What is an inside sales associate? An inside sales associate is a B2C-oriented salesperson who sells a range of goods to customers remotely. Traditional sales associates can be found on the ground floor of retail stores; they’re the person at Macy’s or Walmart who helps you locate that new pair of headphones you want to buy for […]
What is an inside sales associate?
An inside sales associate is a B2C-oriented salesperson who sells a range of goods to customers remotely. Traditional sales associates can be found on the ground floor of retail stores; they’re the person at Macy’s or Walmart who helps you locate that new pair of headphones you want to buy for your father’s 50th birthday. As an inside sales associate, you take on the sales process over the internet. In some cases, such as at a car dealership, you may also help walk-in customers.
Sales associate vs. sales representative
A sales associate works in the business-to-consumer, or B2C industry, meaning they sell goods to your average Joe. Sales reps work B2B, selling products or services to other businesses. As a result, B2C salespeople focus on getting the sale immediately with one person, while B2B means working with several decision-makers to close the sale over the course of a few weeks or months.
What’s a typical day like for an inside sales associate?
Let’s say you’re an inside sales associate at Office Depot. Your customers are a mix of everyday people shopping for school supplies and businesses that need to repurchase office supplies, technology or furniture in bulk.
You begin your day by signing in to your email or a collaboration app like Slack to get the latest news from corporate or your managers and team members. With new information on your brain, you know which sales tasks to focus on and exactly how you want to schedule your day.
For most of the day, you’ll be giving up-to-the-minute product information to shoppers by answering questions through calls, chat boxes, or email. According to Optimizely, an online experience optimization platform, the top reasons shoppers abandon their carts are:
- They don’t trust the website (not secure enough)
- They can’t find answers to their product questions
- The checkout process takes too long
If the website isn’t optimized to be fast and look trustworthy, you’ll have very little time to get the customer to buy before you lose them forever. Your manager will provide you information like what today’s best selling products are, what’s out of stock, and any big sales coming in that’ll cause a huge influx to the customer ticketing system.
Armed with this data, you’ll be ready to answer the most common questions and issues that will arise today. If an account wants a printer that’s out of stock, you’ll launch a video call with a remote store expert to contact another Office Depot branch and arrange for them to ship one to the customer the next day.
Before logging off for the evening, you’ll often get some on-demand product training or last minute feedback, either recorded or live from your manager.
What makes a great inside sales associate?
A great inside sales associate understands that the customer wants speed. They want the product available to them at all times (or shipped out quickly), and they also want instant answers to their questions that don’t beat around the bush. Remember, consumers have a short attention span, and the fact that they’re contacting you means the website didn’t answer their questions.
You’ll need quick responses ready to give the potential buyer; also, don’t try to get too personal with them like you would in B2B selling. B2C customers just want their problem solved and don’t expect you to get all in their business! Just gather enough info to make a quick sell, without invading their personal space.
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