Late last month, Brightspeed had a problem on its hands when some of their door-to-door sales representatives in Decatur, Indiana, were behaving badly — so badly that the Decatur Police Department got involved and posted about the trouble on their Facebook page.
“The Decatur Police Department wants to make the public aware of various individuals in the city, possibly with different subcontractors attempting to sell a fiber internet service for Brightspeed Internet. We are getting complaints that the door-to-door salespeople are being rather forceful and pushy with their sales-tactics and are not listening after being told no,” the post said.
The post went on to remind residents that they have the right to tell salespeople no and ask them to leave the property. “If the person refuses to leave your property you have every right to contact law enforcement. It appears these individuals are not from this area, not permitted at this time, and we are working to identify the company they are associated with so it can be properly addressed.”
Brightspeed issued a statement to Telecompetitor shortly after the event: “We take these matters seriously and require compliance from all of our sales partners. As soon as we learned that our vendor had not secured the required permits for all agents, we instructed the representative to pull all agents from the market immediately. No agents will return until their permits are properly filed and approved, per our contract.
“Our agents receive training on how to handle objections and respectfully address customer questions. They are never instructed to disregard a homeowner’s request to decline or leave,” the statement concluded.
This could happen to any company. But how can problems like this be avoided? When you work with a door-to-door sales vendor or individual salespeople, how do you ensure they behave, do the job they are hired to do, and represent your company well?
Telecompetitor spoke with Liberty Communications Marketing Manager Sandee Buysse about her experience with a door-to-door campaign this summer.
Training for Door-to-Door Sales
Buysse said effective training starts with giving door-to-door representatives a background on who the company is, brand, company culture, and what they’re all about.
“I had [them] do some homework, review our website, review our social presence, get a feel for our voice, and come back with questions,” Buysse said.
Next, she offered training on safety and etiquette — like not walking across people’s grass — and finding connection points as you approach the house: “Like, ‘Your garden’s beautiful,’ or ‘My favorite flower’s a rose.’ You know, just anything to try and build an immediate connection,” she said.
Training covers every moment of the customer interaction: how to improve your approach from house to house, how to request someone’s consent to speak with them, how to gently overcome objections, how to ask for what the company needs — in one neighborhood, part of Liberty’s effort was to obtain permission for fiber drops in the area — how to be gracious when you’re kicked out, and how to kindly decline when someone invites you in.
Buysse recommended showing rather than telling: “I went into the field and demonstrated. They shadowed me going door to door, and they saw me fail, and they saw me have success, and they saw me trip over myself and not have it figured out.”
Finally, Buysse said it’s important to have a plan for when customers aren’t home — for example, a leave-behind piece that lets people know you stopped by with the gist of your message. “You might as well be accomplishing the brand awareness component if you don’t catch someone at home,” she said.
Avoiding the Perils and Pitfalls of Door-to-Door Sales
When we asked Buysse about the Brightspeed situation and how it might have been avoided, she suggested several steps she would take if she were faced with a similar issue:
- Pull all contractors immediately. Buysse said getting all contractors off the job quickly is the first and most important step. As soon as she received word of a complaint, she would pull the entire team from the area.
- Obtain the appropriate permits. One of the biggest problems with the Brightspeed incident was the contractor’s failure to obtain the correct permits. “Each city is different, but you follow their rules,” Buysse said. “When you’re permitted, then the police know you’re out and about. So, when they get calls or complaints — ‘Hey, somebody’s on my sidewalk’ — they can say, ‘Yes, this is the company. They have a permit.’”
- Retrain the sales team. It’s critical to correct the offending behavior of door-to-door sales representatives by retraining them before they have the chance to repeat their mistakes.
- Return to the community with company representatives. Buysse said once you are ready to deploy your door-to-door team again, they should be led by employees of the company, at least at first. That way, you can ensure the quality and appropriateness of the work being done in the field.
- Issue a formal apology. “I would wait to post an apology until I had taken corrective action,” Buysse said, “because part of that apology would be, ‘We’re so sorry this happened; this is what we’ve done to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future.’”
- Evaluate the effectiveness of door-to-door sales. A serious negative outcome should make you question whether a door-to-door strategy is worth it. Buysse suggested internally asking questions like, “Did it drive results? Did it damage the brand? Is it really worth it?”
Door-to-Door Sales and Customer Experience
When it comes to balancing customer experience (CX) with the need for sales, Buysse said “sales” is the wrong word. “Liberty’s philosophy has always been sales is not sales; it’s finding solutions to problems — asking questions and figuring out where a person’s pain points are and presenting a solution that meets those pain points. It’s not about making a sale.
“If we can do those things well, word-of-mouth takes over from a sales channel perspective, and all we have to do then is take orders and get them right-sized into the right package. In some ways, there’s not a sales effort that stands by itself.”
Ultimately, whether this CX and service-led effort takes place via door-to-door sales or another strategy, Buysse said it’s vital to stay focused on lasting benefits rather than short-term wins.
“It’s super important to understand the long game for the company and that the reputation and brand are more important than the immediate sale.”
Note: Brightspeed declined to talk at length about their door-to-door training and vendor relationships, saying they would rather not divulge their door-to-door strategy.
