Stoffer's Soapbox

Intelligent Call Routing - Is LiveOps the Answer?

In most outbound sales-focused call centers, leads are assigned rather haphazardly, often based on some rudimentary skill sets or based on giving a higher volume of leads to the better sales reps. If these call centers learned to be more precise in lead allocation - and ensure that the right lead gets to the right salesperson - they could find a pretty significant lift in conversion rate and profit.

Some call centers have moved up a rung in sophistication by allocating leads based on propensity to convert - i.e. the majority of leads from the highest converting lead sources go to the best sales reps (of course there is a balance here - if you give new or low performing reps only the worst leads, they will never have a chance of improving). This is better but still not optimal - the highest converting lead source for one sales rep is not necessarily the highest converting for another.

Now imagine nirvana - a system that would dynamically determine which reps are best at converting which leads - for example, Susie is best at selling to associate's degree prospects from the South while Jon is best at selling to potential MBA students in the northeast. As the leads come in the door, the system would then allocate them across the call center to optimize whatever KPIs management wants optimized. Well, nirvana exists and it is called Live Ops. David Hornik of August Capital explains how LiveOps works in a recent blog post:

"LiveOps is in essence AdWords for people. The platform is able to measure and manage each individual agent in real time and route calls based upon the performance of each agent. And that routing doesn't simply rely upon data about the agent. It also relies upon information about the call coming in. If a call to the LiveOps' service is to sell a Ginsu Knife, the agent with the best track record of selling and up-selling will get the call. If, on the other hand, it is a call concerning front line product support, a different agent may have the best record of quick and effective resolution of support matters."

Perfect, right? Well, not if you have already invested millions in your call center infrastructure that still sits on the books. The only way to use LiveOps is to either outsource operations to a LiveOps call center or rip out your entire call center infrastructure and install the LiveOps Hosted Contact Center. If LiveOps or someone else would introduce a similar intelligent routing capability that sits on top of Avaya, Genesys, Cisco and other legacy call center platforms, they would have a huge profit opportunity.

5 Keys to Success in a Hot Transfer Environment

Bill Rice is hosting the Leads2007 conference in Florida in mid-August (I'm 90% certain I'll get there). I am looking forward to speaking with other companies that are using an upfront telemarketing team (or the lead vendor Double Positive) to transfer hot leads to their sales team. Despite all its advantages, a hot transfer environment does make lead allocation a much more challenging task. After implementing such a system, I have laid out 5 Keys to success below:

1. Beware the Inverted Pyramid. In a traditional push system, where reps are assigned leads, many companies assign the most leads to their highest performing reps and the least to their lowest performing reps.It is easy, in a hot transfer environment, for this to become inverted. Your worst reps likely have the lowest average handle time and, if proper controls are not in place, will take the most transfers. I challenge each of you using hot transfers to stack rank your sales force by conversion rate - I'd bet your top performers take the fewest transfers and your low performers are burning through leads.
2. Avoid "Cherry Picking" by Setting Clear KPIs for Management and Sales Reps. The sales team is likely used to getting judged on absolute number of sales -  in education, the metric is enrollments. I cannot stress how important it is to change this to reflect conversion rate - otherwise, the incentive is in place for a sales rep to take as many transfers as possible and "cherry pick" the easy sells
3. Mandate that low performers take only a prescribed number of transfers per day. If you have the technology for intelligent routing, build this into your business rules; if not, at least put manual rules/processes in place
4. Aggressive performance management. By design, each lead is more valuable in a hot transfer environment (you probably pay 3-4 times more per transfer than you do per lead). As such, your low performers in this environment are far more harmful to your bottom line than bad performers in a traditional push environment. So make a quick call on letting people go - if it is clear someone, once fully trained, will at best be a mediocre performer, let them go quickly
5. The corollary to aggressive performance management is aggressive and constant hiring. Aggressively recruit top talent constantly, from staffing agencies, competitors, local universities and elsewhere in the local business community. And make sure you have a rigorous hiring process - this is not just using a behavioral profile to screen upfront, but also encompasses the interview process as well.  As an example, when I hire admissions advisors, they have three interviews: (i) standard behavioral; (ii) a roleplay over the phone using a sample call flow and (iii) they get 20 minutes to prepare a ten minute presentation on a topic of my choosing. If they pass these three tests, I'll put them out on the floor for a half hour next to one of my best reps so they can see what the job is like (also, it''s amazing what candidates might say to someone they view as a peer).

I'm curious to hear from others their experiences in implementing hot transfers - lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid.

Calling Internet Leads: How Often, How Much

There is a multi-billion dollar market in Internet lead generation for big ticket item services (mortgages, education, etc.). So you would think someone would be able to tell me the optimal strategy to reach these leads. I have talked to virtually every large telecom equipment vendor, publicly traded outsourcers, a boatload of consultants and a number of software providers and no one can give me a simple answer to two not so simple questions:

1. The holy grail would be a one size fits all answer to "what is the optimal strategy, across channels, to convert leads in a consultative inside sales environment?"

