Tigo spends 450m/- to train over 4,000 sales freelancers

By The guardian reporter

Tigo Sales School Manager Justine Kwizera

 About 4,767 freelance sales trainees have acquired sales skills from the Tigo Sales School, an internal training programme from the telecom company as part of its strategy to better serve its customers and boost its fortunes in the market.

 

The innovative programme seeks to empower the company’s freelance sales teams with knowledge on sales and entrepreneurship. Tigo Sales School Manager Justine Kwizera said so far the company has invested over 450m/- in the programme.

 

The Guardian has reliably learnt that Tigo aspires to be market leader starting this year and it has recently been investing heavily in its systems. The company is said to have earmarked US$120 million (about 258bn/-) in 2016 as it targets to increase its telecom market share in the country.

 

Together with Airtel, Tigo currently account for 30 per cent of the industry’s subscriptions in a league led by Vodacom Tanzania whose stake is 35 per cent. The market share story read quite differently in 2010 when Tigo’s grip of the subscription business was only 21 and Vodacom had the lion’s cut of 41 per cent and Airtel, which then was trading as Zain 28 per cent.

 

“The Tigo Sales School programme was launched in July 2012 with the aim of transforming the lives of young entrepreneurs through capacity-building that would enable them to productively engage in direct sales of Tigo products and services countrywide,” Tigo said in a statement.

 

Speaking to the media this week in Dar es Salaam, Tigo Sales School Manager Justine Kwizera said that the programme imparts sales skills to mainly freelancers working for the company with little or no sales skills about Tigo products. According to him, the idea of instituting the training programme was floated when the company realized the sales people had the challenge of requisite skills.

 

It also discovered the freelancers’ desire to improve their entrepreneurship knowhow; how to handle financial matters and better handling of potential and existing customers. The trainees normally spend eight days in class and then go out in the field for three months, after which they come back for graduation.

 

Under the programme, Kwizera said “the freelancers are trained on how to optimize performance, which enable most of them to increase their sales. The other aspect of the training is record-keeping and customer care”.

 

"We decided to link every Tigo shop with a sales school to improve skills of freelance sales representatives”, she said adding that they have schools located in every zone in the country which are run by zonal directors.

 

“Our aim in rolling out Tigo Sales School programme is to create a highly trained and effective sales force that will give Tigo a competitive advantage in the market. We also aim to provide growth and development opportunities to our freelancers as they build their careers and prepare for the future”, she said.