Direct action pays off for Phonelink

Online software supplier Phonelink has increased its indirect sales less than 18 months after opting for a direct sales policy following poor sales in 1994.

The company also tied up an OEM deal with IBM and OEM and bundling agreements with Apricot, Action, Frontline and Watford Electronics.

Despite the fact that Phone-link switched to mainly direct selling in December 1994, marketing strategy director Chris Knowles has noticed an upturn in its dealer channel sales in the past four months.

'As the corporate awareness in online services and Phone-link increases, our indirect sales have climbed to nearly 10 per cent,' he said.

'There is not a pot of gold in selling Tel Me (Phonelink's online software), but it works as a foot in the door and companies often need networking, more power or operating systems to install it.'

Knowles said that Phonelink would not terminate reseller agreements to take business direct but confirmed that the company's in-house sales team was Phonelink's primary route to market. 'We have learned from our mistakes and we have been in online for years. We position Tel Me as complementary to the Internet,' he said.

Phonelink will release the latest version of Tel Me next week, including 18 applications, following an additional stock market placing three weeks ago which raised u15 million.