It doesn’t matter if it’s services or physical products, if your agents are tasked with selling goods then your main goal is to get as many call center sales as possible.
There are countless variables that impact the performance of sales agents in a call center and a huge portion of these are under the control of the management team. That said, creating the perfect environment for your sales representatives to thrive can be challenging, especially if you already have an established facility that’s been running for some time.
At Autopilot Reviews, we partner with call centers to improve the way these sites collect and deliver customer feedback to their agents, so our team understands the nuances that impact the performance of your sales team.
In this article, we will provide 5 strategies with specific instructions to help you increase sales in your call center.
1. Focus Heavily on Customers
Consumers are more informed than ever before, so traditional sales techniques are not as effective as they used to be. This is the reason why top-performing sales call centers tend to focus heavily on customer behavior.
Keep in mind that adjusting your call center’s focus goes beyond editing your sales pitch. You should communicate your plans to your clients, discuss your new goals, and make sure that you have all the resources available to implement the changes you need to make.
Let’s take a look at the steps you need to follow to implement this strategy.
1.a. Understand the Audience
It’s impossible to create a customer-centric plan for your sales call center if you don’t know your audience. Therefore, you should start by researching your potential customers and learning everything you can about these prospects.
Instead of looking at general consumers, you should begin by looking at the customer segments that are currently generating the most revenue for your call center. Ask yourself:
- What do these users have in common?
- What percentage of interactions do you transform into sales?
- Do you have a dedicated pitch for the most profitable segments?
- Which agents close the most sales?
1.b. Categorize Prospects into Target Audiences
Once you have more in-depth knowledge about your potential customers, you’ll be able to identify the target audiences you want to attract.
Your target audiences are the consumer segments that are more likely to be interested in your products and services. Which, in turn, also means that your agents are more likely to generate sales when speaking to prospects from these demographics.
Remember that you can have multiple target audiences, so don’t be afraid to divide your best customer groups into similar segments.
1.c. Create and Use Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are common marketing tools, but these can also be used to help improve the sales process in your call center.
Simply put, buyer personas are fictional characters that are created to represent your ideal customers. You can create as many personas as you need and each one should represent a target audience (from the ones you identified in the previous step).
Having buyer personas can help you understand the barriers that prevent customers from making purchases. Once you create your personas, make sure to implement them into your call center as part of the training program or in a similar manner. You can even make these available to agents as part of their internal resources.
1.d. Personalize Every Experience to Increase Call Center Sales
Instead of taking a traditional script-based sales approach, you should encourage your sales representatives to personalize each customer interaction.
Some of your agents will be able to personalize each interaction naturally, but not all representatives share this trait. Make sure to show your agents where they can find target audience and buyer persona information, teach them how to use it, and carry out a few exercises to verify that they understand the concept.
1.e. Empathize with Customers
Interactions in the sales and customer service departments are extremely different, but they do share one thing: customers just want to be heard.
When a customer calls a sales line, it’s because this person has an issue that they want to solve by purchasing a product. But, instead of focusing solely on selling the product, you should teach agents the value of empathy and make sure that they express this sentiment during every interaction.
Again, you should refer to the buyer personas you created and look at the obstacles that potential customers face. Your agents should leverage these as talking points, show an in-depth understanding of customers’ issues, and propose one of your products as a solution.
2. Improving Product Knowledge Will Help With Call Center Sales
When customers contact your sales call center they expect to speak with a knowledgeable professional. For this reason, your agents need to understand the products or services being sold, know how these goods work, and have the ability to explain this to potential customers.
Here are some steps you can take to improve your team’s collective product knowledge.
2.a. Analyze the Product Thoroughly
Just like your target audience, you should start off by researching and analyzing the products or services you’re selling and learning as much as you can about them.
If you’re selling physical goods, you should request samples from the client, evaluate them with the rest of the management team, and incorporate them into your training or upskilling sessions.
In case your call center sells digital products or services, you should ask for product descriptions, whitepaperts, and similar documents that contain extensive information about these platforms.
2.b. Request Additional Information from the Client
Even if you feel like you have a good understanding of the product, you should reach out to clients and request any additional information they may have available.
This serves two major purposes. For starters, the additional information you collect can include details like the materials used, the technology that powers the product, and other valuable information that you may not have asked for directly.
Secondly, your agents will feel much more confident because they will truly understand how the product or service works.
