When it comes to telesales nobody can touch Avocet Hardware’s team, thanks in no small way to its new telesales manager, Michelle Hamer.
Michelle, who has worked the phones at the Brighouse company for 22-years, was promoted last month and the first task in her new role was to train up four new members of the telesales team – one of whom, Linzi Wagstaff, was returning to work for Avocet two years after leaving.
“When I started at Avocet in the early 90s I never for one minute thought I’d still be working here 22-years later,” said Michelle. “But when you have a job that is rewarding, varied and interesting, and where you are valued extremely highly by your colleagues in other departments and the owners of the business, then why would you leave?”
Rythm Jain Saigal, CEO of Avocet Hardware, added: “Call centres have given telesales something of a bad name, but to us it is a vital element of our business strategy, and as such is staffed solely by industry professionals with the kind of expertise that would make our competitors green with envy.”
The nine-strong team, which boasts over 100-years of industry experience at Avocet alone, operates across both outgoing and incoming calls. It is tasked with everything from generating new appointments for the field sales team, through to developing existing business, and on to ensuring key accounts are kept informed on all company and product developments and have an industry expert on-call whenever they need them.
The growth of Avocet’s telesales team is the latest in a series of departmental expansions that started in November 2014 with the appointment of three new field-based business development managers. One month later Avocet announced the creation of up to 20 new jobs following the doubling of its warehouse capacity. Such is the level of growth, the Jain family has now invested close to £15million in the company since buying it in February 2012.
“We have had to spend heavily to bring Avocet back up to a position where it can once again stand proudly at the head of the market, but we are now in a position where we are close to achieving that aim and are now thinking more about recapturing, if not surpassing, the market dominance Avocet enjoyed pre-2012,” said Rythm.
For additional information on Avocet Hardware and to order a copy of its new catalogue visit www.avocet-hardware.co.uk or call 01484 711700.