2. Clearly, there is no holy grail answer possible as each company and industry and consumer segment has its own characteristics. So the next question is "what approach or methodology should I use to arrive at an answer?" Surprisingly, no one has given me a good answer here either.

The easy answer is to focus on telephone contact only,  act as a telemarketer and just dial the heck out of leads until you reach 70-80% list penetration, rest the list, and then dial the leads you could not finalize again a few months later. But, as a consumer, would you enroll in a school that dialed you twenty times and never left a message (for me, that twentieth dial would be a big "place me on the Do Not call list").

A more intelligent telephone strategy would be to figure out, based on lead characteristics, what are the best times of day to reach a consumer. There are global and segment-level optimums and this is a very attainable strategy.

The best strategy would be to reach the customer through the channel they want to be reached and when they want to be reached - this could be via an active channel like via outbound dialing, IM or email campaigns or a more passive relationship-oriented channel like an RSS feed or school-sponsored portal.

Easier said than done - has anyone had any success in a consultative sales focused organization optimizing lead conversion, in the long run, and across channels?

Fighting Temptation to Compromise

I am hiring for a number of sales positions right now and the big temptation is to compromise - you need X hires by Y date and it's tempting to chuck away all those visions of only accepting the best of the best and instead settle for "they could end up being good with an equal dose of training and prayer." It's great that I read Seth Godin's blog this afternoon as it gave me a well needed jolt of reality.

Seth urges marketers "to refuse to market mediocre stuff if that's the best the folks in R&D and production can bring you. The first time, they'll be shocked. Your job will be at risk. But then you'll notice something... the stuff gets better. Fast. In Japanese car factories, this is called kanban. You trade production efficiencies for quality. If a part isn't perfect, the worker refuses to install it. And the entire assembly line stops. Detroit was horrified by this idea. Keeping the assembly line going is the holy grail. Guess what? The line doesn't get stopped very often. Things get better, fast."

The same principles apply with HR - if the cadidates aren't good enough, I will press for more and more and more until I get the ones that meet my needs.

The Multi-Channel Customer Experience

There was an interesting post from the eStara blog topically about finding the best contact center technology. However, I found eStara's emphasis to be spot on: "Organizations need to think beyond whether or not customers are having a good call center experience, or a good Web site experience, and worry about whether customers are having a good brand experience. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than investing time and effort online and then having to transition to a phone call and “start all over again.” The best contact center technologies are those that provide a seamless cross-channel experience and offer a continuity of experience for the customer."

In the for-profit education industry, the emphasis has shifted toward reaching the potential student when they want, where they want and through whichever channel they want. The next step is, as eStara states above, putting the systems in place to give emloyees a single view of the customer. That way, employees can view a history of every contact a student or potential student has had with the school, can avoid having to recollect information and can work to optimize the customer experience each and every time.

Workforce Optimization for Outbound Telesales

Witness Systems has published an excellent white paper on how workforce optimization is more than simply forecasting the number of agents required, based on expected call volume, and scheduling appropriately. Instead, true workforce optimization should be customer-centric - integrating QA, training, forecasting and scheduling. I'd add recruiting and a CSAT program to this list as well.

Below are some special considerations I have found useful in striving to be customer-centric in an outbound telesales environment. 

1. Implementing a Customer-Centric Sales Process. Use information from shopping competitors, customer surveys and quality monitoring to ensure your sales process meets customer needs

• Segment customers based on demographics & needs unveiled by surveys/QA monitoring
• Understand your competitors' sales processes through regular mystery shopping
• Use information from surveys/monitoring/competitor shops to adapt the right call flow/scripting and tools to optimize conversions within each customer segment
• Develop rebuttal guides to help salespeople overcome prospect objections

2. Hire salespeople with the skill sets needed to execute your process most effectively.

• Assess the skill set needed to sell your product most effectively - you can do this by profiling your best salespeople. Also use this profile in screening new hires
• Determine whether your compensation/employee benefits are appropriate by benchmarking competitors and comparable industries (also if all your best salespeople are defecting to other companies, you know you have a problem)
• Assess whether you can expand your labor pool by using home agents or locating in a different geographic location

3. Ensure your inside salespeople are properly equipped to handle your sales process

• Determine what foundational training & coaching is needed for onboarding new salespeople
• Determine what foundational training & coaching is needed to ensure that newly promoted/hired coaches understand how to coach your sales process
• Once a salesperson is on the phones, use QA and supervisor coaching to identify gaps in agent skill sets
• Use a mix of e-learning, simulation and live coaching to close gaps in agent and coach skill sets
• Measure agent, coach and organization-wide training needs via a learning management system.
• Ideally you should be able to statistically tie skill set trainings and scoring to changes in performance

4. Optimize Agent Time Management and Staffing

• Determine optimal average handle time for each part of the sales process based on customer segment. Use this to set agent expectations,  being mindful of the fact that every customer is different
  
• Determine how changes in customer wait time during the sales process affect conversion rates (e.g. if it takes over x amount of time for a potential student to reach a financial aid advisor, how does it affect sales). Use this information to make the right staffing decisions
• Note that it is challenging to schedule optimally when inside sales agents are executing complex sales that require multiple contacts with the potential customer. You cannot simply staff to meet a service level on an inbound queue.
  
