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.

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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

Comments

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[S. Kumar - 10 Sizzling Sales Letter Tools]

How true you are on this...

"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."

In fact, one should know when to fire a customer!

Courteously -- S. Kumar
http://www.learnhomebusiness.com