Sales representatives must be able to communicate the company’s CSR commitments clearly and proportionately. They must understand the most pressing environmental and social issues in their sector of activity. They must also understand how their company is addressing these issues in concrete terms.

Best practice: Organise role-playing exercises. Your teams must practise summarising the main corporate commitments in a few sentences. They must be able to illustrate them with objectives, tangible indicators and examples of concrete achievements.

Sales representatives are an integral part of the supply chain and are generally at the end of it. As a result, they must take ownership of the work done by the marketing, R&D and purchasing teams to make the supply chain more environmentally friendly. They need to understand the eco-design levers that have been implemented at different stages of the product/packaging life cycle. The challenge for sales representatives is then to translate these reductions in negative impact into benefits for their customers.

Best practice: Use case studies to analyse the environmental and social impacts of a flagship product and its packaging, for example through a simplified life cycle analysis. Then, have sales argument sheets completed for each product range, identifying the technical, environmental and social benefits. Finally, translate these benefits into concrete advantages for the customer.

Environmental and social labels are increasingly complementing eco-design initiatives. They serve as guarantees for end customers that genuine efforts are being made. They are powerful tools for reassuring and convincing customers, provided you know how to explain the strengths of the certification specifications.

Best practice: Organise quizzes to understand the scope of the guarantees offered by the product labels obtained by your company. Then, organise very short pitch sessions associated with each label.

Not all customers are equally sensitive or aware of the challenges of ecological transition. Salespeople need to be kept up to date on industry trends and their customers’ preferences in terms of sustainability. This will enable them to tailor their pitch to their customers’ level of maturity on these issues and be better equipped to answer their questions.

Best practice: Train your teams to quickly analyse a customer’s profile and expectations in order to adapt their pitch. Use role-playing exercises to practise responding to common customer questions and defusing frequent objections or barriers.

For training to be effective, sales representatives must understand that they are not mere messengers, but key players in the company’s transformation. Being in contact with customers, they are able to identify weak signals, expectations and unmet needs. They can also detect competing offers that are more advanced in terms of sustainability and report them to other internal departments. They are also the external representatives of the company: they therefore have a certain responsibility to ‘visibly embody’ their company’s commitments (professional mobility practices, use of sales materials, etc.).

Best practice: Organise a brainstorming session on the actions that sales representatives can take to make CSR a permanent part of their daily work.

Training product sales representatives in CSR is not just a matter of giving them product sheets with label descriptions. It is about equipping them to become ambassadors for your commitments to customers. We regularly use the above five best practices when we train: Sales Representatives & CSR