Key takeaways
- Competency gets an agent through the door. What the ecommerce company needed was a partner who screened for brand personality and enthusiasm too, because those are the qualities that determine whether a customer feels well served.
- Routing tNPS customer feedback directly into new hire training means every cohort benefits from what the previous one learned. Waiting for a quarterly review to surface that insight had been limiting the client’s ability to continuously improve their training program.
- Both teams worked from the same dashboards and joined the same escalation conversations, so decisions were made together and adjustments happened promptly.
- A pilot with pre-agreed success criteria removes the guesswork from the expansion decision. When every benchmark was met within 90 days, the path forward was clear to both sides without negotiation.
- Both the ecommerce company and TELUS Digital entered this program believing automation should make agents more effective, not redundant. That shaped every tool decision made during the ramp.
A high bar for partnership, and a very specific list of requirements
The company is an ecommerce brand with a strong reputation for caring customer service and a smooth, seamless buying experience.
The brand already had its own inbound sales team. What the business needed was a way to extend coverage across channels quickly without the customer on the other end noticing any difference. That meant finding a customer experience partner with sales outsourcing solutions whose agents could represent the brand with the same enthusiasm and product knowledge as their internal teams.
The brand had been underwhelmed by previous outsourcing partners, and chose to start with a pilot. The search came down to companies that could demonstrate, before a single agent was hired, that their values and operating style were a match.
Three things had to be true about the right partner.
- Cultural alignment: Values and operating philosophy that reflected the way the brand worked, from how agents were recruited to how feedback was delivered and received.
- Speed to performance: The ability to ramp quickly without sacrificing quality.
- Transparency: A feedback loop where both sides shared data, raised concerns directly and treated results as jointly owned.
Establishing an outsourced sales team that acts as an extension of the client’s brand
Long before a formal partnership, the ecommerce company and TELUS Digital were in conversation. Leaders from both companies had met at an industry event, where TELUS Digital had helped the brand think through how to better manage vendor partnerships. When the brand eventually made the decision to scale their sales capacity through an outsourcing partner, they already knew where to turn.
Instead of committing to a full program immediately, the client structured the engagement as a pilot. TELUS Digital would have the opportunity to prove their model against a defined set of benchmarks. If those benchmarks were met, the program would continue and expand.
TELUS Digital’s solution took a holistic view of the opportunity. Before a single agent was hired, both teams would map operating principles jointly, define success metrics and agree on the feedback rhythms that would govern the partnership throughout.
Hiring for culture, not just capability
Recruitment for this program went beyond skill assessment. TELUS Digital screened every candidate for alignment with the company's brand values and personality, looking for curiosity, empathy and enthusiasm for the product. Agents who cleared that bar arrived at training already oriented toward the brand they were about to represent.
For the first wave of onboarding, the client’s team traveled to the TELUS Digital site that would be supporting their business. They brought their products and shared customer stories so agents could connect with what they were selling. Both teams have repeated that model for every cohort since.
Closing the feedback loop between customer and classroom
Unlike traditional NPS, which surveys customers periodically and aggregates results over time, tNPS captures sentiment immediately after each interaction. For a sales outsourcing program where every call is a brand moment, that immediacy matters. Every week spent waiting for a periodic review is a week of new hires potentially repeating mistakes and missing sales.
In this program, that signal was wired directly into the training cycle rather than filed away for a quarterly review. Every cohort of new hires benefited from what the previous cohort's customers had said. Patterns were identified, gaps addressed and insights fed into the next round of onboarding.
By the time the program hit its stride, tNPS had improved 22% versus the client’s previous partner.
Sharing accountability from day one
The client and TELUS Digital operated from shared dashboards, joint reviews and escalation conversations. Both teams saw the same data and made decisions together. When something needed adjusting, it was adjusted promptly.
That accountability was built into the pilot structure from the start. The company had been deliberate about framing this as a test — TELUS Digital would need to earn the expansion.
The TELUS Digital solution ran across four defined stages:
- Selection and alignment
- Pilot launch
- tNPS integration
- Expansion decision
Each stage had its own pre-agreed success criteria and feedback cadences. Neither side was waiting to be told how things were going. Both sides already knew.
When the 90-day evaluation arrived, the data made the case.
“The structure of the pilot kept both sides honest. We knew what we had to deliver and the client knew what to expect. When the results came in, the conversation about what came next was easy.”
Implementing technology that would improve sales performance
Both the client and TELUS Digital came into this program believing that human agents were central to the sales experience they wanted to deliver. Technology would only earn its place if it made those agents more effective. That shaped where TELUS Digital applied AI first.
Fuel iX™ Agent Trainer is an AI-powered roleplay simulator that gives agents a safe environment to practice objection handling, empathy and up-sell technique before they handle live customer calls. Working through customizable scenarios, agents receive immediate feedback after each simulation. Managers get a dashboard view of every training session, which means coaching can be tailored to individual performance rather than delivered generically to the whole class.
For this program, Agent Trainer was specifically configured around the interactions sales agents would likely face: customers with product questions, high-stakes conversion moments and situations that called for empathy. What agents struggled with during nesting didn't wait for a curriculum review. It was fed back into training for the next cohort, keeping Agent Trainer's output connected to the same feedback loop driving the rest of the program.
A ninety-day pilot that exceeded every benchmark
By treating cultural alignment, customer feedback and shared accountability as operational requirements rather than aspirations, TELUS Digital and the client built a program that outperformed on every measure that mattered.
Customer sentiment
- 22% tNPS improvement vs. the ecommerce company’s previous partner
- 61.54% tNPS YTD against a 60% target, with customer feedback actively shaping training throughout
Revenue performance
- 33% revenue growth from Q1 to Q2
- Average monthly revenue grew from $344K to $457K as the team reached full operating rhythm
Sales performance
- Conversion rate of 25%, up from 20%
- 30% above conversion goal during the nesting period
- Sales per full-time employee (FTE) per day reached $18,039 against a guideline of $15,594, exceeded in every week of the ramp
Program growth
- Team headcount doubled within six months of launch
- Expansion decision triggered within 90 days, driven by results rather than contract obligation
Cultural fit, a live feedback loop and shared accountability turned a 90-day test into the brand's fastest-ever ramp, and the start of a long-term partnership. If you're evaluating how to scale sales capacity without losing what defines your brand, explore B2B Sales Outsourcing from TELUS Digital or talk to our team about structuring a pilot of your own.