  • For example, in education, an admissions advisor may talk to a potential student  three or four times prior to the student making their decision to enroll in class and six more times prior to the student starting class.  When a student is having second doubts, these are often best addressed by phone rather than email.
  • When scheduling, you need to creatively think about how a customer can receive the personalized attention and service they need when the work schedule of the salesperson  does not always match the time when a potential customer is available

5. Lead Allocation. You also need to think about the optimal number of sales leads an agent can handle, to maximize conversions across your workforce (but this is a discussion for another day)

Ending Call Center Scripting as We Know It

I have shopped all the major online schools and the only consistent thing across them all is the scripted nature of the conversations with admissions advisors. In the vast majority of calls to schools like UOPX or DeVry, there are several minutes of conversation that are scripted - so scripted in fact, that many admissions advisors seem to place their primary focus on asking the next question on the script rather than listening to the potential student. The best advisors are very different - they concentrate on building rapport with the potential student and addressing that person's specific situation and concerns.

I came across a great article from Brazilian publication RC&C, titled "Is It Time for Call-Center Workers To Ditch the Script?", which addresses this very question.

There is a balance to strike between scripted and free flow conversation, but I believe - if you hire high quality inside sales professionals - that a simple call flow guideline works far better than a script. Of course, this call flow can be combined with call monitoring & coaching - regular monitoring will balance any concerns about advisors getting the university into regulatory problems and calls from your best advisors can be broken down to determine the best practices that can be coached to increase productivity.

What experiences have others had moving to this less scripted environment?

Skill-Based Routing: How Much is Too Much

Wouldn't it be beneficial if a mutual fund company had representatives who specialized in certain types of asset classes? How about an online education company - shouldn't they have admissions advisors who are experts at business, IT or health care? Well, today's telecom technology allows calls to be routed to agent groups with specified skill sets - via an IVR, using caller ID to pull customer data from a CRM system or via a telemarketing front end where a low skilled individual screens the caller to determine which agent can best meet the caller's needs.

However, skill-based routing also has its downsides - if all agents are cross trained to handle all calls, required staffing levels and customer hold times will be much lower than if only 10% of agents have the skills to handle a certain type of call.

A great example of skill-based routing's upside and downside is in the quote from a white paper titled Skills Based Routing: An Industry Survey, published by the Customer Service Group. "One company discovered the impact of using Skills Based Routing was to divide their call centers into 60 to 70 virtual teams. The number and complexity of the virtual teams changed each time an agent logged in or out. With these large numbers of teams, call centers lose the efficiencies of having 700 to 2,000 agents."

I encourage you to read the white paper to learn more about the benefits and risks of skill-based routing.

Solving Hiring Woes With At-Home Agents

In managing an outbound call center, it is very difficult to find and retain agents. Everyone who has homegrown call centers has probably experienced the effects of "burning through" a local labor market. If you rated each of your original hires a 9 out of 10, are you now settling for 5s or 6s? According to the Call Center Cafe blog, 64% of all North American Call Centers now find it a “Major Struggle” or “Somewhat of a Challenge” to Find Quality Applicants for Call Center Agent Positions.

Using home based call center agents could be the solution to your hiring needs. A new article from the Society of Human Resources speaks of successful companies like JetBlue that are using the home agent model to expand its potential labor pool and hire the highest quality employees. Highlights from the article are as follows:

• Home Agents are More Educated. According to Gartner Inc., 70 percent to 80 percent of home-based agents have college degrees, compared with 30 percent to 40 percent of workers in conventional call centers
• The Labor Pool is Much Larger. Alpine Access, an outsourced provider of at home agents received more than 100,000 applications in 2006, but fewer than 10 percent made it through Alpine’s hiring process. Airline JetBlue only opens the application process for agents once a year for a 24-hour period, and receives 1,200 to 1,400 applicants
• Employee Turnover is Lower. Alpine Access reports a turnover rate for its employees of 10 percent to 25 percent—including seasonal employees. And JetBlue? 4 percent.
• On-Site Meetings can Build Team Cohesiveness. At JetBlue, several times a year teams meet face-to-face for social events and further education through JetBlue University.

Staffing the Call Center

Thanks to the OBP research group of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for their work on call and contact centers. They have a great website which features free call center tools and a free book explaining the mathematics behind call center staffing models.

It's easy to plug arrival time, average handle time, etc. into a calculator and get a swag at what your staffing should be. What this book does is give the layman (you need some statistics knowledge, but trust me, not much) information on the different variables that can affect staffing. It certainly provides a rubric for decision making in a call center environment.

The author of the book, Ger Koole, writes "This book is written for everybody who is dedicated to improving call center performance. It offers a scientific method to understanding and improving call centers. It explains all generic aspects of call and contact centers, from the basic Erlang formula to advanced topics such as skill-based routing and multi-channel environments. It does this without using complicated mathematical formulae, but by stressing the meaning of the mathematics. Moreover, there is a companion web page where many calculations can be executed. Next to understanding call center phenomena we show how to use this insight to improve call center performance in a systematic way."

Enjoy!