Skill Based Routing and Other Call Center Secrets Applicable to your Business
At this point, you’ve implemented the proper technology; an intense marketing strategy; a supreme ad campaign and you’re ready to see the cash flow in. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy most of the time. One key element often missed in a proper strategy for optimal success is proper technology, reporting, and training for your sales team. We often forget that as we’ve worked for months on the backend of our business and marketing perfection, we still have a team of agents that are the voice of your product or service to potential customers.
So, how do you take the same precautions with sales that you have already completed with all other elements? Easily. Technology.
Ensuring that your dedicated CRM is not only set to store and manage all necessary data, but is also holding your sales team accountable is essential to your success. Proper reporting that reflects conversion rates, dollars per call/dollars per hour, call dispositions, and call-back tasks are not only important, but help you to see who is making you the most money and who needs to go.
We all have a love/hate relationship with conversion rates at this point. We love to see them soar and we hate to see them plummet. Having the ability to track and view which agent converts the most potential customers can ensure that you’re paying for an asset and not a cost within your business.
Along with conversion rates, many companies overlook the idea of tracking an agent’s dollar per call and dollar per hour. Tracking this information allows you to view the amount of cash that each agent brings in every time they pick up the phone or work an 8 hour shift. With this information, you have the ability to keep the most effective people on the job or the ability to use “Skill Based Routing.”
Skill Based Routing – “An ACD capability that matches a caller’s specific needs with an agent that has the skills to handle that call, on a real-time basis.”
http://www.magellan-solutions.com/call_center_glossary_2.htm
In reference to the graphics, would you rather have Agent A focus their attention on selling the Mastermind Event or the Yearly Live Event? In addition, would you rather have Agent B handle the Subscription or the Yearly Live Event?
Skill Based Routing allows you to ensure that your agents are selling what they sell best, increasing your profitability. You can implement a Skill Based Routing plan by properly organizing your outbound call campaigns or by setting technology in place that filters inbound calls to the best agent.
In addition, Call Dispositions are an extremely useful tool for reporting and viewing campaign effectiveness. Being one of the simplest tasks in the industry, it is also one of the most effective. When an agent receives a call, be sure that you’re logging the outcome of that potential conversation with specific tags: Call – No Answer, Call – Voicemail, Conversation – No Sale, Conversation – Call Back Requested, Sale, Sale with Upsell, Disconnected Phone Number, Wrong Phone Number.
Is the campaign yielding more sales? More sales with an added upsell? Is the phone disconnected or a wrong number? Or are you now seeing that the campaign needed more information to convert? These reports utilize potential customer responses in order to increase campaign effectiveness in the future.
Lastly, I hear time and time again that business owners have one key issue with their sales team: having agents follow proper sales processes. What better way to hold your team accountable than with proper reporting and tasking? Make sure that your technology holds your team accountable for tracking significant data and potential customer follow-up. If a customer requests a call back on Monday at 4:00pm EST, ensure that a task is set and followed through to do just that. Technology is an easy way to make sure no potential customer gets lost within the mix of all callers.