DELTA Energie is a green energy supplier from Zeeland. They are the market leader in their own province, and they set foot on the ground solidly in the rest of the Netherlands. They sell contracts by phone, at the door, in-store and online. Step by step, DELTA Energie has added these channels as well as both internal salespeople and external partners within their Salesdock environment. That way, they control their sales processes and make it easy for themselves, the salespeople and the customers. We spoke to Nick Kooijman, Channel Manager at DELTA, about his experiences with Salesdock.
Zeeland roots
DELTA's roots are firmly established in the clay of Zeeland. The company originated back in 1919, then called ''the Provinciale Zeeuwse Elektriciteits Maatschappij''. Now, almost 30 years later, DELTA still values their roots. On their website, they describe their Zeeland mentality: 'We work Zeeland style: down-to-earth, efficient and friendly. Little fuss, just straightforward.' DELTA is now part of Vattenfall, but continues to operate independently from Middelburg. DELTA serves both the business and consumer markets.
The role of Nick Kooijman
Nick Kooijman works as Channel Manager Energy at DELTA Energy. He is responsible for door-to-door sales (d2d) and telesales. From this role, he manages the partners, which are external organisations that sell DELTA subscriptions. In recent years, online sales have also become increasingly important. For all these different channels, Nick uses Salesdock on a daily basis. That's why we asked him what Salesdock means to him.
How it started
Nick talks about his start at DELTA at the beginning of 2018: 'Sales came in through all kinds of different channels and partners. Because everyone was using their own systems, we only saw accepted offers that we then had to process. To improve our sales organisation, we needed more insights.' So in 2018, Nick and his colleagues looked for a solution to get more control over the processes. They ended up with Salesdock, which was still under development at the time. 'Through a partner, we got in conversation with the founders of Salesdock. Their story and the way the platform was used by suppliers, distributors and sales organisations matched exactly with what we were looking for.' Thus began an intensive collaboration between DELTA and Salesdock.
Win-win
At the start of the partnership, DELTA Energie's Outbound Telesales team was the first channel to work with Salesdock. Soon, partners also joined. 'We noticed that we were making it easier for salespeople to sell our contracts. We also saw that reflected in the results and the quality of the orders.' Not only the (external) sellers, but also DELTA's back office immediately benefited from the convenience of uniformity. 'We no longer had to deal with all separate files, we were now working from one central platform,' Nick explains.
Meanwhile, Salesdock was working hard to connect other channels to the platform as well. 'We were heavily involved in that process,' says Nick, 'our ideas were valued and respected and combined with Salesdock's own view on how a sales platform should work now and in the future.' With input from several customers, Salesdock also made the platform suitable for in-store, door-to-door and online sales. 'A big advantage of Salesdock is that they continuously innovate and add new functionalities. In many cases, customisation is expensive. The nice thing about Salesdock is that they like to innovate and that we as customers benefit from this. That feels like win-win.'
Professionalization
Nick talks about what using Salesdock has let them achieve for all these different sales channels. 'The biggest advantage is that more partners can join and us working together from one central environment. Not only with sales organisations, but also with distribution platforms.' In addition, Nick notices that fewer mistakes are made. 'We can set everything up in a way that salespeople are immediately compliant. This allows us to adjust immediately if something goes wrong, instead of taking note of it too late. Customers receive neat e-mails and professional proposales. Everything is easy to set up as required.'
Lowering thresholds
Nick talks about selling in DELTA shops. 'The focus in our shops is mainly on internet and telecoms. That makes it extra important to me that the tooling to sell energy works as simple as possible. Nick also sees improvements in online sales. For example via
energieuitzeeland.nl. 'We simplified the order process and linked it to the Salesdock API. This makes Salesdock the source, while we ourselves created the website/landing page in our company's brand. That has definitely led to more sales.' DELTA is thus lowering the threshold for sellers and customers on all sales channels.
Ambitious future
For the future, Nick sees more than enough opportunities to take even more steps in the pleasant cooperation with Salesdock. Both in terms of optimising sales processes as well as broadening usage. Such as following up customers who do not agree to a quotation, and automated 'happy emails' if they do sign. He also wants to use Salesdock in a smart way to extend contracts and offer more 'value-added services'. For example, offering solar panels and heat pumps in cooperation with an installer. In short: together, DELTA and Salesdock have plenty of ideas and ambitions to further expand the cooperation in a down-to-earth ''Zeeland and Twente way''. That works best!