Our Perspective on Contact Centres
In today’s fiercely competitive market, the ability of your contact centre staff to meet and surpass customer expectations is often the only way to differentiate between your product and your competitors”. Many of our Contact Centre Clients are looking to provide this level of service while transitioning from a ‘service’ to a ‘sales’ culture without pushing product or eroding customer relationships. How true is this for your organization?
Key ingredients to becoming a “world-class” Contact Centre include implementing best practices around: Agent Satisfaction and Development; going beyond ‘Customer Satisfaction’ to achieving ‘Customer Loyalty’; Call Quality Monitoring; and strong Coaching and Supervision skills and disciplines.
Here are career development stages in Contact Centres and how Fusion Learning supports them:
Stage 1: Customer Service Agent
In the first few months, Customer Service Agents are focused on learning about the industry, products, services, and customer service fundamentals. In order to succeed, Agents need to “exceed” customer expectations while achieving Key Performance Indicators. Our ‘Customer Service Excellence’ program directly supports these goals.
Stage 2: Inbound and Outbound Sales Agent
Most Contact Centre Agents have a service mentality which is why they have chosen to work there and likely why they were hired. If you want them to sell, you must first address their attitude toward selling. We help both Inbound and Outbound Sales Agents learn communication techniques that get to the heart of a customers’ need in a way that is opposite to a ‘scripted sell’ and serves to build customer relationships. Our ‘Consultative Selling Skills’ program provides the attitude, skills and process to effectively address customers needs.
Stage 3: Supervisor/Team Leader
After being a Customer Agent for 12 – 18 months, often the best performers are promoted to the role of Team Leader or Supervisor. Top performing Agents aren’t necessarily the best coaches and are often left to fend for themselves with little support or development. The role of Supervisor/Team Leader has become more distant from Agents due to size of team and other priorities/projects. We believe that Team Leaders need to dedicate 70% of their time to engagement with their people. It is also important that Supervisor/Team Leaders get coaching by their Managers. Key capabilities that we develop in our Coaching program include: ‘Side-by-side’ and ‘On the Fly’ Coaching, World Class One-on-Ones, and Engaging Team Meetings.
If you have a need to increase the energy, commitment and skills to develop the sales capabilities of your organization, we would welcome an exploratory meeting to determine how we can help.
