$350 Million At The End Of A Telephone

The telephone sales market has reached a volume of $200 billion in the world as a whole. In Turkey the volume of telephone sales stands at $350 million. Experts say that the reason for this method being used so much is that consumers want easier access to the product. Moreover, telephone sales provide companies with a cost advantage.

In the world as a whole, telephone sales have a volume of $200 billion. The first companies only sold certain goods over the telephone or provided after sales advisory services. Today the scope of services has broadened. A large number of companies from sectors ranging from banking to insurance, foodstuffs and GSM use telephones as an effective sales tool across a broad area. In some companies, telephone sales account for 70 percent of their total sales.

It Is Growing Rapidly In Turkey
When we look at Turkey as a whole, the turnover realised by telephone sales accounts for 1-2 percent of companies’ total sales. The ‘Alo Banka’ call center established by Yapı Kredi bank in 1991 was the telephone sales service in Turkey. Other sectors followed banking. Around the same time, various goods and services, from timeshares to electrical vacuum cleaners, began to be sold over the telephone. Telephone sales in Turkey continued to develop during the 1990s, reaching a volume of $350 million and creating more than 30,000 jobs. Özlem Seller, the founder of the Development Workshop, says that in the next five years telephone sales in the world as a whole will increase by 60 percent. She forecasts that in Turkey they will double.

Tourism Has Become Used To Telephone Sales
Tourism heads the list of sectors with the highest volume of telephone sales. Today, when they decide to go on holiday, many people do all of their bookings over the telephone. Altar Kartal, who is Call Center Manager at ETS Tur, the leader in the package tour operator sector, notes that there has been a major increase in telephone sales over the last four years. ETS Tur receives an average of 7,000 calls per year and continues to invest in call center technology.

Investments In Telephones Are Rising
Avis rents out an average of 50,000 vehicles a year and 25 percent of its sales are over the telephone. 85 percent of the 500 calls it receives a day result in rentals. The company’s call center has details of 11,250 customers in its files. Avis Assistant General Manager İnan Ekici says that they have allocated approximately $50,000 for investments in hardware and software for an integrated call center and adds: “We aim to increase the proportion of telephone sales to 50 percent of our total sales.”

Özlem Aydın
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