S&MM SoundOff

The Call-Center Rope Line

Celebrity nightclub rope lines -– where burly bouncers whisk in A-listers to VIP treatment while rest of us wait in queue -– might be a snobbish cliché, but maybe not such a bad model for call centers. 

Most companies conducting marketing campaigns know little to nothing about the people calling them in response to those campaigns. Marketers spend millions analyzing and segmenting their existing customers into value-based rankings (e.g., platinum, gold, silver, bronze), with each receiving their associated level of benefits and service. Why is it that  all inbound prospects are treated the same?

Not all prospects are created equal. Too often bad prospects waste too much of your call center resources and divert attention away from potentially high-value prospects.

For example, a major credit card company recently came to us, looking for insight on ways to improve conversion rates of potentially highly profitable customers. They are great at getting consumers to respond after running flashy commercials and encouraging calls to their 800-numbers. Each ad generates a flood of calls from people about whom they know nothing. This means that they are treating the multimillion dollar CEO and the 18-year-old college student the exact same way.

Both of those prospects were getting the same treatment and offer as every other caller. With each call screening taking about 15 minutes, many unlikely prospects were taking precious attention away from the best prospects, who were getting put on hold, lost in the mix, or connected to rookie or, worse, outsourced “overflow” agents. In fact, we found that calls channeled to the wrong agent resulted in a 40 percent drop in their ability to convert high-value prospects to customers.  

What if the credit card company could identify and prioritize prospects before reaching the agent? What if they could score all callers ahead of time, whisking the potentially high value A-listers off to VIP treatment (e.g., lower rates) while presenting bad prospects with credit card offers more suited to their situation?  

The fact is they can.

Real-time data relationships have made it possible to identify, in a split second, the value potential of every inbound caller based on each company’s unique criteria. Caller name-address-phone number data linked with highly detailed household data and buyer purchase-propensity analysis enables call centers to precisely score each caller in real time and handle them accordingly. With these prospect “decision scores” in hand, call centers can make sure the right calls are prioritized and channeled to the right agents. They can make better offers based on the prospect’s financial viability. And they can better utilize their internal call-center resources.  

Most companies know how to profile their good prospects. The direct mail you receive, for example, is a result of their analytical and segmentation capabilities. But they’ve been flying blind when fielding inbound calls from unknown prospects. The good news is, they’ve now got 20/20 insight into these callers, enabling them to channel their A-list prospects past the call center rope line and convert them to high-value customers.

* * *

Paul McConville

Director of Consumer-Facing Services for TARGUSinfo, a marketing services company in the Virginia suburbs of DC.

You can reach me at paulmcconville at TARGUSinfo dot com.
http://www.TARGUSinfo.com/marketing

Summer's coming to a close...

Which means we're heading into the home stretch of the year. Which means holiday feasts, office parties, exercise-discouraging inclement weather … and bulkier clothes to hide our ever-expanding girths.

Folks, the lifestyle of your typical sales or marketing manager is hardly conducive to physical health. Stress is a constant, the hours are demanding, and the temptation to jettison healthy eating and fitness habits for the sake of convenience is great. But consequences await for those who continue along this path … and if you're lucky, a widening waistline will be the worst of it.

Lest you fall into winter hibernation mode, then find yourself resolving to lose that extra 20 lbs. come New Year's, you need to take charge of your health. In the forthcoming October issue of S&MM, Izabella Iizuka has an excellent article on finding a personal trainer who's perfect for you. For the sake of your long-term health (and vanity), you'd do well to read it.

The First Desk

by Mona Piontkowski www.SeminarInformation.com

How often do you come to work in the morning, clutching your lunch in one hand and car keys in the other and just walk past the front, reception desk without giving the receptionist even a nod hello. We often overlook probably one of the most valuable members of the team -  the front desk person - the first impression our company is going to make with almost any of our customers.

In many companies the front desk person or receptionist not only greets visitors in person but also answers the phone and directs the calls to the appropriate person. Since this vital representative of a company is not usually the highest paid member of the staff we often undervalue their importance. First of all, the physical appearance can make or break a  companies' image- who needs one of the latest "brat pack" sitting in a crop top, hair dyed a deep purple popping their gum sitting at the front desk of any company.  The Essentials of Managing the Front Desk (http://www.seminarinformation.com/event/21312) covers image as one of the essentials of a good front desk person.

Any company wants to assure themselves that they are making points with any customer who calls or comes in. Companies should therefore consider spending some training dollars on their "front line". The Outstanding Receptionist ( http://www.seminarinformation.com/event/23194) or  How to Excel at The Front Desk  (http://www.seminarinformation.com/event/23181) would be a good investment.

Dealing with pleasant customers who want to buy your product or have a simple question should be easy for the front desk person - you need a person with a winning, pleasant personality and voice. Nothing worse than getting an obviously annoyed, obviously disgruntled employee answering your companies' phone. Yes, this is a company I want to do business with - just can't wait to call up the front desk and be berated, insulted or ignored. Pam on the TV show The Office is the ideal front desk person - she's pleasant, despite having an obvious idiot for a boss, and she handles any situation with tact and aplumb. Wonder if she's looking for a new job?????

Linked in, and the power of social networks

By Enrique Burgos

It’s absolutely known that Web 2.0 is changing the way we work, share information and connect with other people, but there is one place that has hypnotizes me: LinkedIn. The social network were you can find people, but with a great difference from the others…here you can share your professional connections with others, find possible business projects, career opportunities, expertise advice and more.

It’s based on the degrees away rule--you can connect with other connections through them--but always with professional aims.

In two months my connections grew from 3 to 185 (and still growing), and more than 3 million connections on the 3rd level (people connected to my 185). You have to spend some time searching for new people to include in your network, and accepting to enter into others, but not in a massive way. It’s better to have a small and selected network, rather than a huge one with people without any similar interest or activity with you.

Definitively, a great tool to increase your contacts network through the world, creating positive professional relationships that could help you today and in the future.

Enrique Burgos, is the relationship marketing manager of SEUR, a logistics company in Spain. Visit his blog at www.incentivesandrelationshipmarketing.blogspot.com.

The Fear Factor

By Kelley Robertson

What are you afraid of?

If you are like most of the people I encounter in my sales training programs, you likely have some type of fear relating to the sales process. When I pose this question to people in my workshops, the fear of rejection is usually the top concern participants express.

For me, it is cold calling. Prospecting via the telephone has never been a big part of my lead-generation process and it's not something I do with much consistency. As a result, I experience a fair bit of anxiety when I think about cold calling. In fact, on most days, I'd rather take a trip to the dentist than make these types of calls.

What I find intriguing is how debilitating this fear factor can be. Far too many people in sales don't reach their goals or quotas because they allow their personal hesitations to influence their behaviour even when they know it makes good business sense to ignore the fear and push forward. I know from experience that once I pick up the telephone and begin making my calls my anxiety quickly dissipates. Yet, that initial fear and hesitation, often stalls my efforts.

The other interesting insight is that very few people have ever actually encountered a negative experience relating to their fear. For example, when I work with specialty retailers, many people don't suggest accessories or add-on items because they are afraid they will lose the sale. Yet, it is extremely rare that someone in the group has actually lost a sale because they suggested an additional item to a customer.

Another issue that pops up regularly in my programs is asking questions. Most people who sell a product or service know that effective question-asking will help them overcome objections and move the sales process forward. However, many people don't ask good questions because they feel that their prospect or customer will feel like they, the salesperson, is prying.

So, what's the solution?