HOW IMPORTANT IS A QUALITY CONTROL PROGRAM FOR ENSURING ACCURATE DATA?
It’s amazing, but despite your efforts to develop customer relationships, some consumers on your database disappear. Whether the individual has moved home, or has changed job titles continued attempts to send marketing communications are at best a waste of time, effort, and resources; at worst they can cause offense and may damage your brand.
According to published reports 20+ percent of contact information changes annually and in some demographics it’s as high as 30 percent. So stop wasting precious marketing dollars with returned bulk mail, bad telemarketing data with wrong number and address information. With greater cell phone usage and alternative social media, marketers cannot afford to invest in marketing programs that are using aged or unqualified databases.
Many addresses contain simple errors that hinder address matching. These could be typos, or may just be incorrectly spelled addresses. To allow records to be mapped geographically and compared to other databases, address information must be corrected, cleaned, and duplicates removed. Additional benefits of database cleaning and the removal of duplicated addresses are reduced administration costs, a single view of customers, and improved company image through spelling corrections and reduced customer duplication.
So, how can you make sure to get the most out of your database? The most important part of any data collection program is to maintain quality control. Whether you conduct a database cleansing and validation program in house, or contract a company to do it for you, be sure to set up a rigorous audit system designed to ensure data accuracy.
The audit should include script and logic-flow testing, real-time data review, and digital recording and fulfillment analysis to achieve optimum data performance. In fact, not having these tools in place could cause greater database errors. A cleansed database should reduce wrong numbers and bad addresses down to 5 percent, increasing your penetration and success on your next direct mail and telemarketing program.
Imagine quickly accessing the records you need to pinpoint a target area, personalize a communication, and reach your desired contacts efficiently. How would your client Jon Symthe feel when a communication addressed to him that reads John Smith? You can be a database pro and increase productivity with clean, precise and updated data.
7 STEPS FOR AN EFFECTIVE TELEMARKETING SALES CHANNEL
Telemarketing has gotten a bad reputation from unscrupulous businesses trying to make a quick buck. There are only a handful of companies that properly follow state and federal guidelines and consider telemarketing a credible and very lucrative sales channel. Here’s 7 techniques the best companies use for effective telemarketing to their customers.
1. Create a unique and interesting offer to capture the customers attention within 15 seconds. You have a limited window to introduce yourself and make your pitch. Rework your introduction as many times as necessary to have the greatest impact.
2. Ask a question as soon as possible to engage the customer into the conversation. Customers are less likely to hang up the phone if you ask a question .
3. Listen closely to the response and be prepared to rebuttal. Most customers will respond consistently and being prepared to respond will always give you an edge. A sales call is a chess match…know the right moves in advance.
4. Building rapport does not mean asking “how are you?”. Most people will say “fine”. Know ask yourself “Did I learn anything from this response?” . The most effective salesperson will do some level of account review , history, research in order to be prepared to ask a relative question in order to establish an additional level of comfort over the telephone.
5. Leave telemarketing scripting to the experts. At Talk2Rep, we work with our clients to understand the product or offer. Quite often marketing people script a commercial to be used over the telephone. Marketing scripts tune out customers and more often than not you will sound like a radio commercial instead of a friendly and personal telephone engagement.
6. Role play the call flow for improvement to ensure the most productivity. Keep the call flow focused and time limited. Balance quality and quantity. More contacts may mean more sales so don’t get lost in providing too much information.
7. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Look at transactional reporting closely. How long are customers staying on the phone? What are customers saying? How are you converting your calls? Collect data and make the necessary telemarketing campaign tweaks to gain the most customers.
While on line lead generation, social media and live chat have become new channels for customer acquisition, Telemarketing continues to be a multi-billion sales channel to acquire and retain new customers. Just follow all regulations, engage customers and represent yourself properly and professionally and follow these 7 steps as a formula for telemarketing success.
HOW CAN I ENHANCE QUALITY FROM OUR OUTSOURCED CALL CENTER PARTNER?
Your company has outsourced its call center operations, and now you must manage service levels and metrics. Beyond looking at the numbers, how can you ensure your customers are receiving a quality experience? Here are six tactical approaches:
1. Representatives – Is the call center using well-trained, top quality representatives on the program? Exceptional customer experiences start with exceptional
reps, and call center professionals certainly play a key role in increasing profitability and customer satisfaction. Ask the vendor about hiring criteria, which should include call center skills testing procedures.
2. Knowledge Base – Do the call center reps know everything there is to know about your product or service? It is your responsibility to make sure the vendor and its reps have all the information they need to seamlessly represent your company. Give the call center and the agents a robust knowledge base, including training, FAQs, and sales/service tools. Keep information up to date, and have the vendor conduct regular training updates and product/service knowledge tests.
3. Representative reports – Are you taking advantage of the reporting capabilities your call center has to offer? Along with regular daily or weekly call reports,
ask for reports on representatives’ service levels. There is a confirmedrelationship between service level and quality; this will be demonstrated as reps strive for exceptional service levels. The result is improved quality representation for your customers.
4. Call monitoring – Does the call center have the technology to record and monitor calls? If so, be sure it’s being it to evaluate agents’ customer service skills. The
ability to capture data and voice gives call center operations managers the tools they need to effectively train reps and ultimately increase productivity and profits for your company. Have the vendor regularly email you recordings of randomly selected calls; review them together and make sure the vendor hears the same opportunities to improve call quality that you hear.
5. Test calls – How are the call center reps really doing? Find out for yourself by making anonymous test calls to the call center on a regular basis. Test calls are a great way to determine the effectiveness of your training. You can also judge quality levels firsthand, and can provide feedback to the call center. Your vendor will appreciate your input.
