Re: Loose Cannon: Keep Your Eyes on the Fries, April 8, 2002
As a company that has their own catalog / Internet division as well as an inbound (service bureau) call center, I could not agree with you more.
Agree to what? Agree to the fact that time is not the most important measurement with which to gauge an inbound call. Just the opposite as a matter of fact.
We have created a “profit per attempt” approach to our up-sells in our call center. I can tell you for any particular program how much our client will make on a per attempted basis on our add on sales. (Not per sale but per attempt. As you know sales is a numbers game.)
Interesting enough our average call length over the last few years has actually increased 100%. But the average value of the order has increased 100% as well.
It is true that a service bureau client is typically charged on a per minute (transactional) basis and thus want their call centers to focus on decreasing time. Our secret is that we have proven methods to increase the value of the order but the trade off is a longer call length. The good news is that the call length is a moot point when the P&L comes back and shows more money is coming to their bottom line in the big picture.
Now we only have 225 seats, half of which are used by our internal campaigns and half of which are used as outsourced service bureau resources. So we do not do direct response TV or radio which produce significant spikes. We do not have 1,000 calls waiting in the wings for someone to pick up. We have a more managed call volume because we support direct mail /catalog /Internet campaigns instead. But our service bureau division has had so much internal success that we are starting to market some proven–best case practices to other call centers.
Kirk W. Vonderhaar
Director of Sales
Catalog Network Services
Cincinnati
I TOTALLY agree with your assessment! I am about to launch a nationwide campaign in elementary schools. I want THE BEST incoming call center–one who won’t rush a teacher when they need to find out information. Would anyone be willing to give me some leads as to which call centers will give me the most gracious service?
Connie Melashenko
[email protected]
Vancouver, Washington
Network