It’s important to note that your agents don’t have to use all of the information they use proactively during their sales pitches. Instead, they should use these details in their rebuttals or as closing tools whenever necessary.
2.c. Learn to Match the Situation to the Best Product or Solution
Knowing all of the features available in a product is not the same as understanding its practical application. Instead of simply repeating information, your agents should be able to match the different products you have available to the situations that your customers are facing.
For example, call centers that work for wireless cell phone providers usually sell individual as well as family plans. Your sales agents should have the ability to ask the right questions and figure out what type of service package would be best based on the answers they get from customers.
2.d. Sell the Benefits, Not the Product, and Increase Call Center Sales
Your agents should know everything there is to know about the products sold at your call center. But, instead of simply stating these features, agents should bring attention to the benefits that customers enjoy whenever they purchase the products in question.
Again, some of your agents will have an easy time understanding your products’ benefits and learning how to focus on these advantages during your pitch. But, you shouldn’t assume that the transition will be easy for most of your agents, so set time aside to train every agent on this practice.
3. Revamp the Training Program
The quality of your call center sales training program is directly correlated to the success of your agents. During your training program, new agents learn about the client, the site’s goals, and the products being sold. Not only this, but the initial training sessions are an introduction to your call center culture, which will define how motivated your agents are, at least to some extent.
Let’s go over some of the adjustments you can make to improve your training program and help your agents generate more sales.
3.a. Survey Your Current Agents
The best way to measure how your training program is perceived is to survey your current agents.
Call centers usually train several new employee classes per year, so it’s common for these facilities to have a solid mix of experienced and beginner agents on the floor. If you conduct a company-wide survey about the training program, you’ll receive valuable insights into how your materials are perceived and how well they compare to real-life scenarios.
Remember, you should use the information you collect to make noticeable changes as this will also help boost your employee morale across the board.
3.b. Carry Out Role-Playing Exercises
Role-playing exercises are extremely simple and effective, but not all call centers leverage these great tools.
During a role-playing exercise, two employees team up, assume the roles of the salesperson and customer, and act out a sales scenario where the agent needs to do his or her best to close the deal.
These exercises are usually performed in a group setting as part of training sessions, although they can also be conducted in one-on-one feedback sessions to illustrate a point. Moreover, some role-playing exercises are used to illustrate how to rebuttal or when to stop pitching, so make sure to run different scenarios during your exercises.
3.c. Monitor Live Training Sessions
It’s common practice for the management team to systematically monitor calls in order to ensure that agents are performing well and fulfilling all their expected roles.
You should apply the same mentality to your training program and monitor at least one live training session every time there’s a new class.
Managers and team leaders should take the opportunity to evaluate:
- The performance of the training team
- New employee engagement levels
- The resources that the training team has available
- How to class is being delivered
3.d. Call Center Sales Will Increase After Implementing the Right Training Tools
One of the biggest mistakes that managers make is failing to give their teams the right training tools.
It doesn’t matter if your new agents have sales experience, you need to find a comfortable area in your facility exclusively dedicated to delivering training sessions. You should also furnish your training specialists with the right tools, including detailed information about the target audience and the product.
If possible, you should also teach agents how to use your tools in a mock environment to relieve pressure and prevent any accidental changes to your real customer accounts. This will help ensure that your agents hit the ground running when they start getting calls in real-life scenarios.
3.e. Organize Upskilling Sessions for Your Current Workforce
Most call center managers understand the fact that consumer trends are always changing, but not many of these make the connection between new tendencies and the performance of their sales teams.
Instead of expecting the same techniques to work on your audience over and over again, you should set resources aside to study new trends and organize upskilling sessions with your current employees. This will help ensure that agents are prepared for all scenarios while giving your salespeople the confidence they need to drive more sales.
4. Emphasize Quality Assurance to Boost Call Center Sales
The primary goal of a sales call center is to drive as many purchases as possible.
That said, contact facilities also have to reach a certain quality assurance (QA) threshold in order to claim the commissions they generate from clients. Moreover, individual sales that don’t meet a minimum QA score are often disqualified, which can represent a huge loss for call centers that don’t focus on quality.
Here are some actions you can take to focus on QA and reduce the number of invalid sales you generate every month.
4.a. Create a QA Benchmark
Every call center has its own way of calculating its agents’ QA scores. Since these values are relative, you need to measure your current QA performance and create a benchmark that you’ll use to measure your progress later on.
