Wires and Cables · Sales Agent

The Challenge

The answer was in the brochure. The rep was at the counter.

Dealers, electricians and contractors ask technical questions on the spot. Reps had a detailed technical brochure, but no fast way to find the right line in front of a customer.

Specs buried in PDFs

Current ratings, standards and approvals sat across dense brochure tables. Searching them on a phone at a counter rarely worked.

Product team as helpdesk

Reps phoned product managers or posted in WhatsApp groups. Answers came hours later, often after the customer had moved on.

Confident, but wrong

Under pressure, reps answered from memory. FR, FR-LSH and fire-survival ranges were sometimes mixed up in front of specifiers.

Slow ramp for new reps

New joiners took months to learn the range. Until then, each customer conversation leaned on a senior colleague.

HMC Approach

Narrow first, trusted always

One brochure, one sales team, strict guardrails. Coverage grew only after trust was earned.

Select a step to see what happened.

Discover · Collect the real questions

We started from what reps actually get asked, not from the brochure's table of contents.

Gathered about 150 real field questions from reps, WhatsApp groups and product managers.
Mapped each question to the brochure section that answers it, or flagged it as unanswerable.
Chose the Construction & Building range as the first knowledge source.

Deliverable: Question bank with expected answers and source pages.

Design · Write the guardrails before the prompt

The agent's behaviour was agreed with sales leadership first.

Answer only from the brochure. If it isn't there, say so plainly.
When unsure, offer options and tell the rep to double-check with their manager.
No pricing, discounts or commitments; those stay with the sales manager.
Built inside the existing Microsoft 365 tenant, so IT governance stayed intact.

Deliverable: Agent instructions and an escalation rule set.

Build · Configure, test, tune

Built in Microsoft 365 Copilot's Agent Builder, with the technical brochure as the only knowledge source.

Instructions written for field use: short answers, ratings and standards first.
Graded the full question bank against expected answers; tuned until accuracy held.
Deliberately tested out-of-scope questions to confirm clean refusals.

Deliverable: "Cable Ready Reckoner" agent and a test scorecard.

Adopt · Put it in the rep's pocket

Pilot with the construction and building sales team, on mobile.

Short demos in regional sales meets, using questions reps had asked that month.
Product managers redirected routine WhatsApp questions to the agent.
A weekly review of escalated and declined questions with the product team.

Deliverable: Pilot usage report and a refined question bank.

Scale · More ranges, same rules

New brochures are added one at a time, each with its own test set.

Additional product ranges onboarded after passing their question-bank tests.
Declined questions reviewed monthly; the gaps feed brochure and training updates.
The product team owns knowledge updates; sales ops owns adoption.

Deliverable: Onboarding checklist for new knowledge sources.

The Solution

Where a field question goes, before and after

Follow 100 typical product questions from the rep to the outcome. Toggle to see how the agent reroutes them. Hover a flow for detail.

Per 100 product questions · indicative

Answered within minutes

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Wrong or never answered

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Agent guardrails

Answer only from the brochure.
If it isn't there, say no clearly.
When unsure, give options and ask the rep to check with their manager.

Technical Brochure, Construction and Building Range, cover — **Knowledge source.** The Construction & Building Range technical brochure, and nothing else.

Cable Ready Reckoner agent in Microsoft 365 Agent Builder, answering a question about FLAMEX FR-LSH — **As built.** Cable Ready Reckoner in Microsoft 365 Agent Builder: field-focused instructions on the right, a FLAMEX FR-LSH answer on the left.

Try it: three ways the agent responds

Sample exchanges based on the brochure

Impact Dashboard

Usage grew; escalations shrank

Weekly volume rose as reps built the habit. The share needing escalation fell as the question bank sharpened the instructions.

Weekly questions handled

By outcome, first 12 weeks of rollout

AnsweredEscalated with optionsDeclined, not in brochure

What reps ask about

Question volume by topic and week

FewerMore questions

Figures indicative; validated metrics available on request.

Before vs After

What changed for the field team

Dimension	Before	After
Finding a spec	Scroll a PDF or call someone	Ask in plain language, answer in seconds
Product recommendation	From memory; ranges sometimes confused	Grounded in the brochure's use cases and ratings
Unknown questions	Guessed, or left unanswered	Clear "not in the brochure" plus a route to the manager
Consistency	Depended on who you asked	Same answer for every rep, every time
New joiners	Months of shadowing seniors	Confident on product questions from week one
Content gaps	Invisible	Declined questions reviewed monthly by the product team

Key Takeaways

What transfers to any field sales agent

Ground narrowly to earn trust

One brochure and one team first. A small agent that is always right beats a broad one that is sometimes wrong.

"I don't know" is a feature

A clean refusal with a route to the manager protected credibility with specifiers and customers.

Declined questions are a roadmap

What the agent can't answer shows exactly where the brochure, training or product range needs work.

Sales Agent: the Cable Ready Reckoner