Call Centers, Customer Service Departments, Complaint Departments…that place where our customers go when they have questions or problems has gone by many names over the years. And as the names have changed the functions of those departments have evolved as well. In many respects, the Call Centers of today and the professionals who staff them are totally different creatures from their predecessors.
Distributors product lines have expanded; the products themselves have become more complex and technology oriented and as a result the people our customers ask questions of need to have that expertise. Even when technology is not a big issue, shrinking revenues and budgets require us to make the most of every customer contact…and a good percentage of those contacts are made to customer service. We’d like those contacts to turn into additional sales if possible.
These are just a few reasons why over the last half-dozen years the average dollar amount spent by companies to train Call Center operatives has more than doubled. In some firms, the compensation paid those folks has doubled as well. What managers have been willing to pay more for are the skills in communication and sales that have turned their customer service departments into secondary sales channels.
But turning your Call Center into a profit center means more than simply teaching your reps to sell. That’s only the first step. When a customer calls with a question, or a problem, the person who answers must first be able to respond to that need…just as they have done in the past. Today, however, they should be even better at doing so as customer expectations have grown. Customers simply expect better service and information from vendors and they expect it in a more professional presentation. This means Call Centers need better people and that’s where those training dollars and higher paychecks are going.
Well-managed and marketing-oriented firms are already taking these steps. Having better paid and trained service reps who handle customers professionally is becoming more the norm than the exception. It’s also commonly assumed today that a good customer service person be able to cross-sell, up-sell, sell additional maintenance or service, sell extended warranties, and set up appointments for the regular sales force.
All of this is great, and might be enough for many firms, but what other functions might your Call Center handle? How else can they contribute to the bottom line?
Many companies now have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software on their computer networks. CRM was first pioneered by sales crews who used it to manage appointments and information about prospects. In recent years CRM has grown into a system used not only to track and control sales functions, but to handle other customer relations issues including after-market service and sales, networking, statistical analysis, and market research. Many companies now make their CRM database available to everyone in the firm.
The complete integration of CRM into both the sales and the customer service departments means that those answering the phones not only know what customers have purchased, they know the customer’s entire history and they can input new history as well. By inputting what they learn from the incoming callers, the service reps become collectors of market data and deepen the business profile of that individual customer.
When the salesperson next makes contact with that customer they can instantly be made aware, through the info on their networked computer, of what has transpired between that customer and the Call Center. They are forewarned if the customer was unhappy, and prepared if the customer has shown an inclination to purchase more product.
This sharing of knowledge between people handling different aspects of the customer relationship puts the firm at an obvious advantage. Unfortunately many firms have not yet discovered the value of this commingling of information and have not created a CRM situation where this will take place.
The Call Center can also serve as an early warning system, uncovering problems other departments might not find until it’s too late. Sometimes these problems are discovered through meetings where Call Center reps and sales reps share their experiences. Sometimes they are uncovered through a conscious gathering of information and the analysis of that information.
Call Center reps can also become the greatest advocates for the classic “complainer” type of customer. Sales personnel often get tired of, or intimidated, by this type. Sometimes the complaint is not legitimate in nature, sometimes it is. Either way, people in the Call Center should be encouraged to actually engage this type and try to work with them. Research shows that the classic “complainer” can become among the best of word-of-mouth referrers when their concerns are actually addressed.
Other research shows us that loyalty to a vendor is higher among customers who have had problems solved versus customers who did not register a problem. Since many customers won’t tell us when there is a problem, the Call Center pros never have the chance to convert them to that level of loyalty. This is just another reason why the uncovering of problems can be a very important element of the Call Center rep’s skill set.
The evolution of the modern Call Center into a Profit Center has been a dramatic and relatively swift one, but it’s hardly over yet. As customer service becomes more important to the success of the firm, the Call Center will grow in importance as well. Expect to see more change in the future as managers change the process of taking phone calls and emails into a means of making the bottom line look a lot better than it did before.
