PCMS Contact Centre

The contact centre industry has changed identity and received bad press many times over the past few years; the main culprits are target driven sales professionals that will stop at nothing to get the result they want. I have mentioned in a previous blog we have the good, the bad and the ugly. I believe after years of the unprofessional shooting from the hip attitude towards sales, people are starting to take the industry serious and individuals within the industry are acting more professionally. That is why I have featured some best practice for sales.

• Focus on the relationship, sales should be a natural extension of customer service. Build a relationship with your prospects so you can learn what they want and when they will need it.
• Ask for referrals, if you have put in effort building a relationship and you feel it is positive but the prospect isn’t ready at the moment ask for a referral to A colleague or friend of theirs that maybe interested. Ask for just one contact though, it makes it easier for the prospect to think of one person instead of several.
• Set goals and objectives, before you start calling or start a meeting. Look at what you want to achieve by talking to the prospect, do you want them to sign a contract? Do you want them to tell you how their business needs your help? Or do you need them to commit to a meeting? Think about this before you start and think about how you are going to achieve these objectives/goals.
• Don’t lie; as I said before you want to build a good relationship with the prospect don’t start by lying to them. Also some of the cheesy clichés like ‘one of our sales people is in your area’ are so outdated you may as well wear flares and platforms to the meeting.
• Look around for inspiration, there are some fantastic blogs out there that will provide you with ideas about how to improve and change the way you currently sell. I am always looking around for new ones. I find getting stuck in a rut can really affect sales and that finding new ways to inspire and motivate yourself and your team are invaluable.
• Count 10 pink elephants, listening and silence are great sales tools, so count ‘1 pink elephant, 2 pink elephants, 3 pink elephants…’ all the way to 10 pink elephants (in your head), whilst you are waiting for a reply or more information from your prospect. No prospect ever makes it past 5 pink elephants without filling the silence and usually they crack and give away more information than they would have like to have done.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Continuing the theme of knowledge in the contact centre from my last blog, today’s blog is about how product knowledge benefits agents on the phone. Agents need enough knowledge to be able to answer most queries on the phone.  The more agents know about the products they are selling or representing, the more able they are to present the benefits to customers and to also adapt them to individual customers.

A few years ago when I first started at PCMS we ran a campaign for our leading EPoS product, VISION Beanstore.  During the campaign our task was to arrange meetings for our team with retailers to discuss PCMS products and solutions and how they could be of benefit.  As part of my training I was able to experience BeanStore from development to actually using the system as you would in-store. I found that after this experience when I considered the objections I may come up against, I would be ready for everything, because I was positive we provided an amazing product. This passion for our product resulted in the campaign being extremely successful.

I find that the more myself and my agents know about the product they are selling, the more confidently we approach each phone call. This is because we are sure that whatever objection or question that comes up during the call we will be able to answer with relevant information and not just repeating from a script. This means that you sound more professional on the phone and that the person you are calling is more likely to take you and the product seriously. We provide product knowledge in a number of ways, where selling a number of products that could be sold together we ask the staff to role play cross selling different products, if it is one service the agents make themselves familiar with the services and the benefits it provides its users.

Knowledge is a fantastic tool in the contact centre and there are many ways to impart knowledge on to the agents. Find fun and motivating ways for agents to learn and gain knowledge if its fun to learn they are more likely to remember it.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Sir Francis Bacon once said ‘Knowledge is power’; I find this is very true in  a contact centre.  Whether you are outbound or inbound calling you need to know what your customer needs so that you can help them. I have thought of the top five tips that will help get your customer talking so you can get the information that you need.

1. Listen! Listen! Listen!
   Too often contact centre agents feel that what they say sells. Listening to what your customer needs and you fulfilling that need is true selling. We tell our agents to pause before and after speaking, because people don’t like silence and have an urge to fill it, meaning they will give you more information.
2. Ask open ended questions.
   What, Where, When, Why, How or Tell me about are fantastic words to get customers talking, using these words asks customers to tell you more than just a one word answer and invites them to give you more details.
3. Don’t interrupt.
   Interrupting a customer is not very polite but also it means that you are not remembering hint number 1. Listen to what the customer has to say then pause before you reply; if you do this you will listen more effectively and you will gain more information. Also don’t assume you know what the customer will say, this will get in the way of your information gathering because your assumption may be wrong.
4. Repeat.
   Repeat the main points your customer has made and ask them if you have understood their points correctly. Ask the customer to expand upon any points that you don’t understand or that you will need more information about.
5. Write it down.
   What use is it if you gather all the information you need, if the second after the customer has told you, you forget it all? Write down all the key points from the conversation and keep a record of this information for future reference. Even knowing where your customer went on holiday is useful as it helps you build rapport and will open them up to give you more information in the future.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

After reading Call Centre Helper and Call Centre Focus this week I was pleased to find that Natterbox had released the results of a poll they had taken of customers and their view of customer services. The poll stated that 6 in 10 customers have moved their custom elsewhere because they had receives bad customer services. The poll also revealed that customers still prefer communicating via telephone or email, instead of using social media.  