6. Communications – Are your vendor communications limited to reports by email and the occasional phone call? Regular, open communications with your outsourced partner is an important tool in the quality process. Set up a weekly teleconference with your vendor to discuss program progress and outstanding issues. Answer vendor emails and voicemails in a timely manner, and make sure they extend the same courtesy. You may have selected your outsourced partner because it
has the latest technology and operational capabilities or an impressive record of success and experience. Don’t let the firm rest on these laurels: Focus your vendor on call quality and you will be able to maintain, improve, and enhance customer contact management operations. Take the proactive approach. You will be pleased to find that the numbers will fully exceed your expectations.
5 TIPS TO ENHANCE CUSTOMER RETENTION
Plainly speaking Customer Retention is the activity that a company undertakes in order to reduce customer churn. What most companies fail to realize is that retention begins when the sale is underway. Whether through online, telemarketing, direct mail, door to door, no matter what channel, the initial customer experience sets the alarm clock from the time customer retains your service. So initial positive impressions and experience is critical at the time of sale and then maintained throughout the lifecycle of the customer.
So while creating channels to add customers, a company needs to simultaneously create channels to keep customers engaged. Strangely enough one of the fastest ways to actually grow your business is to reduce the number of clients who leave you. Thus, looking after existing clients should become your top priority.
Here are some channels to help bolster retention:
- Welcome Calls: Initiate a “welcome to our family” and inquire what your customer’s initial impressions are of the product or service they purchased. Ask them about their experience to date; this is also a great time to ask for referrals if their experience has been positive. This can accomplished be by mail, email, a newsletter, or even just a simple face-to-face chat.
- Manage Social Media: By paying attention to posted complaints you can deter possible cancellations and continuous negative broadcasts. Look at negative complaints as an opportunity to “win over” a customer by showing care and responsiveness. Today, negative comments on social media can spread virally to negatively impact your reputation. Engage customers timely on Facebook, Twitter etc. and represent yourself as a caring organization willing to satisfy.
- Create and support a Loyalty Program. There are many industries that have use loyalty programs as a thrust of their customer engagements i.e. airlines industry. The airlines spend millions of dollars on these programs. Today however, you can create online loyalty programs through social media that are extremely cost effective and can easily broadcast customer enthusiasm for your product or service.
- Manage customer service satisfaction and FCR (First Call Resolution) some companies have gone offshore or nearshore with their call centers to reduce costs. These short term decisions have had negative long term consequences with lower retention in areas such as sales, service and in some cases technical support. Even if you have a US based call center infrastructure, measure satisfaction, offer customers choice and ensure problems are resolved timely.
- Specialist retention swat team Consider setting up a specialist retention team by identifying agents with the right mix of service and sales skills that are best suited for this effort. Customers are calling with intent to cancel. You need to invest in a focused and highly trained team to engage these customers with a turnaround goal to have a happy satisfied customer once again.
DEPLOYING LIVE CHAT AS A BIG BOX RETAILER
As retailers are closing their books on 2011 and retail competition continues to heat up, there are few areas other than price, where retailers can differentiate themselves.
With online shopping continuing to increase year over year, why aren’t more companies and retailers deploying live chat?
Over 12 years ago I looked at deploying live chat for AT&T as a way to cut down on high telecommunications costs knowing with the right chat software you can have multiple chat conversations simultaneously. There are no telco costs…more conversations with a representative, less calls to the call center = lower costs and happier customers. The math adds up and just made sense to me. Being responsible for a large company’s telemarketing infrastructure I saw initial white papers on creative retailers. Such retailers like Lands End were early successful chat adopters.
While it’s been a slow journey, today AT&T has the largest deployment of chat globally. Thousands of customers interact daily with AT&T chat representatives quite knowledgeable on all products and plans for customers and web site visitors alike.
Some of the largest retailers like Walgreens, Sears and Home Depot utilize chat (albeit somewhat buried in their website), while others such as Best Buy, CVS, do not. In fact less than 15% of the top 25 retailers are utilizing live chat. Why?
Even the largest retailer Wal-Mart forces you to email a question. Not the most customer friendly and rapid response at all.
Those retailers that have adopted the instant messaging type tool of web chat boast the following:
- Increases in sales by utilizing website chat by 20%
- Those that chat with a representative are 4X more likely to convert to a sale rather than those that just visit the site.
- According to a poll by Andersen Consulting, almost 62 % of Internet consumers said they would purchase more products online if live customer support were available.
Let’s see, .. “I’m at work in my cubicle and have a question on a new iPAD”. Options are few since I don’t want to make a call tie up my phone and have coworkers hear me…can’t wait on an email response and I’m lost in FAQ world. What to do??? Radio Shack doesn’t chat, already went to Best Buy…Amazon must have chat! No such easy, anonymous, and rapid customer response tool available. Let me keep shopping for a web site that can help me.
Even fewer of the large retailers are using Proactive Live Chat (Engaging customers based on time on page or web site page location)…Proactive chat is not the floating, never go away “Chat with me now” button …but a small, timed, and well place button that pops “How Can I help you?” can bolster your retail sales northward.
In fact, According to Forrester research, 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer. Proactive chat can provide this type of customer support, ultimately achieving multiple business goals for eCommerce, including reducing abandonment, improving conversions, and driving customer satisfaction.
Besides having a tenured group of chat agents utilizing a robust chat tool, Now Lands End offers 1-way video chat. Large big box retailers…it’s time to start catching up.
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