Call Center Skills

Are you struggling to turn your call center into a sales focused area? One of my clients recently had the same challenge.

This electronic supply company's call center was originally focused on customer service only. Since call centers require a large staff, work stations, and expensive call routing equipment, the call center was viewed as a "cost center" by senior management. In other words, they were a drain on the company's budget.

So, call center management decided to transition to a more sales focused role. They asked Agents to suggest additional products to customers. They trained their Agents to "up-sell" new services during inbound calls.

And it worked! By generating add-on sales, the call center became a area that made money, instead of being an expense.

If you want to make this transition, here are 10 call center skills to create a sales focused inbound call center.

1) Have a good Service Level:

You must take care of the customer's initial inquiry in a timely fashion to earn the right to up sell. If you can't take care of the initial enquiry fast enough, you shouldn't be trying to further dampen service levels by attempting to up sell.

2) Change the call center culture from a "service" mind set to a "service and sales" mind set:

Often, Agents can be resistant to change. As one Agent said to me, "I'm a service person, not one of those 'sales people.'" It's crucial to transition the call center's culture to a sales mind set to reach full potential.

3) Update your hiring practices:

In your recruitment and in your interviews, find people who are service AND sales focused.

4) Train your Agents on HOW to sell:

Sales people aren't born, they are trained. Your Agents deserve to be properly trained on call center sales skills so they can succeed.

5) Train your Team Managers on HOW to SALES coach and give them the time to do it:

Call center sales coaching is different from call quality coaching and your Team Managers deserve to be trained on the new skills required in a sales call center. Coaching must be a priority to reinforce the sales culture.

6) Set clear sales targets and communicate them to the Agents:

Don't just do it once in a meeting, reinforce it daily or weekly at rallies, team huddles, and performance appraisals.

7) Have a balance between call quality and sales results:

Good sales calls are efficient calls because a well-trained Agent knows how to ask questions, listen for answers and close effectively.

8) Measure and update each Agent on their results:

Give them a goal to aim for and let them frequently know how they are progressing. What gets measured, gets done.

9) Show how call center sales targets affect the "big picture":

Let your Agents and Team Managers know WHY sales are important and how they help the bottom line. Educate them about your business. You'd be surprised how hard people will work if they know they are making a difference.

10) Reward individual and team success:

Have contests, give out prizes, do team rallies and reward days. Change your compensation or bonus structure to reward top performers and encourage further sales success.

One of the keys to providing better customer service is to keep your call center Agents up to date. The best way to do this is run daily team huddles and monthly team meetings. Here are five tips that will help you make your meeting time more effective:

1) How is a call center team huddle different from a formal meeting?

A team huddle is usually an informal 10-15 minute long meeting held just before a shift takes the floor. They are typically held daily. Or, several times a day for call centers with multiple shifts. They usually take place on the call center floor. They are meant to give urgent information to Agents such as that day's hot issues, equipment problems, etc.

In comparison, a formal team meeting occurs once or twice a month. They take place in a regular meeting room and involve a set, pre-announced agenda. The topics include upcoming product or policy changes, and refresher training.

2) What is the recommended location for a team huddle?

You can hold a team huddle in a breakout room or meeting room (if you have the space.) However most call centres hold their team huddles in an open space on the call center floor. Since a huddle is very brief - just 10-15 minutes long - there's no point in booking a dedicated meeting room for it. Just make sure the noise from your huddle does not disturb any nearby Agents who are on a call.

3) How often should you do a team huddle? What time of day should it be held?

Informal huddles are usually done daily. The best time for a huddle is just before the start of a particular shift. For example, all the people who start their shift at 9:00 AM meet at 8:45 AM. During the huddle, the Team Manager outlines any urgent issues, gives updates about the day's potential challenges, and asks for any feedback or questions from the Agents.

4) Who should provide the topics for a team huddle: Managers or Agents?

Usually Managers provide the topics for a team huddle. A huddle is meant to rapidly update Agents who are starting their shift, on urgent issues for the day. So normally the Manager sets the agenda.

5) Those are great tips on how to run a team huddle. Now, what are some techniques for effective call center meetings?

There are a number of activities you can do during a formal team meeting. Because team meetings are longer than huddles, you can build in more interactivity. So, you can ask your Agents to provide feedback. Or, do a skills building exercise. Or, an interactive team building exercise to build rapport.

Another common technique is to focus on a specific product or service, and ask your Agents to share their best ideas for how to sell that product or service. If you are in a service environment, you can ask your Agents to share their best practices for how to deal with a particular service issues.

Once your employees have gone through training or learned something new, it is important to follow up with them. Not only does follow-up give you a chance to hear what your employees really think about their newly acquired skill or knowledge, but it also demonstrates your interest in your employees' success. Further, it provides an opportunity for you to ask employees what resources and support they need to transfer the training into their real-time environment.

Having effective and consistent follow-up shows that you believe in what was taught during training. By following up, you convey a message of seriousness and importance. This is an essential step in the overall training initiative-if management isn't following up, employees will wonder why they should bother implementing the new skills or procedures.

Keep in mind that follow-up can be done in various ways. Below are a few tips to assist you with your follow-up once your training is complete:

* Don't let too much time pass after the training. You want the training to be fresh in their minds.

* Get your employees involved. Ask your employees how they would like to have follow-up conducted.

* Allow your employees to be creative with their own ways to reinforce the training and new skills they learned. Be supportive and receptive to their ideas.

* Assign periodic assignments on different topics from the training. This allows employees to use their training materials and tools they have available to them.

* Assign a "mentee" to each employee who attended the training. Ask the employee to teach one topic a week to their new "mentee."

* If your employees developed action plans as part of their training, meet with them individually to check the progress.

* Put together a short questionnaire and e-mail it to your employees to get their feedback.

* Be attentive. Observe your employees in action as they put their new skills into effect.

* Encourage your managers and supervisors to put the skills they learned from training into practice immediately. They can lead by example.

As with most worthwhile efforts, effective learning takes time and practice. The more you do something, the easier it becomes. This is why it is so important to ensure that your employees get the appropriate follow-up to their training. By doing so, you can increase your employees' retention rate of the skills they learned. Remember, if you don't implement a follow-up plan with your employees, who will?