A new normal, a new strategy: rethinking sales strategies for a post-COVID world

What should the key strategies and tactics be for sales professionals during and after Covid-19 crisis?

It’s going to be tough for a sales representative to reach out to the customer in person, and a customer to is going to be hesitant to do so. This means that as a salesperson, you have to now innovate. A salesperson has to be an innovative storyteller, the medium being immaterial. If one believes in the product he/she sells, the conviction is contagious, and the sales are bound to happen.

When the world order shifts because of an external factor like a virus – it is this conviction in one’s product that helps one to sail through. See how your product makes the customer’s lives easier, tweak your offerings in a way that it solves their worries, and then position it accordingly through the mediums available. As we all know that digital is the new medium of information sourcing, align your sales strategies that make use of this medium the most. Serve with compassion, with an intention to make a difference, and you sure will.

What are the top technologies that you foresee disrupting the sales function?

I have always believed that technology is a great facilitator, it’s only a means to an end. As long as the customer needs are met, then technology is doing its role, without which it is of no relevance. The top technologies disrupting the way we function have been there since the pre-COVID days. Whether its AI induced sales analytics or customer service most of the service sector had already embraced it.

With COVID pushing the social distancing, it inadvertently pushed the digital agenda as well. People are becoming more tech-savvy, switching to digital modes of payment, relying on online data to make purchase decisions, and opting for online customer queries and grievance resolution.

At Bajaj Allianz General Insurance we were ahead of the curve, by envisaging our business models to go digital, and hence we already have a healthy amalgamation of digital into our way of doing business. From policy issuance to claims servicing to grievance redressal, we have been at the forefront of serving our customers by weaving in the latest tech as our mediums of reaching out to them.

About the respondent

Tapan Singhel is the MD & CEO of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company. He has over two and a half decades of rich experience in the insurance industry. He has been with Bajaj Allianz since its inception in 2001 and was an integral part of the team starting up the insurance business in the retail market. He has been involved in various international projects like setting up of retail business for Allianz in China and Bancassurance development in the Asia-Pacific region. Based out of the company’s headquarters in Pune, he leads the company’s overall growth strategy.