Turning Customer Service Centers into Sales Centers
Konstantin Kishinsky, CEO, BrightPattern
+1 650-529-4099
Konstantin.Kishinksy@brightpattern.com
Jodi Beuder is a Marketing Manager for Impact Learning Systems, a division of Miller Heiman.
To get to the heart of customer experience, Impact Learning Systems provides Customer Service, Technical Support, and Inside Sales Training to corporate teams across the globe. Clients have included Yahoo!, Brocade Networks, IBM, the DMV, Marketo and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Jodi has dedicated her career of over 17 years, including key marketing executive roles, to assisting companies grow their brand presence and sales, and most importantly, their customer retention and satisfaction.
Question: Why should contact centers combine service centers with sales centers?
Jodi: It’s well understood that Contact Centers can be money-makers or money-losers, depending on how they’re run, and the type of company they belong to. Typically, contact centers focus on customer service, helping customers solve problems or find solutions – which may be great for the brand and product, but this singular purpose often turns a contact center into a money pit for the company. A popular solution is simply to combine the contact center into a customer service/sales center, meaning that the agents continue customer service and add up-selling and cross-selling to their job duties.
Question: That sounds easy, but it’s got to be hard, isn’t it?
Jodi: It’s difficult without the proper training of contact center agents. If managers expect agents to just start selling in addition to taking care of customer issues, it could churn, both with staff, and customers. For the contact center agents who feel forced into becoming a salesperson with little to no training, the company could see a staff loss as high as 25%. In addition, if the agent doesn’t do a good job at up-selling or cross-selling to a customer who just called in with a problem, that customer might leave with a bad taste in their mouth, so to speak, and the company loses customers as well.
Question: What steps should management take to avoid that churn?
Jodi: Management needs to invest time and budget in training contact center staff. Management needs to communicate to the staff that they are investing in their career development and job satisfaction. As most managers know, when employees feel like they are being treated well, and are given opportunities to grow, they will be more satisfied at work and therefore much more likely to stay.
Question: How does management get staff to buy-in to the training, and their new role?
Jodi: Management also has the responsibility to ensure that this training is not just executed and implemented, but that it is accepted and appreciated by the trainees. Managers and trainers need to approach the inside sales training event as an exciting opportunity for their staff. Positive reinforcement goes a long way, too.
We’re increasingly seeing “gamification” enter the virtual contact center space. Managers can create fun games to track the successes of the agents that take on their newly learned skills and implement them into their daily job. Management can also put up a success board in the break room as a way to feature staff members’ names. Rewards for great work don’t always have to be monetary. If the staff sees that what they were trained to do has an impact on the company’s bottom line, and that management cares about their successes, they will be much more inclined to put more effort into their work.
Question: Once the staff buys in to training, what are some of the keys to training success?
Jodi: One of the first objectives, when teaching inside sales skills, is teaching the agents to truly listen to customers’ need; simply asking the reps to “sell, sell, sell” may drive away the customer if it’s not in response to a customer need. A more effective contact center sales training approach focuses on listening to customer needs, and encourages the agent to consider ways to add value for the customer – by providing additional information about the product, for example, and then suggesting complementary products or services. But only IF it truly will benefit the customer.
Question: I think you are saying that any agent can become a salesperson…with the right training?
Jodi: Definitely. Companies are trying to maximize revenue from every department. They are asking customer service agents to up-sell or cross-sell during support calls… they’re asking their support engineers to increase service level agreements and add on warranty agreements. With the proper training, that helps these folks maintain enthusiasm about their current job and newfound skills, anyone can learn how to be a salesperson.
To watch a full, recorded, webinar on this topic, visit Bright Pattern’s website at http://www.brightpattern.com/turn-your-support-center-into-a-sales-center-webinar/
Konstantin Kishinsky, CEO, BrightPattern
+1 650-529-4099
Konstantin.Kishinksy@brightpattern.com
Konstantin has a strong background leading engineering and advanced application development teams. Konstantin has served in key management roles including Director of Engineering at Genesys Telecommunication Laboratories, Inc. (Alcatel since 2000), VP of Product Development at FrontRange, and Founder and CEO of Cayo Communications, Inc. Konstantin attended the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, earning a Master’s in Engineering Physics. He holds six patents and has published seven scientific articles.