Getting connected

Three employees at Hong Kong Broadband Network won the Distinguished Salesperson Award (DSA) at this year's event.

Senior account manager Alvin Yeung Ka-lam has been with the company for nine years. 'You have to be hard-working, provide prompt responses to customer requirements and have patience,' Mr Yeung said. 'You also shouldn't give up easily.'

Mr Yeung suggested to one of his customers, who had to downsize to a smaller office, to move its servers to Hong Kong Broadband Network's data centre to save space and overheads.

'Because their servers were at their office, they took up a lot of space. They also had only a basic infrastructure environment, which provided only a basic broadband connection. After the customer moved in they were satisfied with our bandwidth and data centre service.'

Account manager Edwin Woo Chi-chung has been with the company for five years. He develops new customers and business in the corporate market. 'Usually, potential customers have many objections - especially when they don't know about your services, your products or your company.

'At the beginning, their trust level is low. To be successful you have to keep trying,' Mr Woo said.

He gains their trust by focusing one or two of their objections and tackling them with facts. 'Sometimes I need to prepare in advance about 10 major obstacle questions customers might ask.

'I prepare a list of customer references with well-known companies,' Mr Woo said. 'I also highlight some famous mainland companies that use our services. They finally choose us because they know someone in one of the companies we highlighted.'

Account manager Maggy Tse Wing-yee has been with the company for eight years. She looks for new corporate business opportunities and maintains good customer relationships.

The economic downturn has made it difficult for her to maintain her sales results. 'I have to work harder compared with the past and interview more potential customers,' Ms Tse said.

'I also need to maintain good customer relations, and this includes providing after-sales service.'

In the past, customers were less concerned about price, but that has started to change, she said.