Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Revenue Generation: Profit from Pain



Revenue Model- Profit from Pain

One of the biggest challenges facing contact centers today is supporting Managements’ goal to shift the contact center from a cost center to a profit center. This can often be akin to pushing water uphill for Center managers who are under resourced and lack an understanding of the basics associated with up-sell, cross-sell and ‘save’ campaign effectiveness.

The following article sets out the parameters, drivers, sequence and value associated with the model hierarchy and its development.

There is a progression and hierarchy associated with the implementation of a revenue generation process within any call or contact center. This progression or process must begin by identifying where the center is, what the drivers for change are, the pre-requisites and sequence in which those activities must be accomplished and what the impact is of those activities have on the success and profitability of the revenue generation initiative.

Broadly stated the drivers would include:

Staffing:
Adequacy of current staff,
Availability of current staff,
People;
Skills & Competencies related to sales versus customer service,
Level and type of training received,
Competence or proficiency level,
Process:
The complexity of the processes required,
The speed of process completion,
Replication and error rate of the process,
Technology:
Database access, vision and robustness,
Scripting and sales support tools,
Virtual agent,
Offer:
Relevance to customer
Affinity to customer,
Perceived value & relationship,

These broad areas will each perform at differing levels dependant upon the combinations of the above in relation to Offer percentage (the percentage of callers that receive an offer) and conversion percentage (the percentage of callers that agree to an additional transaction). The Offer percentage in most contact center is controlled by the agent or CSR: they determine if it is appropriate to extend and offer to a customer. The latter point will be influenced by the offer the affinity to the customer and the perceived value by the customer.

The following chart illustrates the sequence of activities related to maximizing revenue generation.









Each of these elements builds upon the previous ones. It is possible to operate without following this hierarchy, but the results will suffer.

Against this hierarchy we can classify operations across four bands, which we have categorized as: Base, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. These bands represent and categorize the activities and results achieved in the center related to the progress achieved moving up the hierarchy.

The following table illustrates this progress:


As shown above at the Base level the existing staff is generally customer service staff that has been hired to handle customer inquiries. These staff members in service focused centers often were not selected or assessed based upon their sales focus or sales (potential) competencies. The staff will have often received little if any training opposite up-sell cross-sell activities and as a consequence they rate 1-3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The organizational processes have in most cases been designed to process orders and sales in a one-off fashion removed from the call/contact center. There may be no processes in place to manage add on orders or shipments within the fulfillment operation. In some cases no policy exists for partial shipment rules (ship partials versus hold for complete). The processes are adequate and effective for the business as it has operated but are not optimized, nor necessarily aligned with supporting an up-sell cross-sell environment. The processes at the Base level are generally in 3 – 5 range on the 1 to 10 scale.

Technology in most organizations has not been designed to support up-sell and cross-sell initiatives. Often it is campaign centric and not customer centric. The systems have been designed to support mass selection of names for mailings or other campaigns and not on an individual basis. The result is the database can often not display much detail regarding the actual customer: their history likes/dislikes or affinities. Similarly most inbound customer service support applications feature access to customer records for billing and account status inquiries, not to offer or support specific scripting for offers etc. As a result technology suitability for up-sell, cross-sell initiatives in the Base band is generally between 2 to 4 on a scale of 1 to 10.

As staff selection improves: skills, competencies and sales ability the base values for staffing and People improve. The addition of specific and detailed sales skills training, role playing and use of the existing technology improves the values for Training. As does refining and aligning the operational processes to support up-sell and cross-sell activities also improves the Process values.

As the elements outlined as Drivers above the overall scores will improve. With the skill/competency improvement the center will see improvements in both the Offer % and the Conversion %.

As outlined on the table the Conversion % in most centers converting from a customer service environment will be in the 3-5% range and suffers from a low Offer % as well. In these centers the decision to offer or not to offer an up-sell/cross-sell is usually left to the discretion of the agent. It is common that their fears, concerns, lack of training, knowledge of the customer and support negatively impacts their perception of up-sell cross-sell programs and leads them to find reasons to rarely offer the up-sell.

