I just returned from facilitating the classroom portion of our blended Getting to the HEART of Telephone Sales™ training for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island. I was working with a newly formed team recruited from existing customer service reps and it struck me, “Wow, this is a terrific example of job enrichment!”

Before I explain how, I have to commend Diane Comella, Team Leader, and Al Means, Senior Trainer, for the really smart and very effective manner in which they chose to do the training. I know in large part it’s the reason the class was so engaged and excited about their new roles. The class completed one online module a day followed by review and practice of the sales skills and a segment of new product training. Information was delivered in manageable chunks – just like we all know is best for learners but is often not the way things work out due to time and deadline constraints. So Kudos to Diane and Al.

Back to job enrichment… You may have noticed that the course these former customer service representatives took was a telephone sales course – not a standard component of a customer service curriculum. And, no, they aren’t being asked to cross-sell or upsell some unsuspecting member who’s calling with a question about an explanation of benefits. Not at all, the team is moving into a role that requires a more persuasive approach than they were used to. The training fit was natural because our telesales program is about service oriented selling and they’ll be Engagement Specialists charged with proactively working with members to encourage them to take full advantage of their plan’s features that promote good health. Promoting staying healthy – that’s a Win/Win for everyone.

Comments from the class kept bringing me back to why job enrichment is so important. Many mentioned how much they appreciated the opportunity to be a part of the new team. These are excellent customer service reps with plenty of experience who are now ready for a new challenge. They don’t want to jettison all their great customer service skills. What they want to do is grow.

Several participants said the value of the program was “it can be used in all aspects of our lives.” Enriching a job can enrich a life. And then there was the transcendent comment I couldn’t help but love, “I feel as though this program made me a better rep and person!” How much more enriched can you get?

If you have examples about the impact of job enrichment at your organization, please share! Leave a comment.

How Telephone Sales Training Affects Job Enrichment via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

Some long-held beliefs hold that it doesn’t make financial because:

• Employees probably won’t be around long enough to recoup the investment in their training.
• Since they’re typically non-commissioned, these employees don’t have a vested interest applying sales skill to their jobs.
• For the type of entry-level jobs that retail salespeople often occupy, there’s no need for sales training because customers already know what they need.

We can address each of these from the point of view of the employee.  Let’s return to our previous example of Annie, an entry level retail employee who earns $9.74 per hour and works 30 hours per week.  

• As an entry-level, hourly employee, is Annie likely to stay with her employer long enough to recoup the cost of the training? If the training helps her increase her sales by only 8%, she’ll only have to work another two and a half weeks after the training for her employer to recoup the training investment.

  Annie has additional reasons for staying beyond the average tenure for her position. The new skills will allow her to do her job better, and most people who feel competent at their jobs stay longer than those who do not.

• Annie may also hope that if she continues to do well at her job, her employer will make further contributions to her skill development through additional training. These investments made on her behalf make Annie more valuable in the market place, and may eventually lead to higher wages. She therefore has every reason to apply what she’s learned in her daily work practices.
• Finally, as Annie gets to know her customers she’ll learn their buying habits and be able to suggest products that complement their purchases. This is part of offering complete service; it’s also more fun to sell this way. The better she can help her customers with their needs and not just the one or two items they may have requested, the more Annie’s customers will appreciate her and the more she’ll enjoy her job. This will reinforce both her desire to use the skills from the sales training and her satisfaction with her current employment situation.

The numbers used in these calculations are based on the most recent retail data available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The values may shift over time, but the enormous ROI for retail sales training suggests an investment that will remain attractive for many years to come.

Does Sales Training for Retail Make Sense? Part 2 via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

• Average turnover dictates that an employee probably won’t be around long enough to recoup the investment in her/his training.
• Because they’re typically non-commissioned, these employees don’t have a vested interest applying sales skill to their jobs.
• For the type of entry-level jobs that retail salespeople often occupy, there’s little need for sales training because customers already know what they need to buy.

Before addressing these reasons, let’s see if there’s any potential for sales training to pay for itself. 

Consider Annie, an entry level retail employee who earns $9.74 per hour and works 30 hours per week.  If she sells an average of $200 of merchandise an hour with an average 29.72% profit margin (based on estimates from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics), she’s worth about (30 hours per week) x ($200 in sales per hour) x 29.72% = $1783 in gross profit to her employer each week.  It costs Annie’s employer about $314 in her labor costs for that same period. Annie thus contributes, on average, over five times what it costs to employ her.  With an average turnover rate of 2.9 years (based on latest data available in from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) she’ll have contributed over $268,000 in gross profits to her employer during her tenure. 

