roux
2008.)

There is a certain cause that builds marketplace metacognition, which

wakes up as soon as prospect spots the attempts to influence him/her.
Basically, it is the previous experience which prospect could have with
telesales incoming calls. In most cases it is negative due to the several
issues like:

Impersonal nature of the call. Prospects feel that they were chosen
from the bought database, which was created most likely in random
order. They may notice that by conversational mistakes, which
telesales agents can make. Moreover, that telesales operator voice
and tone can also annoy prospect since it shows that numerous
calls were made before;
Fear. Customers are afraid of being trapped by some kind of
persuasion technique or very attractive offer;
Telesales agents personality. Arrogant and pushy behavior does
not add attractiveness to the sales calls;
Pressure. Insisting persuasive conversation with attractive offers,
framing techniques and little attention to the customers needs
awakes the negative reaction.

In addition, there are two more factors that build marketplace

metacognition, such as degree of interest in the subject of selling and
 33

knowledge about salespersons company by the prospect which may be

the reason to be trusted or not. (Roux 2008.)

Reason why marketplace metacognition behavior is repeating when

prospect gets new telesales calls is hidden in the telesales operators
behavior. As long as they start to be unprofessional, previous experience
and memories arrive to the mind and prospect does not want to carry on
the conversation. Even though, sometimes, if customer just wants to have
overview of the market, prices and offers, (s)he might just listen in order to
obtain the information. However, this is rare case when needs of the
customer are touched by the subject of the phone call. (Roux 2008.)

Talking about telesales behavior, there are several things, which cause
irritation and even anger in the prospects minds. First one is lack of
attention to the needs of prospect during the conversation. Second one is
argumentative insistence together with tone of the voices provokes the
customer for the negative emotions. Third one is telesales agents irritation
in the voice, which happens when telesales agent feels that his persuasion
attempt did not have positive effect. Last one is telesales agents
manipulative technique, which concerns about creating reaction of surprise
from the prospect by introducing agent as a person who was
recommended by the acquaintance prospect might have known before.
Last thing really makes customers angry at first, as they feel embarrassed
that they did not remember that acquaintance and then, when they had
realized that they were fooled, anger comes as a defensive reaction. All in
all, these four irritation things can be mitigated by polite and respecting
approach from the side of telesales agent and high level of attention and
empathy from him. (Roux 2008.)

After deeper understanding of reasons behind the customer resistance,

researcher discovered a basic model of the behavior for the prospect
during the telesales call. Firstly, there is a stage of polite listening, then
comes avoidance tactics. Avoidance tactics allows prospect to get away
from the answering with respect to the salesman. Last stage is refusal
when prospect realizes that he cannot bear this insisting conversation
anymore and therefore, starts to be annoyed, angry and act impulsively.
(Roux 2008.)
 34

As a summary of this sub-chapter, Table 1 was built in order to give short

overview of the situational factors influencing perception of telesales and
raising the resistance towards it. (Roux 2008.)

TABLE 1. List of Situational Factors Influencing Perception of Telesales

(Roux 2008)

Cognitive factors Emotional factors

Nature of telesales presentations Telesales agents behavior

Level of interest in telesales subject Time of calling

Knowledge about salespersons Prospects mood and previous

company experience

To sum up, this chapter has provided a general picture of the prospect
reaction for the researcher and the reader of the thesis.
 35

6 DEVELOPMENT PLAN

This chapter is the main part of the thesis, which contains development
plan for the Company X NEE regarding telesales. The development plan is
built on the key issues that were discovered by CST employees during the
interviewing and by the author of the thesis during collecting data about
telesales.
 36

7 CONCLUSION

This chapter is dedicated to closing the thesis. It gives a brief overview of

thesis outcomes in the form of answers for research questions. This is
presented in sub-chapter one. Sub-chapter two provides evaluation of the
thesis in terms of validity and reliability. Chapter closes with suggestion for
further improvement, which is described in sub-chapter three.

7.1 Answers to the Research Questions

Before answering main research question, author gives answers to the

research sub-questions:

1) What is the difference between telesales and telemarketing?

Telemarketing is the service, which makes prospects interested through

telephone marketing by telling about product/services features, usefulness
and profitability. Telesales is service, which turns opportunities into
customers, meaning that it provides the basis of an agreement over the
phone for the future collaboration between prospect and company.

2) How did telesales campaign start in Company X?

It started because of the new corporate strategy, which was created for the
regional directors of sales and marketing for the purpose of increasing
sales by raising brand awareness. Telesales was one of the major parts of
this strategy.

