When should you set up your call center?

In the history of business, there are two common mistakes when creating a Call Center.

Error 1: the site is under development, there is no traffic, irregular requests are received through old channels. Client, without waiting for the site to be released, formed a call center for 40+ people, which led to losses.

Result: the project is closed.

Error 2: the website and traffic provide a stable and predictable flow of applications, but online sales are conducted the old fashioned way: calls are made through a mobile phone, results for clients are compiled in Excel (or even in a notebook). Absence system makes the sales process chaotic: no statistics on missed calls, tasks for potential clients, quality of service. Some leads are lost as a result of manual management.

Result: the company is losing sales.

When there is no flow of applications, there is no need to create a call center. It is enough to authorize one of the employees to respond to such irregular requests while the project is not running. So that the call center is not a liability, it needs to be formed when you have a working website, traffic and you can already predict the flow of applications and loading of sellers.

The criterion for launching an effective Call Center is communication channels (telephone, online chat, web form, instant messengers, mail), which regularly receive requests thanks to a working funnel.

There are options for an outsourced call center, but it will be more difficult to understand a complex product: the conversion of an application into a sale will be low.

Applications from different channels should fall into a single system

All channels of communication with your client should lead to a single information space for your manager’s work.

Data should automatically go into CRM if the client:

Called the phone number
Requested a call back
Placed an order on the website
Wrote in online chat
Wrote in messengers
Wrote by email

If a client tried to contact you through any channel during non-working hours, the transaction will still fall into the CRM and managers coming to work will see the missed applications and immediately begin processing them in the system itself, without manually pulling them out from various sources.

If contacts are entered manually by managers into CRM, you are 100% losing some of your leads without knowing it.

Personnel: roles, motivation system, employee adaptation and knowledge base

“Build a systematic sales department and the company will need you for 2 weeks, create a manual sales department and you will be needed for the rest of your life.”

The main task of the Department Head (hereinafter referred to as ROP) is to form a sales department with minimal risk of errors caused by the human factor. If you have a limited budget, it will be more profitable to take a ROP for several periods to set up the project, draw up KPIs and transfer it for control to a supervisor who will keep his finger on the pulse. This way, the sales department will work autonomously; you will need to monitor key indicators and occasionally connect the ROP to further customize the project.

Standard structure of effective Call Center

ROP (in-house or outsourcing)
Supervisor (Auditor)
Sales managers (Call center operators + chat operators)

The classic seller motivation scheme contains 4 components:

Bet - minimum guaranteed payout
Commission - % of sales
Bonus - bonus for fulfilling and exceeding the plan (additional % of sales)
Additional bonuses - competitions, fulfillment of standards (optional)

Documentation and adaptation to get started sales department

The intern must provide:

Instructions for working with programs (CRM, telephony, 1C)
Work standards (from sales techniques and scripts to regulations and rules)
Senior Manager Mentoring
KPIs by which you will evaluate its productivity

Every company has employees who will convince you that selling is a talent and you need to be born a salesman. From experience, I can say that selling is a formula that anyone can follow to achieve high results. In the practice of effective Call Centers, it happened that a trainee with no experience in sales and an accountant by profession was ahead of the best salesperson in a couple of months, due to the fact that he thoroughly studied the sales methodology and strictly adhered to the regulations.

“Methodology and consistency defeat any talent”

Business processes

All department processes must be described and then digitized as much as possible in order to minimize manual control.

Interactive CRM will add a little fun to routine work and allow each employee to achieve assigned tasks and goals with interest. Therefore, the design and structure of the CRM itself plays an important role. Simplicity and conciseness will involve the employee in the processes, while a complex and ill-thought-out CRM structure may interfere with sales.

Imagine that instead of checking for each successful deal whether the NPS manager sent a survey to the client, you simply view the monthly results in a dashboard. Because the system automatically sends a questionnaire to the client based on the condition you select, generating ready-made results in the form of a report for you. Imagine that instead of looking to see if the manager has filled out all the information in CRM, the system itself encourages entering all the data using the functionality of required fields for selected transaction statuses. Imagine that instead of checking deals for tasks, the system automatically assigns tasks until the deal is completed.