Let’s say that after six months on the job, Annie’s employer invests $350 in sales training for her.  As a result of learning how to cross-sell, up-sell and match the needs of her customers to the products she sells, Annie’s able to increase her sales by a conservative 8%.  Over her estimated remaining tenure with her employer she will have provided an additional $17,803 in gross profits, or a 5087% ROI for her employer.  Clearly, this is the type of investment that any businessperson with the resources would want to make; the amortized cost of this training investment over Annie’s remaining tenure works out to less than 9.5 cents per hour!

In a future blog post we’ll analyze each of the long-held beliefs cited above.   In the meantime, consider what value sales training might bring to your organization.

Does Sales Training for Retail Make Sense? Part 1 via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

There’s an assumption (a hope? a dream?) that participants will come out of sales, customer service or support training fully “transformed, fixed.”  Too often the stakeholder manager, the L&D developer, and the trainer, in short, everyone’s attention focuses on the training —what we at Impact refer to as “the event.” Bulletin: Training won’t work in a vacuum. In order to get and sustain the performance you’re looking for, things have to be done before and after the event.

You’ll see better results and happier people if, before the training, you do a little preparation so they’ll welcome the training.  For example, you can:

• Conduct a pre-learning assessment to set a benchmark and identify areas of focus for the training. This benchmark can be used later to measure the results achieved. Sage Software’s technical support group experienced a 15% increase in customer satisfaction scores compared to what it was before training and coaching.
• Work with HR to make sure the skills and behaviors being taught are integrated into the performance review process.
• Send out a letter or email from senior management that reinforces the importance of the participants’ contributions to the company and sets expectations for training.
• Get everyone together for a quick kick-off session that sets the tone for the program. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Balloons and laser lights aren’t everyone’s preference. Your presence, as their manager, your interest and demonstration of commitment is what your team will notice. Give participants a taste of what’s to come in the training. Talk about your expectations and what’s in it for them so they won’t have unanswered questions like “Why are we doing this?” “Am I in trouble?” “What did I do wrong now?”

After training I’ve noticed there’s always a happy, though sometimes fleeting, bump in performance. If you’re truly looking for change, growth, or lasting skill development, this is when you, as a manager, hold the key to making it happen. The key? Your attention. You can demonstrate your attention after the training in many ways. Here are a few that I’d recommend:

• Observation and monitoring
• Feedback and coaching
• On-the-job reinforcement activities and exercises
• Short term, highly focused action plans
• Job aids
• Post training benchmarking and customer surveys to see what your team achieved
• Timely, frequent recognition of performance you want to see happen again
• Intervention when you see performance slipping
• Meaningful, appropriate rewards

What are your plans for pre-work, event implementation, coaching and intervention, recognition and reward? To get some fresh ideas, check out these success stories for companies like Motorola, BancTec, Chicago Public Schools Business Services Center, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program, and Information Builders.

Who Holds the Key to Performance Change in Your Organization? via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

The first principle is Hear and Understand. Employing this principle directly and positively impacts customer satisfaction, employee morale, and operational costs. How you apply this principle depends on where you are in the organization.

• Executives

The good news is that customers are back in the picture. We want to know what they think and we want to know how to please them in a way that adds to the bottom line. Technology vendors are jumping on the bandwagon to provide more tools with which to listen to the customer—tools like speech recognition technology to listen for key words and social CRM to monitor the voice of the customer through social media channels.

These tools are invaluable in collecting data, but what do you do with that data? Many companies are aggregating it, hiring consultants to interpret it, holding executive meetings to discuss it, and then continuing with business mostly as usual while they pat themselves on the back that they’re a customer-centric organization because they’ve listened to their customers. Not so fast! There’s no point in hearing and understanding your customers if you aren’t willing to act on what you hear. Being truly customer-centric requires change, not lip service.

Stepping up and making changes based on hearing and understanding your customers’ needs pays off big time, however. A Booz Allen study showed that those companies willing to walk their customer-concentric talk outperformed industry peers 2:1 in revenue growth and generated profit margins 5-10% above their competitors.