3) What was experience and challenges connected with telesales

for CST employees?

In general for the whole region the experience had been good so far.

4) How did telesales work out for the Company X?

According to the marketing director and CST employees, telesales brought

a positive impact to the corporate sales activity in the NEE region. New
customers were discovered through the telesales. In addition, old
customers, who had not ordered for several years, began cooperation with
Company X again.

5) How do prospects feel when they get a cold call?

 37

There is a phenomenon called customer resistance which occurs often

with answering the cold-calls. Customer resistance is a behavior,
characterized by opposing attitude towards cold calling from the beginning
of the call due to the previous negative experience with it. Nowadays this
behavior occurs more often because companies use telesales services
more frequently.

When answers for research sub-questions has been given, author is ready
to answer the main research question:

How to improve implementation of telesales campaign, so that it will be

normal everyday practice for CST employees and effective in generating
corporate planned outcomes?

Thesis author had set the number of the objectives, which was advisable
for case company to complete in order to improve the telesales. The
objectives were formed into the development plan. The author believes
that completion of objectives leads to improvement of telesales for
Company X NEE.

7.2 Validity and Reliability

According to OReilly and Kiyimba (2015) research is meaningless without

precision in reliability and validity of the data used because without it
research cannot be qualified as credible and trustworthy.

Validity concerns about credibility of claims made after the empirical study
has been done. There are two important aspects of qualitative research,
which puts validity of research under the question: data collection and
interpretation. Accuracy of data collection and process of interpretation
approve and confirm the trustworthiness of research results. (OReilly &
Kiyimba 2015.)

For the purpose of research there was conducted semi-structured in-depth

interviews with CST employees of Company X NEE and marketing director
NEE. Since interviews were face-to-face or via live conversations on
Skype, interviewer had a chance ask additional questions to clarify
interviewees answers. Afterwards, qualitative data was collected via voice
recording, which allowed precise and accurate transcription of the answers
on the paper without losing the peculiarities of the speech, self-corrections
 38

and storytelling. Moreover, written transcription of what was answered was

adequately written word-by-word, which allowed deeper analysis of what
has been said by interviewees. Interview interpretation was conducted in
the form of classical research model which allowed data analysis be
completed by logical reasoning. Consequently, data was precisely
collected and logically interpreted which makes this research valid.

Furthermore, reliability of qualitative research applies to the degree of

consistency with which data examples were collected while conducting
research (Silverman 2013). For the semi-structured interview author
prepared one set of questions, which was applied to every interviewee.
Since IDI was conducted in semi-structured way, it allowed small
differences in the order of questions, their formulation and adding more
questions in order to diminish misunderstandings between interviewer and
interviewee. Since these small changes were made in order to build
rapport with interviewees, author does not consider them having influence
on the research consistency. Therefore, this research approves to be
reliable.

7.3 Suggestions for Further Research

During writing process of the thesis, author came up with three additional
issues, which could be solved while conducting new researches.

First one concerns about prospect perspective on the B2B telesales

calling. It would be useful for other researched in sales field to initiate a
qualitative research in this area, discovering deeper the customer
resistance phenomenon while collecting primary data.

Second issue concerns analysis of Company X telesales actions during

the next year. Since telesales is ongoing project, it can be under
continuous analysis every year, in order to keep telesales upgraded and
efficient.
 39

8 SUMMARY

The objective of the thesis is to support the implementation of telesales in

Company X NEE by creating a development plan. It was created for the
duration of one year. The development plan is based on the CST feedback
report, which was made by thesis author. This report was built on the
primary data, which was collected from CST employees in the form of
semi-structured in-depth interviews.

This thesis aims at giving brief overview on the telesales as a case in the
corporate sales activity. That is why there is provided a wide secondary
data research on the sales concepts, explanation place of telesales in the
selling cycle and discovering of decision-making behavior of prospects
who had received cold calls.

As it was said, theoretically thesis provide secondary data research on the

concepts and terms which are used in the corporate sales field. Moreover,
it provides the explanation on the differences between telesales and
telemarketing and why exactly telesales was chosen for fulfilling corporate
targets.

Empirically, qualitative research method is used in order to give versatile

report about telesales implementation in Company X NEE, which also
answers the research question of the thesis. In addition, report provides
strong base for the development plan.

All things considered, research question has been answered and credible
findings were provided in the form of report and development plan. As for
research, author suggests consider qualitative research on the prospect
perspective of telesales calling and by this discover the customer
resistance phenomenon in B2B cold calling
 40

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