Marketing people are from Mars and Contact Centre People are from Pluto
5 Tips to bring the planets together!
By Stewart White (Senior Consultant - Call
Centers)
For reprint permission please email
info@genroe.com.au
Quite often our clients tell us that they would like things to be better between
their Contact Centre and Marketing Departments, so stronger business results could
be achieved.
Every situation is different and does need to be dealt with on a case by case basis
but I've listed 5 easy tips that you could implement immediately to ensure that
your relationships do not deteriorate
TIP 1: Make sure that any Marketing offer is able to be processed by your systems
One of the most common problems companies face is campaign offers that are not able
to be properly supported by the Contact Centres processing systems.
A classic example was where a FMCG Company had put together a fantastic three tier
bonus offer. The offer was based on a conditional purchase with three subsequent
tiers of products and prices. (Complete with reducing freight rates based on product
volumes brought.)
The offer was strong and the ROI modelling was extremely compelling.
When the Campaign went live (without testing!) the problems started.
Any orders where customers wished to take up the tiered offer resulted in the Customer
Service Rep's (CSR's) having to process two separate orders and then having to manually
discount down the second order to credit back the discounted freight component,
resulting in long and complex calls, and disjointed service.
Result, unhappy CSR's having to process the orders, and longer call lengths than
first modelled dramatically reducing ROI values!
TIP 2: Test campaigns before go live
Always test Campaigns before go live in a "Test Lab" environment within the Contact
Centre.
A test lab is usually a group of 8 to 10 CSR's who physically call some of the Campaign
leads and test the offer, scripting and processing to see if it is stable before
it is rolled out to the live environment.
This is a great learning opportunity and gives all involved parties a chance to
identify issues and opportunities, and make relevant changes before campaign deployment.
A Finance Company that instigated this process (as a portion of my review) saw an
immediate increase in Outbound Campaign results.
When I asked them why they thought this initiative had been so successful they replied
that "the new process enabled them to identify potential execution problems including,
processing, pricing, scripting, and customer relevance, before they started calling
all of the campaign leads."
Testing also meant that they could tweak every facet of the campaign before go live.
Note: don't forget that testing should apply for all mediums of exchange not just
outbound telephony./p>
TIP 3: Fully brief campaigns
A number of my clients have come to me and said things such as "the Customer Service
Representatives in my Contact Centre (both inhouse and vendor based) just don't
understand the offer" or "they don't go that extra mile to help the customers, what
can I do to increase their understanding and desire to help?"
"But hold on a minute" I say, there's some old sayings that ring pretty true here,
"sales is 80% product knowledge and 20% sales skill" and "knowledge equals empowerment
which equals help." You need to ask yourself, are your CSR's getting the right information?
The proper briefing in of campaigns is yet another integral step in the success
of campaign execution and successful relationships between Contact Centres and Marketing.
Not sure what to include in the brief?
The solution that works the best is to ask the people that will be executing the
Campaign what information they require to do their jobs more succinctly.
I have done this myself on a number of occasions and been amazed at the volume and
the types of questions that come back for clarification.
What I thought was "obvious" was not, because I had been working too close to the
offer.
Companies which have followed this process have recorded favourable results, including
reduced call handling times, higher first call resolution metrics and increased
Customer Service Ratings.
Tip 4: Job share for a period
I was asked to help a client that had a real "us and them" situation between their
Marketing and Call Centre units.
She was clearly concerned that her efforts had not provided the results she had
wanted and asked for advice.
The client had done some excellent work in trying to get the two business units
to work together including; holding combined social functions, instigating buddy
and mentor programs, and actively championing a "working together culture" but things
could still be improved.
Together we implemented a "Job Share" initiative to help enlighten and educate people
in both the Contact Centre and Marketing units.
Firstly we sold the concept into the Managers of both units as an opportunity to
broaden the knowledge and skills of their staff, potentially help with succession
planning (Mktg Dept), aid disaster recovery planning strategies, and facilitate
appreciation of each other environments.
Initially volunteers were asked to participate and spend a week working in each
other's units.
"Working" was defined in the purest sense with goal targets being set, recorded
and marked by the Managers of each unit, so it was perceived as a serious and reasonably
formal initiative.
It took a matter of hours before things started to change!
Comments were relayed back by the newbie's in Marketing such as "I had no idea it
was so hard to get margin on these offers" and "there are so many attributes to
take into account before you can start working out what offer should go to who."
Conversely comments came from the newbie's in the Contact Centre; "its so
incredibly busy down here" and "this is a really hard offer to try and explain."
As the program continued, realisation and appreciation of the challenges of each
business unit became apparent for the staff involved, quickly dismissing the "us
and them" situation and replacing it with a highly enlightened sense of appreciation
and respect.
Three months after the project had ended I caught up with that client again to see
how things were going.
The problem had evaporated with the two units working so closely together to achieve
both their own and common goals that she advised it were like working in a different
Company!
Tip 5: Rewards offered by Marketing to achieve
Do you have a campaign where you think the offer may be quite hard to get over the
line or a target that has been really stretched and you still need the Contact Centre
to achieve but you are not 100% certain they will back up your needs?
Dig deep and offer the Contact Centre a "bonus reward" for extra effort!
An Insurance Company that needed to quickly increase its upsell rates on a particular
product needed to somehow motivate the current Contact Centre staff to achieve.
The cross sell functionality had already been allocated its incentive budget but
a creative Marketing Team modelled the possibility of taking a portion of its above
the line advertising budget and reallocating it to this particular initiative.
The modelling looked good enough for the changes to be approved and the results
spoke for themselves!
With the added incentive dollars against the offer the response rates for the up
sell campaign over achieved by 4% adding an extra $300 000 to the bottom line.
Note: if you are looking to replicate this sort of initiative make sure your Q&A
processes are able to recognise and register "oversell situations" by your consultants
In summary
I hope you can use my tips to your benefit and would be very interested to hear
what results you achieve as a consequence.
Take the time out to pass them onto others who may be interested as well, and as
always if you would like to discuss any of the article's content or require further
information on Genroes services then please do not hesitate to contact me
Stewart White.
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