A structured, planned and consistent approach can move the center up the effectiveness curve and begin to achieve superior results is required.

The proof is in the results, employing this approach has already helped a number of organizations move from cost focus to revenue success. This is always a challenging journey, but can be the difference between success and failure for the center manager.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Job Opportunities - Toronto- Senior Account Exec,

From time to time I get asked to assist friends and clients in recruiting staff in call center related activities. This is just such an occasion. The positions below are great opportunities for the right people and have significant upside potential for growth and advancement.

If either role is of interest to you send me your resume via email to ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Job Description
Senior Account Executive

General Description
Introduce and sell Client’s core services to potential medium to large enterprises in the Greater Toronto market. Client’s is a leader in the deployment and installation of Turnkey Data Networks and Voice Over IP PBX systems. While initially being primarily responsible for sales you must have the ability to multi-task in the areas of marketing and general management. You must have a successful track record in meeting/exceeding targets in selling enterprise solutions to senior and `C' level executives. The successful candidate will have a strong track record in direct technology sales, be a self starter and be motivated to achieve.

This is a ground floor opportunity and as such this position has definite potential for the right individual to become a key player and share in the growth of the organization. Clients’ initial push is to develop this market leading with a leading Voice over IP PBX product. General knowledge or experience selling and promoting VoIP PBX products is a definite plus as a qualifier for this position.

Duties and Responsibilities
Sales Prospecting
General development of Toronto Market
This will be supported by direct marketing, tele-prospecting and direct mailings
Daily use of Goldmine CRM
Call reporting
Sales Forecasting
Weekly sales planning
Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Reporting
Development of individual sales plan on a quarterly basis
Field Demonstration of VoIP equipment
Sales Training and Demo Certification will be provided
Seminars
Conduct monthly seminars
Supported by marketing plan
Marketing
Help develop marketing plan for territory
Identify verticals

Job Qualifications:
Related Experience:
· 2+ years experience as a in Enterprise Sales focused on Networking and or Telephony
· Experience working with service providers to obtain pricing for end users
· Working level knowledge of Telephony and Data Networks.

Formal Training or Education:
BA/BS education preferred

Compensation
The compensation plan will be a combination of base plus commission on sales. Base compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Job Description
Network Engineer

General Description
Manage and maintain network, systems, telecommunication services, provide customer installation and support. Client company, is a leader in the deployment and installation of Turnkey Data Networks and Voice Over IP PBX systems. While most of the duties of this job will entail post sales installation and support some presales engineering support will also be required. The successful candidate will have a strong track direct technology support, be a self starter and be motivated to achieve.

This is a ground floor opportunity and as such this position has definite potential for the right individual to become a key player and share in the growth of the organization. The client’s initial push is to develop in this market a leading Voice over IP PBX product. General knowledge installation and maintenance of VoIP PBX products is a definite plus as a qualifier for this position.

Duties and Responsibilities
The following is a partial list of expected day to day duties the position of Network Engineer may be required to perform. It is by no means comprehensive and additional roles, responsibilities and tasks are expected to be preformed at the direction of management. Some weekend, off hour and travel will be required.
LAN/WAN troubleshooting
VoIP PBX troubleshooting
Multi vendor firewall and router programming - Multi vendor switch programming
Intensive Cisco router and switch programming
Cisco PIX and ASA programming
Design LAN and WAN topology
Visio diagrams of logical and physical data flow
Access control lists
Multiple protocol routing
Routing protocols such as – OSPF, RIP, BGP, EIGRP
Live cut-over support
Circuit troubleshooting
Server troubleshooting/Desktop support/Application support
Server installation/SQL/Citrix/Terminal Services

Job Qualifications:
Related Experience:
2+ years experience as a Network Field Engineer or a Network Operations Center Technician/Engineer
In-depth knowledge of the seven layers within the OSI model and detailed familiarity with industry protocols.
Extensive experience with IP Addressing to include sub netting
Experience in troubleshooting router, switch and fault-tolerant redundant environments, configuration, troubleshooting and hardware maintenance
Experience working with service providers testing and troubleshooting

Formal Training or Education:
BA/BS education preferred

Compensation
Compensation commensurate with experience.