 The report is very interesting, proving how investing in customer communications whether it is in-house or outsourced can save companies a lot of money further down the line in regards to marketing and sales. It does not matter how large or small your company is, it is less expensive to retain a customer than it is to generate new ones.

 The results of this poll show that although society is becoming more reliant on social media, customers still favour traditional contact methods.  I have found  that it depends on the company you are dealing with, I had an experience recently with a ticket provider, I needed to be advised as to how to collect some tickets I had purchased. I tried calling their customer services numerous  times; each time I got cut off without even speaking to an agent.  In my frustration, I turned to twitter. Within 30 minutes I had a private message apologising for my situation and asking for my contact details, within an hour I had all the information I needed. I think its unfortunate that you have to embarrass a company publicly before receiving good customer services. Needless to say I haven’t been egger to give them my business again!

The results of the poll show companies that customer service is just as important as areas as sales is to their revenue. They should look at their customer services seriously and consider how personal and enjoyable they want to make the experience. We have been blogging for a while at PCMS and have shared many hints and tips as to how to make your customers feel valued.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

At PCMS we continually look at learning new skills and encourage our agents to develop new skills, so most of our agents are cross trained in sales and customer services. Whilst I was running a skills workshop in appointment making this week one of our customer agents suggested I write a blog about some of my tips, I thought this was a great idea so quickly got to work. Thank You Poonam for the inspiration!

Here are a few of my top tips that I give to our telemarketers here in the PCMS contact centre:

1. Think about why you are calling? What do you need to find out from your prospect in order to find out if you can help them?
2.  If you can’t obtain the result you want, what result will you be happy with?
3. Receptionists are our friends, as telemarketers we need to appreciate that they are doing their jobs. Being nasty to or lying to receptionist is not going to help us build relationships with our prospects.
4. Ask for the receptionists/PA’s help, most people want to ‘help’
5. PAs usually know as much about the business as their boss does, tell them your value statement and ask if it is their boss’ department and when you can talk to them.
6. Always confirm who you are talking to, this shows interest and helps you to keep accurate notes.
7. When introducing your company, add a value statement. Why should the prospect listen to you? What will get their attention?
8. Be honest about why you are calling and what you hope to achieve from the call. The prospect will respect your honesty and they will focus on the conversation instead of wondering what you want from them.
9. Silence is your friend, after asking a question wait for your prospect to respond.
10. After you prospect has answered your question, pause, this gives you time to take in what they have said and think of your next question. Also the prospect may fill in the silence and give away to much information.
11. Close with a value statement, so they know why they should call you in the future or to remind them why they have agreed to the meeting.

These are a few of the tips I have learnt over the years that help with calling. The most important tip of all is to always listen more than you talk. As a telemarketer your main objective is to learn about the prospect, the company and their needs.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Many companies can benefit from outsourcing but can be apprehensive, so as it’s Valentines day soon and we are all feeling loved up here are some reasons to love outsourcing:

• Expertise. For many companies  it can be a long process finding just one person with some of the expertise you need, and recruiting can be a time consuming process. When outsourcing you can find a pool of expertise when you need it without paying the full time salary of a professional with their level of expertise. This saves your business a lot of time and money in regards to recruitment, training and managing.
• Experience. Outsourcers tend to have experience in a variety of different industries and projects meaning that they are more flexible and able to adapt their plan to fit in with each customer’s needs and budgets. PCMS have an agent retention average of over 4 and a half years, which is longer than industry standard, meaning our staff have benefitted from being trained on various projects and also will have received feedback on their performance on a monthly basis.
• Control. As a company, outsourcing can mean you have more control, companies can state the budget, the SLAs and the standard they require from their outsourcer and the outsourcer takes responsibility for meeting the set objectives.
• Technology. Outsourcing can provide a company with access to technology that they otherwise could not afford, so companies can use this technology to benefit their business without a large initial investment.
• Dreaming Big. For some companies wishing to expand, outsourcing can be the ideal option, they will benefit in all the areas I have already mentioned making their companies bigger with less risk. Also they may not have the room for an outbound team of 10 people so outsourcing is a fantastic option for them.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Imagine the scene,  it’s Wednesday afternoon and you are on the phones, a customer query comes in and you answer the query honestly and professionally, yet the customer is unhappy and you are not sure why.   Here are some of the things you may have said that might aggravate the matter:

