NEW YORK-In its five-year history, Sales Staffers International Inc., Andover, Mass., has carved an unusual niche in the broader market of outsourced services for large corporations.
Companies like AT&T Corp., Microsoft Corp., GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp. deploy its staff of veteran sales people as long-term temporary “SWAT” teams to augment sales promotions at particular locations or during peak selling periods.
Early this year, AT&T Wireless Services Inc., which already has employed Sales Staffers in a few other regions, contracted to use its services in the carrier’s Washington, D.C./Baltimore territory, said John Bjorn, regional sales manager for AT&T Wireless, Beltsville, Md.
It has an exclusive contract with Sales Staffers in those regions, he said.
“Typically, we don’t outsource salespeople, but we decided to outsource for `power merchandising,’ implementing it in a national retail environment-Circuit City, Best Buy-which has a cyclical business that warrants it some of the time,” Bjorn said.
Power merchandisers, Sales Staffers’ name for its employees, are trained at AT&T Wireless on a regular basis, Bjorn said.
During high-volume periods on the weekends, starting with Friday afternoons, Sales Staffers’ personnel are in stores to serve as a knowledge resource for retailer employees and customers.
Besides gaining incremental sales using Sales Staffers, AT&T Wireless also hopes to reduce customer churn by gaining only those subscribers whose user characteristics best jibe with its service offering, Bjorn explained.
“Customers are confused. We feel our product more than matches our competitors’ when it is understood,” he said. “One of our big selling points is that we’re national, but there are people who don’t travel out of the area who are better off on a competitor’s network.”
Both AT&T Wireless and the national retailers involved also stand to gain if Sales Staffers’ employees demonstrate and sell wireless handsets to customers who entered the store to buy another product and wind up buying wireless as well.
“Our third goal is a better merchandising presence at point of sale and point of purchase,” Bjorn said.
Sales Staffers “are in the stores a lot more regularly than we are, so they can make sure the displays are where they should be, that there is adequate inventory. They can keep their eyes and ears on the market.”
Bjorn said Sales Staffers’ services aren’t cheap, but may well prove worth the investment. He also called the company somewhat unique in the role it fills.
Sales Staffers gets paid partly at a fixed rate and partly on commission based on units sold, said Bob Stockard, chief executive officer of Sales Staffers.
“It would be very bold to say that doing business with us is less expensive, that you could save 10 (percent) to 30 percent,” he said.
However, he said outsourcing sales staffing during peak periods or for particular outlets where a presence is needed temporarily probably translates into carrier savings on employee hiring, training and unemployment-related expenses.
“We don’t employ independent agents. Everyone of our sales people is our employee. All of our people have been formally trained in sales by big, reputable companies. They are not low-skilled individuals,” Stockard said.
Although AT&T Wireless Services had secured agreements with mass-market retailers before calling in Sales Staffers, Stockard said his company has other wireless telecommunications carrier customers for which it had secured retailers.
“We started in the wireless business with GTE and have had a presence in the cellular business. It’s a booming market, tremendous.”
Wireless carriers, he added, are starting to learn from their wireline brethren about the value of keeping subscribers, not just getting them.
“About 90 percent of our customers hire us for customer acquisition, but we make sure they also have a good customer-retention strategy,” Stockard commented.