Try to delegate the maximum number of routine tasks to the CRM Robot: it will handle it better than you. It’s better to keep the supervisor busy listening to calls on sales techniques in order to improve the quality of communication with the client.

KPIs of the sales department and employees

Situation: one of your managers has sharply declined in sales. There are two types of leader reactions to this.

First reaction:

"You are bad! Your sales are the worst. We look at it for a month: there is no improvement - we fire him."

Second reaction:

“I see that your sales have dropped. Now let's get started! The average transaction duration has doubled (you are delaying callback times), switching to chat, avoiding voice communication. In addition, you make a client presentation at your own discretion, without identifying his needs and without hitting the target. This month you will focus on RSV, reduce the time it takes to call a client back by half, and communicate mainly by phone rather than via chat. In 2 weeks we’ll see your results and adjust your work.”

What distinguishes the first reaction from the second?

Having a KPI system that allows you to understand why one sells better than another and influence this. Salespeople no longer take the side of fatalists, they understand the success factors that influence results, and instead of complaining about management, they improve their weaknesses.

The presence of KPIs allows the manager to work through growth points individually with each sales manager. It is important not only to fine, but also to demonstrate how the seller can become the best.

Public ratings once a week have a positive effect on competition. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the list.

Examples of KPIs for a salesperson Call Center:

Number of successfully completed transactions, pcs.
Individual conversion, %
Average transaction duration, days
Average check
Audit of sales techniques through a points system (Establishing contact, Product knowledge, Identifying needs, DAM, Deal culture)
Transactions without tasks
Lost transactions (calls, chats)
Lost trades
Average duration of dialogue
Lost call processing speed
Messenger response speed

A common mistake of Call Centers is to serve hot leads, and send cold leads to closed, unrealized deals due to reluctance to spend a long time with it. There are transactions worth UAH 100 thousand that are processed within 90 days. Therefore, it is important for the supervisor to conduct a monthly audit of closed and unrealized transactions to ensure the objectivity of their closure.

The marketing cost of a lead is too expensive to allow the manager not to pick up the phone or answer the client’s questions and score by sending the deal to “Lost.” If a person contacts you, he has a need that needs to be recognized and sold the necessary product. Sometimes this takes more than one month.

Necessary equipment and software for a selling Call Center

The office should be spacious: per employee there should be from 4,5 square meters. m. You can zone the manager’s workplace using partitions.

Equipment you will need:

Компьютер
Headset with microphone
Softphone if an employee is on the move and not sitting in the office

Recommended software:

CRM
Telephony
Online chat

How to understand that my Call Center is “effective”

What is a service? First of all, these are technologies that minimize the risk of errors resulting from the human factor. When the system is as autonomous as possible, you don’t waste time stupidly searching for deals without tasks. Next, you delve deeper into the dialogue between the seller and the client and analyze how deeply the manager understands the client, how competently he composed the proposal to meet the client’s identified need, whether the seller has a sense of proportion or whether he pushes his line without hearing the client.

Your Call Center is selling if:

All requests from different sources (including outside working hours) are sent to CRM
All processes that can be digitized are digitized (auto tasks, auto events according to specified conditions)
Sellers have access to a knowledge base, instructions, scripts, regulations and rules, and employees adhere to them (!)
Availability of KPIs for the department and for each employee separately
Regular audits of calls and chats are carried out
Work is done with each employee on his mistakes and points of growth
There is a transparent system for calculating wages and fines

Hack and predictor Aviator

“Sale is the correct mat model, not improvisation and talent”

A transparent KPI system allows you to see growth points for each salesperson and helps the manager become a coach, and not just an executioner.

At the time of implementation, you will most likely encounter the fact that talented salespeople will claim: “It doesn’t work like that here, I know better: 10 years in sales.” Hold your position. If people refuse to play by your rules, they corrupt discipline and infect others with toxicity.

How to start a sales Call Center from scratch?