Engaging high performance telephone sales teams

Carpedia Consulting (Pty) Ltd – www.carpedia.co.za – High Performance Telesales Teams

Engaging High

Performance Telesales

Teams

Werner Hess

Tele sales has for

many years been seen

as the step sister of

sales teams. However,

nearer analysis reveals

that the skills levels

required by telesales

teams is multi-faceted

and challenging to

master


Introduction Newcomers to the sales environment may perceive the sales

Tele sales has been around for many years and companies understand the productivity

aspects of using the telephone to make sales. The initial approach to telephone sales was

pretty rudimentary to say the least .In those days, if a person had a good voice and

reasonable command of the language, they were automatically seen as fit for the job, and

deployed in a telephone sales environment. In other cases internal sales clerks were often

required to do telephone sales and prospecting during quiet times of the day. It was simply

a case of picking up the phone and making calls.

With the advent of outbound call centres, this approach has changed significantly over the

last few years and tele sales has in fact become both an art and a science.

Outbound telesales is a high pressure and fiercely competitive environment and a good

voice and command of language is no longer sufficient in terms of a skill sets and

competencies to succeed in this environment. It takes a prepared mindset and some very

specific skills to be able to handle telephone sales calls effectively.

Telesales now relies on process, call handling and call management skills to deliver results.

Furthermore, telesales teams need a very specific approach to the sales process in order

not to come across as pushy product punters.

Basic Contact Centre Agent Skills

Contact centres are set up as productive platforms from where

sales operations can be launched and controlled. All contact

centres deploy systems for measuring productivity from all

angles; i.e. Average Speed to Answer, Average Holding Time,

Schedule Adherence, dropped calls and so on. It is always very

helpful for contact centre agents to have an insight into the

metrics, what is being measured and how it impacts their day to

day activities and performance. Contact Centre agents need to

Basic Contact Centre

Agent skills enables

agents to understand their

environment and cope

with the day to day

demands placed on them


understand their environment and have great customer handling skills, which will include

the following:

• Dealing with customer perceptions

• Dealing with customer impressions and reactions

• Dealing with negativity

• Being a team player

• Reacting to customers

• Being there for the customer

• Call Control

• Call style

• Call process

An example of specific contact centre agent skills sets from the point of view of handling

customer perceptions could include;

‘Listen for perceptions

Don’t use “wishful listening” . This is selective listening and prevents the full message from

getting through and brings about misunderstandings. Take what people say at face value.

Don’t look for hidden meanings. Test your understanding by repeating back. If something

else was meant, the customer will let you know.”

Contact centre agents who have mastered basic communication skills sets, are far more

likely to succeed and enjoy interacting with customers than agents that dumped in the deep

end and need to embark on a journey of self discovery as far as interacting with customers

effectively is concerned.

Call Process

Call process technology is a methodology that helps contact centre agents envisage the

possible directions that a call could take and manage the call from initiation to completion.

Call process is in fact a blue print for effectively handling the call, whether it be an inbound


request, or an outbound sales call. At Carpedia we

normally identify 5-7 call process steps, depending on

the type of operation. A generic call process set up

could be as follows:

Call Process Steps:

• Connecting

• Discovering

• Recommending

• Resolving

• Concluding

The process steps help contact agent agents navigate

and direct the call, using a process of leading by

following. This in effect creates an opportunity to

improve productivity as well as customer satisfaction.

In an outbound telesales environment, the sales process is aligned with the call process,

turning telesales into a highly effective, low stress activity!

In addition to understanding the call process steps, contact centre agents are trained in the

skill sets that underpin every process step. Following a process and using specific skills at

each process step is a basic foundation for contact centre agents to be able to become

masters of the environment.

Call Style

A further skills dimension that is key to achieving contact centre interaction success is call

style. Call style refers to the skills of verbal interaction, like speed of delivery, volume and

energy. These skills sets are particularly important, as the contact centre agent is totally

invisible to the customer and the only means of projecting an effective experience by

phone, is through voice. Call style is often neglected as a skill set, and in fact is one of the

key ingredients to achieving high levels of communication productivity and a positive

customer experience.

Contact Centres are

highly focused process

centric environments,

where process stability

and effective process

execution is fundamental

to employee and

eventually contact

centre success.


Typical call style skills addressed are as follows:

• Speed

• Volume

• Energy

• Terminology

• Posture

• Phraseology

An effective call style is an essential skill set for any

contact centre agent to master. Call style is often

the key differentiator between mediocre and highly

professional contact centre interaction.

VOC – Voice of the Customer Technology

Six Sigma is a process improvement technology introduced by Motorola and

popularised by General Electric. One of the great legacies of six sigma is the

concept of understanding and interpreting the voice of the customer.

Simplistically VOC asks the question; “what does the customer want from us?”

or translated into the contact centre environment, “why is the customer calling

us?”

Working with an international share registration organisation, we found the

VOC technology specifically helpful in terms of structuring the contact centre

environment in line with why customers would call. This enabled the entire

contact centre environment to move from a platform of reactivity to becoming

proactive, based on the predictive power of VOC technology. It stands to

reason: If you know why your customer is calling, you will be much more

effective in dealing with customer requests, as the processes for interaction

and fulfilment would have been aligned with the VOC.

Call Style is in fact what a

customer “sees” when

he deals with contact

centre agents on the

phone.

Call style skills are no

longer a nice to have,

but an essential part of a

contact centre agents’

skills sets.


Results

Combining effective base line skills, with call process and call style skills in an

environment which is aligned with the VOC, a contact centre operation,

whether in or outbound, can be transformed into a highly productive

operation, where contact centre agent satisfaction is an essential ingredient in

the success mix.

How can Carpedia help your organisation develop high

performance telesales teams?

• High performance sales teams need exposure and skills to the basic

success elements of functioning effectively within the contact centre

environment

• Call Process technology keeps the contact centre agents on track as far

as process is concerned.

• Cal Style training will help contact centre agents develop skill sets in

terms of how they are “seen” by customers, in both an inbound and

outbound situation.

• The VOC (Voice of the customer) technology turns contact centres into

pre-emptive and predictable environments where high quality delivery

becomes the order of the day rather than the exception.


About Carpedia Consulting…

Carpedia Consulting is an internationally relevant management consultancy firm, dedicated

to assisting clients to improve sales and profits through the implementation of improvement

programs. Our approach is what makes us unique. The way we design, develop and execute

our programs is hands-on, solutions-based and excellence driven.

Our programs are customized to the needs of your organisation and are designed to ensure

significant and sustainable improvements are made both internally and externally – by the

sales team, for the customer.

www.carpedia.co.za

About Werner Hess…

Werner Hess has spent 20 years of his career in various sales, marketing and leadership positions

with Bayer, Triad Electronics, GE and GE Plastics before serving as managing director of GE Plastics

and Polymerland. Werner’s first experience in the world of consulting came about when he joined

Proudfoot Consulting as Director of Business Development, which included several international

assignments in Europe and the USA, leading sales effectiveness projects for global clients. Werner’s

current company, Carpedia Consulting is a specialist niche consultancy focused on sales and profit

improvement.

Werner’s latest book, The Science of Selling has just been published and reveals approaches,

systems and processes that can be implemented to create a successful sales platform.

Werner can be reached on: [email protected]


Carpedia Consulting (Pty) Ltd PO Box 1701 GALLO Manor 2052 Building 2 Country Club Estates Woodlands Drive Woodmead Sandton South Africa Tel: 27-11 – 258-8813 Fax: 27-11- 258-8511 Mob: 27-82-888-0228

Email: [email protected]

www.carpedia.co.za