An online site for call centres published an article about conversational selling. One point made in the article relates to the use of conversational selling rather than the use of scripts. I have discussed this in a previous blog entitled “Call Centre Scripting”. People tend to know when the person on the other end of the phone is reading from a script. The conversation is stilted and does not flow naturally. One of the worst ways to start off a conversation is from an obvious script. Conversations by nature flow naturally so “Can I speak to the owner of the business?” Or “I am calling today to speak to you about X product” sound scripted and will be spotted by the gatekeeper straightaway. Open with the contacts name wherever possible. “Could I speak to Dave Johnson please?” 90% of the time you will be asked “who’s calling please?” then just give your name but don’t volunteer any other information unless asked. This is always a good footing to start a call and once you have settled into the call, the conversation should flow naturally.

Now,  even if you are not really convinced about the green issue you have got to believe that a thing like leaving lights on is just a waste of money if nothing else. I also believe in recycling, as we all know the planet does not have infinite space and we cannot carry on just filling the landfills, so what we are doing in effect is sweeping the problem under the carpet. Recycling paper is another common sense thing to do. Get your telemarketing call centre staff to re-use paper that has only been printed on one side for making notes or reminders. This cuts down on stationery costs and if you believe everything saves some trees!

On a serious note measures like this can save call centre or telemarketing agency money and just makes plain sense in the long run.

Does your call centre or telemarketing agency suffer from repeated sickness or absence and are you doing enough to combat this. Most businesses across the country will find from time to time sickness related absences will be a problem. Now for the majority of cases this is probably due to genuine circumstances but there are invariably some cases where people have the day off just because they feel like it.

The question is what can be done about it. Some companies offer a bonus schemes that reward not only employees performance at work but also their attendance. This makes employees think twice about having time off just because it happens to be sunny outside or for other unknown reasons.

One of the best ways to improve absences is to implement a sickness and absence policy where people have to have a back to work interview after short periods of absence. This again encourages people not to take the day if they are going to be questioned about it when they return. Whichever policy you decide to implement you need to make sure all employees understand it and most importantly your call centre or telemarketing agency needs to adhere to it.

Listen to your staff; listen to their views, ideas and concerns. Don’t just dismiss things out of hand you never know the next best idea could come from a member of staff! People like to know their voice is being heard and what they say does matter.

Trust is a major issue; put your trust in staff to do their job and actively encourage them to come to you if they have any problems.

Have fun at work! Now this may seem somewhat of a misnomer to some people but having fun at work gives the workplace a sense of vibrancy and energy. Encourage people to engage with each other and this will come through when they are speaking with your customers. Remember happy staff make for happy customers!

We have all heard of students coming over to this country from different parts of the world on exchange trips. The idea behind this being as well as studying they get to experience the life and traditions of the host country they are staying in. The question is could this work in the same way for call centre agents? Just think if your company is engaged in a long term contract making outbound calls to America would it be beneficial to send your call centre agents over to the states to gain some experience of life over there. They could use the time seeing how American call centres conduct business and in theory apply this to their work back in the UK. At the same time you could have their counterparts from the USA making the trip over here and observing the way we work.

This is a blog that was posted by us last June and is possibly an issue to revisit. I tend to agree with a comment posted about this subject that charities should not be given special status solely because they are a charity. This would open the floodgates for telemarketing or other contact centre based companies using charities to get their services promoted. Would we then see companies saying things like “For every phone contract that is taken out we donate X amount to charity” Now this is only an example but you can see where I am going with this. Charity calls should be treated the same as any other commercial calls and people should have the right to block them if they do not wish to receive them.

Does anybody have a different view?

More and more telemarketing agencies are replacing their old whiteboards with new plasma or LCD displays, reports a popular online call centre magazine. On the face of it, for very little money you can get a relatively inexpensive 42 inch LCD screen, (£600 or less) hook it up to a computer on the office network and with very little effort have a smart new display showing your agents performance.
There is a downside to this however. Careful consideration needs to be put into what you are showing on these screens. If you have too much information you risk losing time as agents keep looking to the screens, waiting for them to update and to generally keep abreast of their performance. Too little information and you might as well have kept the whiteboard. The general consensus seems to be, keep it short and simple displaying only essential data. Anything that takes longer than a couple of seconds to read and you could be frittering away valuable calling time.

Call recording when done properly gives you a valuable insight into how the company is really performing when speaking to customers. This shows you not only where your staff are going wrong during calls but also where you staff are going right! All call centres and telemarketing agencies need to remember the latter part when introducing call recordings to the company as it is very important to have staff that are onside when it comes to call monitoring. They need to know that it is not just a way of finding fault with the way they are performing in their roles. Done the right way call recording is good for business.

Happy Staff!

Every telemarketing agency and call centre has more than likely at some point had issues with staff retention. Most employers know the value of keeping good call centre and telemarketing agents. Here are a few to help with the retention of your best staff.
1. Good communication. Staff, like to know they are being listened to! Encourage feedback from your staff both good and bad. Schedule regular times where staff can voice any concerns they have. This makes for a better working environment, remember communication IS A TWO WAY street.
2. Competitive salaries. This has got to be by far the most common reason that staff have for switching companies. Now nobody is saying every time staff say they are considering leaving they should be given a pay rise! Companies should make staff feel comfortable about discussing salaries and pay packages with management.
3. Staff benefits. This can be used as an alternative to pay rises and a further incentive for staff to remain with the company. These rewards can be in the form of Health Benefits, paid time off, or bonus vacation days. Extra perks like this make staff feel valued and they are more likely to stay with the company.

Any Comments?