The primary objective of every organization is generating revenue through extensive sales. Sales comprise marketing, promotional activities, and customer retention tactics. If you talk about inside sales vs. outside sales, then there is one thing in common, that is rolling of money. According to experts, more than 46% of people work in inside sales jobs, and 53% of the people are into outside sales.
Outside sales or field sales is more of a vigorous task. It allows working independently. Unlike inside sales, you don’t have to be in a cubicle and call the customers continuously. According to a McKinsey survey, 85% of the customers love shopping online, and they prefer to look for more varieties. On an online platform, you can showcase an extensive collection of your merchandise. But in person, you are limited to catalog and a few samples.
Though there are various similarities in inside sales and field sales, the functionality of both the practices is way too different. Let’s check them out.
Strategic Planning
Business analysis and planning are all a part of business growth and development. Inside sales have more of an indirect approach towards customers, whereas field workers meet their clients face-to-face. So, the major difference lies here is, you need to plan strategically to target your potential customers. Inside sales reps have access to plenty of clients in the pipeline; they have to call the customers immediately once the system has flagged hot prospects.
But outside salespeople need to shortlist their clients before fixing an appointment with them. Outside sales reps cannot go meeting the clients randomly at their whims and fancies. They need to study their clients thoroughly. Seniors can help them in planning their meetings. In inside sales, you can directly contact the customer and convert them with your purposeful pitch.
Business and Client Engagement
Inside sales have a focused approach when dealing with customers. If you incorporate technology and automation tools in your system, then inside sales become much easier to handle. Tracking the clients, knowing the hot lead, data analysis, and conversion ratio all becomes easy in inside sales management.
Whereas, outside sales is a bit tougher task, where meeting the clients and converting them can be challenging at times. The business engagement in outside sales is limited to meeting and frequent follow-ups with senior management. The conversion ratio is less in outside sales than in inside sales. Concerning inside sales vs outside sales, keeping the clients engaged through notifications and offering them incentives is much more comfortable with inside sales.
Maintenance and Retention of Customers
The plus point about outside sales is you can easily maintain the relationship with your client. It is a solution and relationship-based sales activity. Clients can easily trust the salesperson they have seen in person. Customers can directly contact the sales rep and get their problems sorted.
Inside sales vary here, there is no personal touch, but yes, you can be in touch through online mediums. It is more of a research and back-end work that requires persistent efforts to retain the customers. Inside sales allow you to track all the flaws and glitches in the system to get the desired results to your customer. This benefit is not available in outside sales.
