AS ANYONE who has ever seen one of today’s call centers knows, there are a dizzying array of technology tools to measure calling productivity. Though we’d be hard-pressed to measure service levels and agent performance without these resources, when companies make strategic decisions based on the wrong criteria they often end up shooting themselves in the foot. That’s exactly what happens when productivity issues take precedence over the key objective-namely, long-term profitability.
What follows are some real-life examples from several different calling campaigns. Is your company making any of these mistakes?
* Burning through incoming leads and inquiries. Every call to your incoming call center has potential value. If not, big budgets wouldn’t be spent on advertising and other promotions to drive those calls in. So why are so many companies fixated on shortening call length and reducing the number of calls on hold instead of meeting each caller’s needs?
The focus on “call handling” instead of caller satisfaction has driven many a firm to make improvements in the wrong areas. Calls may get through to a representative quickly, but nine times out of 10 the rep may not have the training, skills or the time to uncover needs, build or enhance the buying relationship or solve the problem. All in the name of increasing average answering speed and reducing head count.
Here’s an example from the insurance market. Company A used a half-dozen licensed insurance agents to field incoming calls on various product lines. The “top” agent was recognized and rewarded because he processed more calls, gave out more quotes, took more applications and produced the highest total premiums. Once the whole picture was analyzed, however, this agent was not the most profitable to the company.
When it comes to profitability, agent performance must be analyzed and ranked according to each individual’s ability to convert quotations to sales and retain customers-not just handle calls and bind total premiums.
When performance for the quarter was analyzed from the perspective of converted sales per 100 quotes, the agent with the least number of quotes, number of sales and total premiums had the highest closing rate, average premium, premiums per 100 quotes and retained customers per 100 quotes (see chart at left).
While reps need to meet some benchmarks for handling callers as quickly as they want to be handled while still meeting their needs, it makes no sense to reward your reps for rapidly juggling callers with no regard for how many current or potential customers end up as castoffs.
* Failing to properly segment and fine-tune calling campaigns. This is a common problem among companies that use third-party outsourcers to increase their front-end numbers at any cost. Pressured by upper management to add subscribers, members, policyholders, etc., they typically throw “hours” at the program and many outsourcers are all too happy to rack them up.
In a recent campaign for an organization that should have known better, the list consisted of everything but the kitchen sink: old prospects, new inquiries, trade show names, trade publication subscription lists, lapsed accounts-you name it. Since the program was run on commission (the outsourcer would only be paid for customers who pay) the company concluded it had nothing to lose and did not closely partner with the outsourcer to design or monitor the program.
When the campaign performed poorly, the outsourcer failed to stop the program and come back to the company with any fall-back plan to segment the various factions, design appropriate scripts or offers, or conduct test calls to find out why the target markets were not responding.
Predictably, the program failed, and whatever leads could have been salvaged were lost. No doubt quite a few of those prospects went from having a neutral position about the company to being turned off by such an ill-conceived calling program.
* Burdening phone reps with nonessential tasks and responsibilities. Well-qualified inside sales, service and support reps are worth their weight in gold. For maximum return on your staffing investment, make sure these individuals are focused on what they do best: communicating with your prospect or customer base by phone. That means making sure they have all the necessary resources to maximize their effectiveness and phone time.
Reps should not spend much time sifting through lead cards, filling out reports, faxing or mailing fulfillment pieces, expediting applications and the like. Using clerical support or automated systems to assist on-phone talent is the best way to increase productivity.
* Failing to segment calls by function or specialty. One way to maximize your incoming order unit’s effectiveness is to route service calls to service reps (at a lower compensation and cost per call) and segment “specialty” calls serving a different market. Such callers can be quickly routed to specialists designed to meet their particular needs. In addition, the performance of those specialists can be evaluated more fairly and effectively and they can be offered appropriate incentives.
For example, with certain product lines you may find a higher proportion of calls from outside agents, business customers or larger vs. smaller accounts. Representatives who are trained to handle certain specialties may be involved with calls that:
* Are longer, on average.
* Involve many more details.
* Have a longer sales cycle.
* Involve more paperwork.
* Have a higher or lower average order size or frequency.
* Involve a higher percentage of non-revenue service calls.
* Support more add-on business.
The bottom line for your call center and your business is long-term profits, not up-front costs. When you take the time to examine both front- and back-end numbers and work through what it really costs to acquire and retain customers, profitability will never take a back seat to productivity.
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