Taking an order on the phone

Let's take an order from hello to paid. Start by signing in with the email and password your manager set up for you. Reps go straight to the deal screen — there's no admin area to learn, just this one tool.

This is the deal screen. The green banner tells you which book you're selling. Across the top is the business you're speaking to. The whole sale is just three quick tabs — company details, the school their books go to, then books and payment — with two finish buttons: Send proof, and Send deal.

Step one is the company details. A lot of this drops in from the dialler, but read it back to the customer — these exact words get printed on the book cover, so spelling matters. Handy trick: click any box and it spells the word out in the phonetic alphabet, so you can read it back without fumbling. Check the email is valid, add any notes from the call, and save.

Under the business name there's a button that looks the customer up on the official Companies House register — no need to open another website. Pick the right one from the list, and you'll see whether they're still trading, how long they've been going, who the directors are, and whether their accounts are overdue. A company that's been going since 1978 is a very different conversation from one incorporated last month, and a red panel means they're dissolved or in liquidation — stop and check with the office before you take that order. If the register spells the name differently from what you typed, one click takes the official version.

Same idea with the address. Type the postcode, press Find address, and you get the real Royal Mail addresses at it — pick theirs and every field fills itself in, properly spelled and properly spaced. If it's a big building with dozens of units, type part of the address first and the list narrows. It's quicker than typing it, and it means the books actually arrive.

Step two — the school. This is the school that receives the books. Search by name or postcode, and the ones nearest the customer come up first with the mileage, which is perfect when the customer says 'somewhere local'. Tap the right school and you're done.

Step three is books and payment. Choose the package, check the price and total, and if you're offering a saving for paying quickly, pop it in here. That saving runs on a timer, so the customer has a reason to pay today rather than next week.

One last thing before you send. The system takes a quick look at what you've typed and, if something seems off, it says so in an amber panel — a name in capitals, a town spelled wrong, an address that doesn't exist at that postcode. Where it knows the right answer there's a Use this button. It is a warning, not a blocker: press send a second time and it goes exactly as you typed it. Worth reading though, because these details are printed on a real book.

When everything's right you have two ways to finish, and picking the right one is the skill. If they've said yes, hit Send deal — that books the order, raises the invoice and sends the payment link, all before you hang up. If they'd like to see it first, hit Send proof instead — they get the cover to look at with no invoice attached, you stay right here on the call, and the deal parks itself in your call-backs to pick up later.

This is your home screen, and it earns its keep. The tiles show your week — proofs out, deals booked, paid. Below is every proof still waiting on a customer. The seen badge tells you they've actually opened their link — that's who to push. The coloured dot shows age: green is fresh, red is going stale. Your dialler does the ringing back — and when that call connects, the second web-form button drops you straight into their deal. If one's dead, hit the cross and it's off your list; the record stays for the office.

Here's what lands on the customer's phone. They see the actual cover going on the books, with their business details printed on it. They can correct a detail or even change the school. If you sent a proof, they hit Confirm my order and the invoice raises itself; then they pay securely by card — payments are handled by Stripe, so card details never touch us. And if they spot a typo after they've paid, that's fine — they can still fix it right up until the books actually go to print, so a wrong school or a misspelt name never gets locked in just because they were quick to pay. Once they pay, the order moves to the office automatically.

One more thing: if a screen ever does something odd, don't battle it — hit Report a problem in the corner, type a line about what happened, and send. It tells the tech team exactly where you were, and you can carry on with your call.

And keep an eye on the wallboard — the board on the office screen. It shows every rep's sales for the week, fresh and chased, and where you are on bonus. A little friendly competition never hurts. That's a full order, start to finish — nice work.