Indian Salespeople Don't Effectively Recommend Brands

TI and consumer electronic companies in India are losing upto Rs 84 lakh per
store annually due to poor sales effectiveness. According to a survey conducted
across Asia Pacific by Grass Roots Group, a capability gap in establishing
customer needs and closing the sale by frontline sales staff at the retail
outlets is primarily responsible for this loss. The 'Are You Being Sold?' survey
focused on 14 multinational brands in the IT hardware and software as well as
consumer electronic space. The research was conducted in reseller outlets of
these brands across seven countries-India, China, Singapore, Thailand, South
Korea, Indonesia and Australia-with the help of 1,400 mystery shoppers and the
performance of the sales staff was judged on the basis of the complete shopping
experience, including a salesperson's response time, product knowledge and
attempts to close a sale.

Salespeople have scored a higher than average rating in terms of the
proportion of customers being served immediately. Also, the product knowledge of
Indian sales staff at 81 percent was on par with the rest of the region.
However, and surprisingly, given this statistic, they were significantly less
likely to recommend a brand. Talking about India's performance, Stephen Hibberd,
Regional Director-Asia, Grass Roots Group explained, "Through this survey, we
wanted to understand if leading hardware and software giants were being well
represented by their channel partners and how effectively they were being sold.
India's excellent scores in categories like product knowledge indicate that
although the salespeople have the technical know-how about the product, they are
simply not feeling engaged enough with the brand to support their products or
make recommendations."

Furthermore, although 95 percent of Indian salespeople listened carefully to
the customer, they negated this by scoring only 41 percent in establishing
customer needs by asking the right questions, such as the budget and intended
use of the product. The assigned brand's presence in multi-brand outlets in
India by way of signage, demonstration models and clothing were well below the
regional average. The knowledge of Indian sales staff about after sales product
support was also among the poorest in the entire region and merely 39 percent
used that knowledge as a selling point. Moreover, in 80 percent of the cases,
the shopper was not offered any additional product such as a mouse or software
to go with his notebook computer.

Hibberd's recommendation to business, both manufacturers, through their
channel and retailers, is to adopt a solution which addresses a multiple of
different needs, instead of a singularly focused strategy.

DQC News Bureau