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“How Do We Increase Revenue in Our Call Centre?” Dear Affy…
“How Do We Increase Revenue
in Our
Call Centre?”
Dear Affy…
Dear Affy,
I am Director of a 150-seat Contact Centre. I have been handed new revenue targets for next year that are up 12% over this year. I'm not sure where to start. I think my team is doing a good job now and we have stable service levels and I do not expect there to be 12% more calls. What do you suggest?
Grant H, Toronto
Dear Grant
Your question is a great one and you are not alone! More and more companies are realizing that contact centres are a key strategic component for generating more revenue. Success breeds success and CEO’s are quick to reward our great work with higher targets!
Although you have achieved strong results, there are ways to optimize revenue opportunities without increasing your call volume.
A few starting steps:
1. Talk to your front line – they will tell you their challenges and where lost opportunities exist. Take the best 3-4 ideas and get them quickly into action. It may involve other teams’ commitments so ensure you have upfront executive buy-in to what you need to achieve.
2. Get your supervisors side by side coaching for improved sales performance. Start with 1-2 specific agent skill improvements that will make the biggest difference and ensure that side by side with agents is a minimum 60% of supervisors’ time expectation. No activity is more proven to increase sales than skills coaching.
Ensure that your 12% increase is cascaded into the teams and to the individual agents. Without specific targets and tracking of improvement from coaching, the 12% is unlikely to be achieved. Do not use one size fits all – some agents simply have more upside potential due to experience or jumping over a rough patch.
3.
Create a best practices sharing process that helps new agents learn sales from experienced agents and delivers improvement feedback to marketing. Many companies want to do this, some companies try it but very few companies are able to sustain it. The key to a successful best practices program is specific ownership and integration of best practice sharing into your team meetings at all levels.
4.
Driving large sales increases takes leadership focus and strong sales management processes. Grant, good luck with next year’s targets.
Afshan Bye
SwitchGear Consulting
focuses on Service operations with a niche in Call Centres. We’re most frequently engaged to assist in the area of revenue generation, improving customer loyalty and service, and “un-complicating” operations. We know that the front-line is the only place that drives revenue so that’s where we focus our clients to build productive, results-oriented organizations that over-achieve revenue targets.
Our tagline “The Discipline of Great Execution”™ is both a skill and a promise. How do we do this? Meticulous project management, strong assessment skills, honest dialogue, an ability to simplify processes, and a unique approach to motivating front line employees – the only place sales are ever made.
By the way, did we mention that we guarantee our work!
