Contact centers in a new avatar

The change in the role of contact centers is requiring altering the method in which the contact center employees function. Employees who have been working keeping customer service in mind are finding it difficult to adopt the idea of suggesting and recommending related products and services.

The lack of experience in executing such responsibilities inculcates the fear of failure in employees and the task of motivating and supporting employees into making and sales pitches successfully falls on the team manager. The marketing department has to offer the right mix of services and products designed properly for the customer support employees to offer in a convincing manner.

For employees/agents to cross-sell and upsell enthusiastically, they need to understand the benefits that it brings to them and to the company. Sales skills are an important addition to an agent’s portfolio; it breaks the monotony of routine work, and improves salary prospects. Cross-selling and upselling skills can be improved by holding training programs for introducing agents to the concept.

Once this is accomplished, programs designed to equip agents with the necessary knowledge and skills need to be made a regular feature of the training process. The information and knowledge should be personalized for the individual agent in order to provide him with the best chance of succeeding at the additional responsibility. Targeted and analytics-driven coaching should help to maximize the performance of the agents. crm-daily.com says:

Multidimensional analytics and word spotting, along with emotion detection, screen activity and agent coaching, help managers accurately gauge and qualify responsiveness, identify the conditions that stimulate the customer’s intent to buy, and leverage these insights to improve agent cross-selling/upselling performance.

Go to: Pursuing Sales in the Contact Center