Success With Contact Centres

Contact Centres Leverage Improved Interpersonal Skills to Increase Sales Conversions, Revenue per Call, and Customer Satisfaction.

Organization : A customer contact centre servicing large clients in various industries

Strategy : Focus on building a customer service culture with agents and their managers

Training Population : Call centre agents and their managers

Implementation : Multiple programs from the Achieving Stellar Service® Experiences System

Results : Improvements from two of the clients included:

• Centre-wide resolution scores improved 16%
• Improved overall quality call scores from 70% to 83%
• A 21% improvement in conversion rates
• An 18% increase in revenue per call

To be most effective, contact centres must be efficient, promote customer satisfaction and, where appropriate, increase revenue for their clients. For a number of contact centres, a renewed focus on customer service training delivered by AchieveGlobal is driving remarkable results in their key metrics.

AchieveGlobal recently delivered training and coaching programs for contact centres serving a variety of organizations, from telecommunications providers to big box retailers, resulting in improved:

• First-call resolution (FCR)
• Revenue per call
• Close ratio/conversion

AchieveGlobal offers a diverse and proven portfolio of programs designed to help organizations realize measurable improvement in leadership, sales, and service excellence. Its research-based system approach helps clients implement and reinforce service and sales excellence skills–and is especially suited for contact centre environments.

Two recent engagements illustrate the effectiveness of AchieveGlobal’s programs to help contact centres achieve desired improvements. Improve first-call resolution for centre serving a telecommunications company To impact performance, the organization had embraced developmental coaching as a means to improve FCRmetrics, but did not provide the skills to do so. Agent coaching focused on identifying developmental needs–improving call times, etc.–and not on providing behavior change necessary to drive results. High call volumes and high agent turnover challenged training and coaching opportunities.

To address this client’s needs,AchieveGlobal delivered skill development training for team leads and centre managers from its Coaching for Stellar ServiceWorkshop:Reaching for Stellar Service, Giving Constructive Feedback for Stellar Service and Recognizing Others for Stellar Service.

Lead training developed coaching skills, focused specifically on conducting developmental conversations with their agents. Leads were also given a set of prepared tools to be used in very short pre-shiftmeetings or “chat” discussions.The topic of the chats, which were delivered to agents, was call resolution skills.Other tools helped centre managers observe the leads’ coaching activity and provided skills to “coach the coach.”Aprovided implementation plan was used to focus heavily on post-training support of supervisors, which kept the learning priority high in an environment in which leads spentmost of their time "putting out fires."

As a result, supervisors became more adept at developmental coaching, resulting in:

A 20% improvement in team lead perception of a coaching culture

A 17% improvement in observed demonstration of collaborative coaching behaviors

A marked improvement in providing recognition to agents, using probes to stimulate agents’ idea generation for next steps, and gaining agents’ ownership of their skills and behavior growth.

A 16% improvement in centre-wide resolution scores

An improvement in supervisors achieving FCR targets tripled over the course of the intervention

Overall quality call scores improved by 13%

Increase revenue per call for centre serving a consumer products company

Customer service representatives (CSR) and supervisors enjoyed long tenure at centre, but had worked under a pure service model and were uncomfortable with the new service-to-sales initiative adopted by the centre’s client. CSRs struggled with the sales concept, perceiving it as a high-pressure tactic. Supervisors had not been asked to sell, making it difficult for them to model service-to-sales behaviors and skills.

To introduce and develop the required service-to-sales skills and behaviors, AchieveGlobal delivered programs from its Stellar Service system, including modules: Reaching for Stellar Service, Developing Others for Stellar Service, Recognizing Others for Stellar Service, Giving Constructive Feedback for Stellar Service, and Selling Through Stellar Service

Programs helped the company re-launch the new model, leveraging an employee-focused communication plan. The company’s performance management system was realigned with the new model and structured with quality standards and coaching checklists. By equipping managers with coaching skills and reinforcement tools, training is now extended as an ongoing performance improvement effort. CSRs, equipped with selling skills, conduct customer conversations in a way that closes more business while better serving inbound customer requests.

As a result, survey and call recordings showed that agents were more comfortable and more willing to utilize selling skills, as shown by these metrics:

A 16% improvement in CSR perceptions of organizational and supervisor support

A 21% observed improvement in CSRs using transitioning skills on live calls to move conversations from service transactions to sales opportunities

A 7% improvement in the number of CSRs who report they were enjoying the sales aspect of their job roles

The new behaviors had notable impact on the bottom line, improving sales results and call quality:

A 21% improvement in conversion rates

An 18% increase in revenue per call

An 11% increase in quality scores, to a post-training level of 92%

As a means for helping enterprises drive more sales, improve customer service and expedite problem resolution, the contact centre has become an indispensable asset for many businesses today. Often team lead and agent training can make these centres even more valuable.

As these examples showcase, investment in the right types of skills and behavior training and coaching for a particular call centre developmental need can deliver measurable sales conversion, revenue per call, and customer satisfaction improvement gains.