12 best practices of high selling call centers
July 24, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Best Practices, Call Center Metrics
Without a doubt many contact centers are moving to a call center as a profit center.
Most likely your center has changed their model to this or are moving in this direction. No matter the case, this article falls under the Call Center Best Practices category.
Please comment at the end of this article with your thoughts…
Call Center Sales – Best Practices
By Mike Aoki
Want to improve your call center’s sales results? Here are the 12 best practices of high selling call centers
Clearly communicate sales targets:
- Set expectations: Communicate sales objectives on a daily basis so your Agents know exactly what is expected of them.
- Provide feedback: Post daily sales results at each Agent’s desk or on-line so they know how they are performing versus expectations.
- Spot trends: Analyze results per Agent and, per product, to determine trends. Use these trends to coach your team to higher performance.
Train your call center Agents on how to sell:
- Hold sales skills workshops: Having good customer service skills isn’t enough. They need to attend a call center sales workshop so they can learn how to upsell and right size client accounts.
- Conduct product knowledge training: During team meetings, have each call center Agent take turns doing a five minute presentation on the key selling benefits of a product.
- Distribute current competitive information: Train your Agents on how your products and services compare to your competitors. Provide them with solid answers they can use when a client says, “But your competitor offers…”
Provide a “big picture” perspective for your Agents:
- Key Business Indicators: Ensure your Agents understand how their performance impacts your department, your company and its customers.
Motivate your call center Agents:
- Rewards and recognition: Give out out prizes for “Most Improved Performer” or “Top Ten Salespeople.” The rewards can be food, movie passes or company branded items like mugs or caps.
- Motivational ideas: Use one idea per week from an employee motivation book like “1,001 Ways to Reward Employees” by Bob Nelson and Ken Blanchard to encourage your team.
- Post a “Wall of Fame”: Show photos of the top sales Agent for each product. Beneath each photo, have that Agent share their best sales tips on how to sell that particular product.
Constantly reinforce your team’s sales performance:
- Share best practices: Discuss sales tips at every team meeting, shift huddle and one-on-one coaching session.
- Send out a “Sales Tip of the Day” to your Agents: Ask your top-selling Agents to write the tips so they get public recognition.
Use these 12 tips to improve your call center’s up-selling and rightsizing performance. Ensure your Agents understand how their performance impacts your department, your company and its customers.
© 2008 Reflective Keynotes Inc., Toronto, Canada
Mike Aoki is a corporate trainer and motivational speaker with 20 years of experience in the telecom industry. For more free tips on public speaking, sales and call center techniques, visit http://www.reflectivekeynotes.com/articles.htm
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Aoki
http://EzineArticles.com/?Call-Center-Sales—Best-Practices&id=1147689
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Call Center Metrics & Command Center
July 13, 2009 by Angie
Filed under Call Center Metrics
Executive Summary
To improve the efficiency of the a contact center, it is necessary to implement industry standard metrics.
- A call center has an opportunity to improve its efficiency by leveraging the right measures to drive accountability at the department, supervisor, and associate levels
- There are several industry standard call center metrics that the a contact center will benefit from implementing
- A cross-functional task force was developed to implement the right metrics for the contact center prior to peak season
- The role of the command center is changing to support these initiatives and to more effectively manage the network
The Current Contact Center Environment
An analysis of the a contact center uncovers some improvement opportunities.
Accountability
Associates fundamentally know that they should be on the phone, but the right measures are not implemented to monitor this behavior.
As a result . . .
- Supervisors do not have the right information to hold associates accountable for doing the job that they are being paid to do
- Management does not have the right information to hold supervisors accountable for their associate’s production
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Call Center Metrics: Bill To Pay or Productive To Pay
July 12, 2009 by Angie
Filed under Call Center Metrics
Measuring Productivity through Bill to Paid to maximize revenue
Bill-to-pay (B2P), also known as Productive-to-Paid (P2P)
Bill To Pay is the measure of the amount of time an associate is productive relative to the amount of time the associate is paid (or the amount of time billed to the client)
B2P is typically a measure that outsourced contact centers use to track percent of agent time that is billed to the client. P2P is typically the measure in-house contact centers use to measure how productive their agent base is
Represented as a Percentage of total paid time.
When used in conjunction with Occupancy, is a powerful tool for managing the effectiveness of the overall contact center. Here is the formula:
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Seven Ways To Be More Effective Using Metrics
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Call Center Metrics
By Lorre Zuppan
Many organizations use performance metrics as a method for staying on strategy and measuring their progress. For many, however, it’s difficult to tell whether the effort put into gathering and reporting the measurements is worth the results. For those defining their measures through review of a standardized laundry list, any performance lift is mediocre at best.
Reviewing the right measurements, however, can transform your organization and significantly improve your performance. If you don’t have time to waste on mediocre measurements –and who does– here are seven tips for selecting measurements that will help everyone be more effective.
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Why Training Metrics Are Important
March 6, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Call Center Metrics
Many companies invest a lot of their time and resources on their people. Training programs are often organized to expand the knowledge and skills of employees. To evaluate how effective these programs are, training metrics are developed.
Training is commonly described as the process of acquiring knowledge, competencies and skills. At present, many have recognized the fact that sufficient investments should be allotted for training programs or professional development programs in order to get more productivity from the workforce. Training can be classified as off-the-job or on-the-job training. Venues for off-the-job trainings are usually away from the normal workplace. This is advantageous since trainees are more able to concentrate on the training material this way. Meanwhile, on-the-job training is given within the workplace and usually involves the use of actual equipment, tools, and documents. This kind of training is said to be more effective for vocational trainings.
