A telesales person sells people goods or services over the telephone. These can include financial products, mobile phone deals, home improvements and advertising space.

The Work

You could be:

• 'cold' calling new or existing customers, either businesses or individuals, to offer your product or service
• working through a list of phone numbers, provided by a supervisor or manager
• giving advice on, and explaining the benefits of the products or services you sell
• answering calls from people who want to buy goods by mail order
• persuading customers to buy, have a trial period or see a sales representative
• taking orders and payments by phone
• entering the details of the order on the computer while speaking on the phone
• making appointments for a sales representative to visit customers.

Pay

The figures below are only a guide. Actual pay rates may vary, depending on:

• where you work
• the size of the company or organisation you work for
• the demand for the job.

Starting pay for a telesales person is between £15,000 and £18,000 a year before bonuses. After experience it can rise to £23,000 a year or more. Pay might depend partly or wholly on sales commission.

Conditions

• You will sit with other telesales people in an open plan office.
• You face a computer monitor and keyboard.
• You wear a telephone headset to keep your hands free.
• You may not get much time between the calls — it is fast-paced work.
• You might sometimes work from home.
• You often have a target number of calls to make and sales targets to meet.
• Part time work is common.
• If you are only making outgoing calls, you will probably not work before 8.00am or after 9.00pm.
• If you are taking incoming calls there may be shifts round the clock including weekends.

Getting In

• You do not need formal qualifications but a good general education is useful.
• Although there are a lot of job vacancies many employers ask for sales experience.
• Previous experience of dealing with the public is also useful.

Job Outlook Scotland

Job Outlook Scotland and UK

  Scotland

2026

3357

0.7 %

RISE

2031

3380

  United Kingdom

2026

48064

1.8 %

RISE

2031

48952

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What Does it Take?

It helps if you are:

• confident when talking to strangers
• persuasive and good at influencing people
• enthusiastic even after repeated rejection
• a clear and fluent speaker
• able to understand lots of different accents
• a quick worker
• able to stay calm when working under pressure to meet targets
• able to stay polite when dealing with difficult clients
• experienced in using a keyboard or computer.

Training

• Training is normally on the job.
• You can do part time courses such as Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs) in Customer Service at SCQF Levels 5 and 6 or Contact Centre Operations at SCQF Levels 5 and 6.

Getting On

• With experience you could become a team leader, a supervisor or a manager.
• You might study further qualifications at SCQF Level 8.

Contacts

The following organisations may be able to provide further information.