Telecom store sales focus: helping consumers navigate the digital world

The starting point is tough. Confidence in the telecom industry is low, largely due to a history of questionable sales practices and rogue operators. Although the industry has worked hard to clean up and focus on customer satisfaction, we still have a long way to go before we can boast of being Sweden's best consumer market. As one shop assistant said to me: "The fact that trust is low for us because of past behavior is not fun, but it's something we have to deal with. Every day."

Last week, I had the privilege of shadowing some salespeople in one of our members' stores in central Stockholm. My preconception was that customers primarily visit the store to buy a new product or service, while the salespeople's main focus is to sell as much as possible in as short a time as possible. As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong.

In the hours I spent in the store, almost everything was instead about helping consumers navigate the digital world: Why can I browse the news site now and not just now? Will this be saved in the cloud or not? Can I make my phone stop ringing at night? Do I really need fiber when 5G comes?

The majority of the customers I met were extremely well-read, and had an interest in keeping up and understanding. But being a digital consumer today is challenging. Being able to judge how many Giga bytes you use in a month or when the last backup of your phone was made, and where that copy is, requires a constantly updated kind of general knowledge that is not obvious to everyone, but in our increasingly digitalized society is a necessity to find ways to be involved. That shops like this one play an important role in this became very obvious to me.

All the customers I met were treated by the sales staff with a genuine desire to understand, guide and help. And not least by a patience, which I definitely do not have myself, in answering detailed questions about how a particular phone setting is made, why it sometimes takes time for a text message to arrive or which countries it is possible to surf for the same pot as at home. Of course, there were also one or two products and services being sold, but I didn't actually see any of the intrusive sales focus I had prejudicially expected - so it was with renewed hope that I left the store.

With salespeople who, with commitment and pride, help to simplify customers' everyday lives, I am convinced that it is possible to increase confidence in the telecom industry as a whole. We have some catching up to do, but I believe the only way is to continue working to earn better trust. In every meeting. Every day.