Is there anybody out there who isn’t trying to transform their front line staff from service to sales? If so, you are definitely in the minority. There are many reasons that the transition from service to sales is taking place. The first reason is the “do not call” and the possible “do not spam” legislation prohibiting outbound centers from selling to customers. Outbound centers that relied solely on their agents to sell to customers have had their leads cut drastically. They now are reliant on inbound agents to snag potential business by offering sales when the customer calls into the center for a service call.
The economic environment is another reason contact centers are converting to sales. Businesses continue to analyze their individual units piece by piece, looking for anything that will lower operating expenses and increase revenues. An obvious solution is to up-sell or cross-sell to existing customers, thus increasing the revenue per call. But how do you transition your agents from service to sales?
You may not be able to transition them all but here are some ideas that may help. First, review and modify your job descriptions to include selling as part of agents’ daily job function. You should clearly identify the type of selling you are expecting such as solution selling, cross-selling or up-selling. Next, modify the list of requirements and attributes on your interview form to include sales skills. This will give you a better chance at hiring employees with solid selling skills.
Don’t forget to help transition your current agents by developing sales training targeted to them as well as your new hires. Sales training should include both product knowledge and technique. Product training should include how products work, how much they cost, why a customer would want to purchase and most important, the value to the customer. It is critical that your agents believe in the products and services that they are selling.
Technique training should include things like scripting to help service agents through the transition. In the beginning, it will not feel natural for them to ask for the sale. Repetition will help agents build confidence and competency and not be as reliant on the scripts. It also is important to teach your agents to ask the customer for the sale if they show interest in a particular item. If the customer wishes to purchase a particular product, ask them for the upgrade or cross-sell to a related product. Just make sure that if agents are cross-selling, they provide an offer that makes sense to the customer. For example, if I called a catalogue center to purchase a pair of earrings, it would make sense for the agent to offer the matching necklace, not a pair of wool socks.
Another idea to help transition agents is to create a culture in which agents truly believe they are servicing the customer by asking for the sale, and by not making the offer, it is a disservice to the customer. I don’t know about you, but as a customer, I want to know about the additional product offerings and services of the companies I’ve chosen to do business.
Post tags: service to sales, contact center coaching, call center, contact centre
4:22 PM
Add Comment (0)