1. “Sorry I cannot help you”
   Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, they may have been passed around and told this all day and they may be losing their patience.  If you think about most the queries you receive in customer services, although you may not be able to resolve the query yourself, I bet you know someone who can help the customer.   If you know someone who can help then give the customer their contact details and explain how this person maybe be able to help them. Better yet, transfer them yourself  and give them your name as a point of contact.  So, instead of saying ‘I can’t help you’ say ‘These are the contact details of the person who can help you and if you need any other help here are my contact details.’ Although you haven’t resolved the customer’s query you have helped them get a step closer to resolving it.
2. “Don’t blame me”
   You need to understand that taking calls in a call centre is a relatively anonymous job, a customer generally isn’t calling to shout at you they are calling to vent about an issue they are having.   If a customer shouts, generally (depending on how you have handled the call) a customer is shouting at the company or the issue. The best action to take when a customer is venting like this is to let them say what they need to say, don’t interrupt.  Once they have finished, clarify what you believe the issue to be, apologise that they are in this situation then explain the actions you will take to resolve the matter.
3. “Sorry but it is company policy to …..”
   Reciting company policy will not help resolve a customer’s issue; this is just another way of saying ‘sorry I can’t help you’.  Instead of focussing on what you can’t do for your customers, focus on what you can do. Present customers with options of what they can do in their situation and then let the customer control how to resolve the issue.
4. “Hold On”
   Just putting a customer on hold can be annoying. Customers respond better to explanations of how you are trying to resolve their query, how long it will take and result they can expect from it. Putting people on hold is the same, explain to the customer why you are putting them on hold and how long they can expect to be on hold or offer a call back at a time convenient to the customer.
5. “I don’t know” These words should not be in a contact centre agent’s vocabulary. If you don’t know the answer to a question, find out the answer from a team leader or handbook or find out where the customer can find the answer. This saves the customer a lot of time and guess work on their behalf, they will be grateful for the help.

Remember, you can always help a customer in some way, you may not resolve their issue but you can put them on the path to a resolution. Don’t take calls personally remember that the customer is not angry at you but at the situation, I know it’s hard but try not to get emotional!

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

1. Tenacity – sometimes the sale will elude you all day or the customer query isn’t as straight forward as you first thought.  Customer contact centre agents need tenacity to keep going until they get the sale or keep looking until they find a way of resolving the customer query.
2. Positivity – if you are being negative then answering many calls everyday potentially about the same thing is just going to lead to complaints.  You need to be upbeat and positive at all times.  In the customer call centre environment there is no where to hide if you are having a bad day.
3. People skills – It sounds obvious, but if you don’t really like talking to people then you aren’t going to enjoy working in the customer contact centre environment.
4. Understanding technology – unless you are working in technical support nobody is going to expect you to be a technical wizz. Still in almost every customer contact centre you will be expected to use a CRM system of some kind to access customer information, you will at least need to be confident you can use a computer with the right training.
5. Accuracy – customer data in the life line to any customer contact centre, please see my previous blogs for reference.  Data accuracy is vital to any business so your employer will need to know you are able to input customer requests, orders and queries accurately into their systems.

Heidi Coles

Business Development Executive

1. Data. When a customer calls with a query, cleanse the data you have about them to ensure that the address, email address and phone number are correct. Having incorrect information about your customers can cost time and money for both parties.
2. Aim for 1^st call resolution. This saves your customers and your agents time, instead of agents saying they do not know the answer to a query train them to find the answer. The more often a customer has to call the more frustrated they will become, making their experience with your customer service a bad one.
3. Manage customer expectation. Give them a time frame in which they can expect an answer, up date or resolution to their query and stick to it. If you cannot stick to the timeframe you have offered, contact the customer and tell them why and when they can expect it to happen.
4. Communicate. This returns to the point of number 3. Keep in contact with your customer and keep them up to date with progress.
5. Is the customer happy? Ask them. Don’t assume the customer will be happy with the answer, resolution or plan to resolve their query. Use the information you gather, here at PCMS if an agent gets positive feedback we ask them to make a note of what was said and which agent it was said to and then we put the comment on our wall of honour. If we get negative feedback, we use this to improve our service.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

The New Year will signal a new start for a number of customer contact centre agents but like many people around the country a touch of the January blues can set in.  Here are five tips to prevent the January Blues in your customer contact centre;

1.        Review and prepare – use the start of the year to complete any outstanding 121’s or appraisals.  Most customer contact centre agents will have had at least one or two Bank Holidays to relax over the Christmas period, this gives them the chance to reflect more objectively on the previous year’s performance.  Use the successes of the previous year to drive the performance of this year.  Customer contact centre agents are likely to have New Year’s Resolutions on their minds so cash in on this and focus on key performance objectives over the next 12 months.

2.       Training – start the New Year as you mean to go on and give your customer contact centre agents additional training.  Often in a busy customer contact centre environment the focus becomes on products and processes but it is the soft skills a customer contact centre cgent delivers which take the customer experience from good to great.  By training and coaching your customer contact centre agents on using a customer’s name during a call, thanking them for their business and needs based selling agents will have a better understanding of the customer experience and subsequently increase customer satisfaction.

3.       Keep them fresh – when agents have been working in a customer contact centre for a while they become rusty which can lead to a poor customer experience.  Mix things up for them, teach them a new skill, involve them in training new starters or set new challenges.

4.       Holidays – while the summer still feels a long way off it is always the key time of year where holiday requests come in.  Encourage agents to book their holidays early if they can to give them the best chance of securing key dates.  Booking holidays early gives you better chance of managing dates and gives the agents something to look forward to.

5.       Events – organising a night out or team lunch on payday gives the agents a chance to relax and chat informally.  Having something to look forward to can be great for agents motivation.

Happy New Year from everyone at the PCMS Contact Centre!

Heidi Coles

Business Development Executive