4.b. Perform Calibration Sessions with the Client
The companies that hire call centers and outsource operations to them have the final say in terms of quality. Therefore, your QA team should organize calibration sessions at least four times per year with each one of your clients.
During a calibration session, your QA team meets with the client’s internal quality specialists and monitor calls together. This will allow your QA team to be in sync with client expectations and deliver the right feedback to the rest of your employees.
4.c. Find Creative Ways to Collect Feedback on Your Call Center Sales
At this point, all call center managers understand the value of collecting feedback from their customers. But, the number of people who are willing to leave feedback through email surveys and other conventional means is slowly dwindling.
To combat this, you should find creative ways to collect feedback from your customers. For example, Autopilot Reviews collects comments and feedback from customers via an app as soon as they finish interacting with your agents.
This feedback is then sent to the agent right away, which allows this specialist to make any necessary adjustments in real-time.
5. Create a Reward System for Your Agents
The single most important motivator you can leverage in your call center is a good reward system for your salespeople.
Remember, sales agents expect to receive much more than a basic salary. So, to attract the best agents, you need to offer competitive wages as well as the ability to generate additional income via commissions or a similar reward system.
Let’s take a look at some of the actions you can implement to improve your reward system.
5.a. Assess Your Current Commission Structure
Having a basic commission structure is a good start, but you should analyze your current setup and determine if it’s beneficial for your agents. The goal is for agents to generate more sales, so don’t force them to jump through unnecessary hoops to earn their commissions.
5.b. Touch Base with Clients to Understand the Resources Available
As a call center manager, you should keep your client in the loop and make sure that you have the support of this company before getting started.
It’s always a good idea to touch base with clients and inquire about available resources. Besides additional funds, clients can also provide additional valuable resources like in-person training from some of their top executives.
5.c. Call Center Sales Increase Through Creating a Small Competition for Each Major KPI
In addition to total sales, agents usually have to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) like closing rates, churn rates, and the number of calls received.
Instead of creating a commission for each one, call center managers can keep agents motivated by creating a small competition around each KPI. You can even create a ranking system and release weekly reports that tell everyone their individual rankings.
Remember, this should not replace your agents’ commissions. But, it’s a good way to promote healthy competition that keeps agents engaged without having to create a small bonus for each KPI.
5.d. Build a Reward System That’s Accessible to All Agents
Many call center managers fall into the trap of creating commissions structures and rewards systems so complex that they are not accessible to most agents. In these cases, your reward mechanisms can actually work against you and make your agents feel like they are being taken advantage of.
To avoid this, make sure that the sales goals you set can be achieved by regular agents, and not only your top-performers. For example, some call centers pay commissions as long as their agents have a good QA score, a pristine attendance record, and no warnings on their disciplinary records.
5.e. Make Sure that Agents Understand the Commission Structure
In addition to making it accessible, you also need to ensure that your commission structure is easy to understand by your agents. Besides the net amount they receive for each type of sale or interaction, also make sure that your sales representatives know which goals they need to meet as well as what other elements can influence the commissions and rewards they receive.
How Does Recruitment Impact Call Center Sales?
It’s common practice for call centers to hire employees not only based on their skills, but also on their professional personalities. As a best practice, sales call centers usually hire extrovert agents because they bring high energy levels and are usually more sociable.
But, some clients don’t always react well to agents who are too overzealous, which means that not all extroverts are good sales agents.
Instead of using general personality traits, think about the type of sales you want to generate and how these interactions usually take place.
If your agents are tasked with selling low ticket items at a high volume, there’s a strong chance that these interactions are shorter and more upbeat. These situations are well suited for energetic agents that like to spend a lot of time talking.
When the sales process is longer, there’s a strong chance that agents will have to ask a lot of questions to get information from customers. In these cases, it’s better to have a person that’s good at pull communication, in other words, extracting answers through open and close-ended questions.
There is no silver-bullet solution to establish the perfect recruitment process. You need to evaluate your call center’s needs, determine how they relate to certain personality traits, and adjust your recruitment process accordingly.
Want to Boost Sales in Your Call Center? Improve the Way You Deliver Feedback
There’s no question that increasing your call center sales is challenging. But, there are several strategies you can implement to enhance different areas of your call center, and all of these can help you significantly boost the number of sales you generate on a monthly basis.
If you’re looking for a better way to collect feedback from your customers and deliver these comments to your agents in real-time, contact our team at Autopilot Reviews today and we’ll be glad to help.
