5 Classic Call Centre Mistakes

Call Centre projects are, in many ways, similar to other corporate development projects such as large IT roll-outs or public works projects such as construction. However, call centres differ in the approach to project management, tending to be much less formal and planned than more classic project management tasks. This can be a problem as an absence of the rigour of project planning can lead to mistakes, reworking, delays, etc. The cause of the informality? Time pressures. Call centres are a Now Now Now environment. Reacting rather than planning.

Of course, planners do exist in call centres, but the environment is one of contstant change. Some have likened call centre developments to changing a tyre on your car whilst hurteling down the motorway at 80 mph.

Mistake # 1 - poor planning

If necessity is the mother of invention, then despair and desperation are the twin sons of poor planning. The more time spent on planning campaigns, planning technology, planning people, then the better the outcomes. Always.

Mistake # 2 - lack of preparation for training

There is no training session, ever, that can recover from a lack of preparation. Training is critical in call centres and requires smooth and confident execution. Smooth, confident execution is not about sharp suits and a winning smile, it's about the room, the facilities, the content, how well the trainer knows the material, making attendees feel at ease, etc.

Mistake # 3 - not listening to calls

One question to ask campaign managers, particularly those with poorly performing campaigns, is: How many calls have you listened to? If the answer is any of the following, send them back to the call centre: Er, none, I listened to a few at the start, I asked a coach to listen to some calls, I have the recordings on a CD but not got round to it yet, or anything similar. If at all possible, do not do it remotely, visit the centre.

Mistake # 4 - thinking your Masters degree counts for more than a call centre advisor's experience.

A life spent in a call centre is a life full of diversity. Advisors come in all shapes and sizes and frequently represent many different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. Diversity is to be celebrated. Just because someone left school at 16 and looks like they're only interested in Football and Big Macs does not mean they are less than you. Be humble in the call centre. These people all have hopes, dreams, fears and challenges. Just like you. These fine people are trusted by the call centre management team so you should trust them too. They are your company's front line in customer interaction and they are vital to service delivery. You probably, are not. They are paid a fraction of what you are paid. Bear that in mind when you sit with them to listen to calls. They face the same task list day after day. You probably, do not. Do not dare to criticise them in the specific unless you are prepared to put on the headset yourself. Give feedback in general, to groups of advisors, and be humble. The surest way to make your campaign fail is to have advisors thinking you're full of shit.

NB this advice covers 95% of advisors. There is another 5% who are, ... well, rogues. It is not your job to deal with rogues - that's why you have call centre managers. The rogues are disruptive, argumentative, negative. Basically, high maintenance. They also tend to be smart, individualistic and probably will have a shorter tenure than average in the call centre. They may well be the best performers if properly motivated. Be humble and do not take the bait, especially in a group situation.

Mistake # 5 - not briefing the call centre

New calls arriving at the call centre, which were not expected are a call centre managers nightmare. They blow a hole in her capacity planning model and negatively impact key efficiency metrics like Average Wait Time and Abandoned Call Percentage. The business will use this as a stick to beat the CCM. So, keep the call centre informed of new projects, workstreams, etc. Similarly, make sure that the briefing is comprehensive and if it's a month on month project, ensure that the facets of month 4 are given equal attention as those of month 1. For example, it's common to find people rushing to the call centre for month 1 launch, but fewer make the journey down the motorway on a wet January morning to kick off the month 5 briefing. Advisors will pick up on this.

Copyright Robert A Innes

Up-Selling and Cross-Selling in a Call

Here we are going to look at the process of intelligently selling to customers using the telephone. Done intelligently the selling process in call centres is nothing like the dreaded cold calling that causes so many problems for the telemarketing industry. It is important to recognise that we are sold things all the time. We try to believe that we are buyers but actually, often, we are being sold to. The telephone is just another channel to carry out this age-old activity. Selling can be a service, for example, if you intended to renew a subscription to a favourite magazine and the advisor offers you 10% discount if you sign for two years rather than one, wouldn’t you take it? Most people would because it’s a good deal and unexpected. For the publisher it gives longevity of customer base and secures more subscribers for longer, upping their advertising sales pitch to brand advertisers. You benefit by extending for longer (let’s face it, you probably would anyway) so a discount for longer commitment is a good thing. So selling is good! Selling is not evil. Firstly some definitions:

Up-sell – the process of increasing the value of a sale, for example, in selling Roadside Assistance, moving a customer from basic cover to higher levels of cover to include, for example, Home Start or Relay (in the case of AA).

Cross-sell – the process of augmenting a customer’s product holding with one product area to another, for example, contacting personal loan customers and selling them credit cards.

Re-sell – taking a further opportunity to sell another product from a current range to a customer. For example, contacting customers who bought commemorative plates from one series and then re-contacting them and selling further commemorative plates from a different series.

Renewals – capturing the customer’s commitment for a further period of time, for example, getting customers to renew a subscription service or

In a call centre, there are basically three types of sales call. There is the out and out sales campaign where sales advisors outbound call through a list and try to sell a range of products to the target customers. An example might be a lapsed customer re-solicitation campaign. Then there are sales through service calls where an additional sales opportunity might be brought into the call once the servicing details are dealt with. These are usually inbound campaigns and an example of this might be a magazine publisher’s subscription renewal service, where an additional product or sale might be brought into the call, such as two-year renewals, automatic renewals, etc. The third type of call are pure servicing calls, always inbound, where a customer is seeking help or advice on an element of a current product, such as a banks customer service facility. Here, the additional sales opportunity might come up as a result of the dialogue between customer and advisor and is not expected by the customer. This last example has to be dealt with tactfully, for example, it is rarely smart to offer a new credit card to a customer complaining about branch closures.

Now for a good example of active selling from Direct Line, the UK Insurer. Customer calls to renew motor car insurance. Call proceeds as normal with advisor checking policy details and advising of any new features and then re-quoting for a further 12 months. On gaining the customer commitment, the advisor asks a leading question (scripted): Do you have roadside assistance? No I don’t says the customer. Advisor then talks of the benefits in general terms and then quick as a flash picks up on baby crying in the background and adds “you wouldn’t want your wife and baby to be out and about and breakdown and not be covered, would you? And I can do 25% discount off our top service for you today”. Very smart. Very, very smart. Let’s deconstruct that simple phrase as it actually contains several parts:

a) “your wife” – using information from earlier in the call in making up the policy quote
b) “and baby” – using audible information from the background and making an assumption about the baby’s relationship to the customer. Correctly in this case
c) “you wouldn’t want” and “breakdown and not be covered” – paint a picture and trigger basic fear
d) “And I can do” – I bring the solution, complete peace of mind
e) “today” – there is urgency in completing this transaction
f) “25% discount” – there is immediate benefit to you over and above the peace of mind.

Sold! Not only that, sold straight into the top package. Really excellent job done and nicely handled by the advisor.

The above dialogue cannot be directly trained for. What you can do however, is provide an environment where advisors can use their autonomy to think on their feet and provide forums to role-play similar situations. You must also appropriately reward the advisors for using their initiative whilst continuing to deliver a good basic service. No point rushing through the servicing bit to get to the sales bit to earn bonus.

Setting an appropriate reward scheme to encourage positive behaviour and deliver positive customer outcomes is a whole other article!

Copyright 2006 Robert A Innes