Quality Management

Increase sales by avoiding common mistakes in call management

By 8 de mayo de 2013marzo 25th, 2021No Comments

The Contact Center, in many cases is the land of missed opportunities. All calls, whether incoming or outgoing are an opportunity to make a sale, or at the very least to create an opportunity for a future sale.

Here are a few basics rules to keep in mind:

  1. Prepare for every call- anticipate possible questions, objections or concerns
  2. Define the questions in detail to help qualify the opportunity and win your customers trust
  3. Understand all possible aspects of the proposal, and make sure that these are interesting and provide value
  4. Provide continuity while documenting any/ all offers and follow-up to close the sales cycle (it’s not always necessary to sell on every call)

Doing this in an effective way is a must to avoid making common mistakes in service management. These mistakes all most always have to do with: the efficiency of the Call Center Dialer system, the design of the script and/ or the agent´s motivation.

  • First, thinking the dialer will “work miracles” is a big one. Unless you can provide extremely well qualified contact information, segmentation, prioritized, and synced with existing regulations, you can’t achieve the desired success.
  • Second, agents should follow a well thought-out script, which will help them know what to say, and how to answer possible questions for which they might not otherwise be prepared. Mistakes in a script’s design may cause underperformance and lead to lack of productivity.

It is important to avoid common mistakes in the composition of a script and avoid lengthy calls. Customers lose interest in offers that take too long to present. In general you should avoid:

  • Formatting a script with long paragraphs that may make it sound mechanical or read.
  • Accepting mistakes on the agents side too easily, leading to having to apologize unnecessarily.
  • Implying guilt, or criticisms this predisposes the customer unfavorably.
  • Making unnecessary detours, you should get straight “to the point” be respectful of their time – this allows the agent to build a relationship with the customer- win their trust and get the sale.
  • Exaggerated expressions of joy, or communicating in an overly formal tone.
  • Give a long greeting or a farewell, and not clearly identify the purpose of the call.
  • Too many “thank you” often annoy customers…

And last, but not least, the contact center agents, they are the real architects of success in any sales campaigns, their skills, training, education, motivation, and incentives will be key in achieving goals. They have to be SMART: (specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented and time-bound), they also need to feel that they part of your team’s success or failure.

Correcting these little (or not so little) mistakes in a well planned sales campaign and pairing it with a clearly defined sales strategy will prioritize the work and increase your teams productivity.

While some may say that “mistakes provide great learning opportunities” it’s my option that not making them at all, and planning your process to help to avoid them, or at least to reduce the frequency is always better.