- Encourage personalized selling -- Selling is about people. One person offers something of value – a product, a service, a promise... The other person wants it enough to offer something of value back to get it – money, time, attention.... The better the two people understand each other, the more likely it is that the sale will happen.
Six Steps of Personalized Selling
Engage the Customer – Find the people who care and invite them to pay attention
Qualify Prospects – Focus your time and energy on the people most likely to buy
Educate to Build Value – Build emotional commitment through information sharing
Manage the Buying Process – Control the sale by making it easy to buy
Close the Sale – Create momentum and negotiate success
Sustain the Relationships – Turn every sale into a repeat customer
2. Have call center sales incentives in place -- You may already have incentives in place for your sales teams, but it's just as important to have sales incentives for call center agents who are selling your products or services. However, the incentives that will motivate your sales staff differ from what will motivate your call center agents. Customer service representatives are more likely to be motivated by the feeling of having helped someone, and aren't usually as competitive as sales reps. Customer service representatives, on the other hand, are generally motivated by the feeling of having "helped someone" and are not usually competitive, so the stacked ranking thing will go over very poorly with this group. Here, the emphasis should be on non-variable compensation with some achievement-based variable compensation mixed in. While variable compensation could look like gifts, "employee of the month" prizes or extra flex time (and these are all good ideas),
3. Provide call center sales training -- Call center agents who weren't originally hired to sell often feel nervous about selling, so it's important to provide sales training in the call center. Call center agents are more likely to be motivated to up-sell when they are well informed about the products, so training is a critical part of the acclimation process. A sales training course should address the ability to recognize a sales opportunity and how to segue from handling a service issue into a sales interaction. The training should also include thorough instruction in product features, customer benefits, sales techniques, communication skills and how to overcome customer objections. Ideally, the course should utilize extensive role-playing to help alleviate the initial awkwardness inherent in practicing a new skill. As agents often learn best from their peers, it is helpful to share best practice examples of real sales calls from highly effective call center agents. If at all possible, give your staff an opportunity to get hands-on experience by allowing them to use the product or service that they are selling. Call center agents with first-hand knowledge are better able to articulate product or service features and benefits and can communicate the information with confidence.
Once the training is concluded, it is important to coach call center agents with directed feedback on a frequent, consistent and timely basis. If agents are being rated on sales results as part of their performance appraisal, use a phased approach to set realistic and attainable goals. Lastly, remember to recognize, communicate and reward performance improvements and sales goal achievements.
4. Incorporate peer training and coaching -- Call center agents often learn best by following the lead of an outstanding performer. Have new agents sit in on calls with a successful call center agent so they can learn methods to keep customers interested and achieve successful close rates. Sharing the best practices of successful call center agents can also be helpful for new agents just getting started or agents who are having trouble making sales.
5. Use the right call center sales metrics -- If your call center agents are selling, it's important to evaluate the metrics your call center is measuring and make sure they encourage agents to meet business goals. For example, in a sales-driven call center, a customer service representative may take fewer calls, but those calls may have higher sales value. Neither calls per hour or availability are a good indication of productivity. Both metrics can be easily manipulated and do not necessarily measure how productive a customer service representative (CSR) or call center may be. A common trend we see is that call centers are moving away from volume-based metrics and towards true performance-based metrics. A good example of a call center performance metricwould be call quality. A particular CSR may take fewer calls, but his or her quality of work and service is very high. As a result, there are fewer call backs, resulting in lower costs. Similarly, a CSR in a sales call center may take fewer calls, but produce a higher sales value. In each case, the true metric of their productivity, quality or sales, is not based on volume.
The most effective call center metrics are the ones that drive your call center activities to match your goals. I would first make sure you know what your goals are -- quality, low cost, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, etc. -- and develop your metrics to meet those goals. Remember, metrics drive performance.
