I am always saying that the one thing that banks, equipment vendors, and any other financial services company, for that matter, will always need is sales talent. Well, Dell Computer (along with the help of USWeb) is thinking otherwise. Dell has launched the Virtual Account Executive to deliver sales presentations over the Net. A Dell rep (non-sales type) gets the prospect to log into the site over the phone. The customer sees a mix of PowerPoint slides, as well as audio and video clips (delivered via Microsoft Netshow), that cover Dell products and services. The virtual AE contains a series of 15 presentation "units," which are customized so that they can be arranged in a way that makes sense for a particular prospect or industry.
I know, you are thinking that the kind of customer you sell (small- and medium-sized retailers) will never find the time, or have the interest in looking at a sales pitch on a Web page. It is predicted that by the year 2000 small and mid-sized businesses will own more than half the world's PCs. Along those lines, while PC sales to companies with more than 100 employees will grow just over 15 percent this year, sales to companies with less than 10 employees will grow almost 32 percent.
While the virtual AE might not ever have a "bad day," it is not likely that it will find its way into the financial services sector very soon. The majority of prospects, for now, are not likely to have Internet access at their fingertips (too high-end) and most will always want in-person training. But the real problem is the fact that the financial service sale extracts as much information as it gives, and it is hard to warm to a machine, even if you can toss it out on its powerpack when it tells you something that you don't like. (Öthe Virtual sign-up fee is $100.00?) But mark my words, someone is going to do this on-line sales presentation idea for our industry, and soon.