• Managers

Customers want to deal with pleasant, efficient employees who show concern for the customer and his or her issues. So if you want to have happy customers, you need happy employees. Happy employees love their job and it comes through in their dealings with customers-in the quality of their work, in their tone of voice, in their interest in hearing and understanding the customer, and in their willingness to solve customer issues. You all know the research: money motivates, but only to a point. After that, it’s whether employees are treated fairly, whether they’re listened to, whether their opinions are valued, and whether they’re recognized that matters.

The members of your team look to you for encouragement and support. In order to provide this to them, you need to do more than listen; you need to understand what they say and feel. You need to appreciate their perspectives. You do this by asking for their input, by listening with your full attention, and by praising their good ideas. This gives them confidence that they’re making valuable contributions to the organization—contributions that are not going unnoticed.

• Customer-facing Employees

Almost every customer-facing employee at one time or another has made an assumption about what a customer wanted (because the call sounded like 476 other calls) that turned out to be wrong. To truly hear and understand what customers are saying, employees need to listen carefully and then check their comprehension of what they’ve heard. If employees do this, their calls will be easier to handle and shorter, too. Shorter calls mean improved customer satisfaction and reduced cost of operations.

I spoke with a customer yesterday who said that by embracing the principle of Hear and Understand, taught in one of our training programs, her support reps were better able to identify the customers stated concerns. This directly resulted in decreased escalations and improved first-call resolution, both of which improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

Changing the culture of an organization from one that espouses customer-centricity to one that puts it into practice-and reaps the rewards-is not easy. But by adopting the HEART Model^™ as one of the building blocks for cultural transformation, you will measurably improve customer satisfaction and employee morale while reducing organizational costs.

Hear and Understand via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

You bought a printer from an electronics retailer or your local computer store, you took it home and eagerly removed it from the Styrofoam packaging, dreaming about the convenience of having a home printer.  Just as you were ready to connect it to your PC…what the? Where’s the printer cable? You searched the contents of the box, astonished to find that the most crucial component of the entire printing process was missing.  You knew at that moment that another trip to the computer store would be required.

Here’s what was absolutely criminal about the whole situation: the person who rang up your purchase, the person who let you leave the store without a printer cable to accompany your printer, knew that printer cables were sold separately! Why didn’t that person say something to you?

Because we live in a just world, most of those retail cashiers are now doing hard time behind bars in the maximum security penitentiaries where they belong.

The point is this: to provide total service to people who purchased a printer, you had to ask them if they also needed a printer cable.  Maybe some folks didn’t need one: maybe they were buying a new printer to replace their old one and they could reuse the old cable they had purchased previously.

You can bet, however, that every single person who purchased a printer would have appreciated being asked if they needed a printer cable.

What they would have appreciated was the total service they were receiving.  They would have appreciated someone smart enough, kind enough and proactive enough to cross-sell printer cables.

Because you know more about your company’s products and services than your customers do, it’s your duty to inform them about opportunities from which you think they could benefit.

How do you do this?  Easy: just tell people what you would want to know if you were the customer.  Let them know “what goes with what” or what’s on special that might relate to their intended purchase. People sincerely appreciate “real-time customer service” and cross-selling just might be another expression of that philosophy.

Explain the value of your suggestion so the customer see’s the connection.

Ultimately, it’s the customer’s decision to purchase your suggested services or products, or not to purchase them.  Don’t push anything on anybody; you simply want your customers to know what’s available.

Call it cross-selling, call it a logical suggestion, call it what you will: we refer to this customer service skill as offering total service, and it’s one way that successful businesses distinguish themselves from their competition.

Total Service Through Cross-Selling: A Brief History via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

1. Hire good people.

One thing I can tell you from years in the customer service training trenches is that you can’t train someone who isn’t smart enough or motivated enough to learn your systems and processes. And although we do a darn good job of inspiring people to serve others, there are people who just won’t go there-people who shouldn’t have been hired in the first place. You will spend less money if you invest more in hiring the right person to begin with. For tips on doing just that, check out Peter Carbonara’s article, “Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill,” in Fast Company.

2. Invest in customer service training for all employees.

When the decision is made to improve customer service, who gets trained? The customer-facing employees. That’s the best place to start and that’s where the biggest emphasis should lie. But if you really want to provide stellar customer service, you need to provide train all of your employees so that they understand where the organization is heading, who their internal customers are, and how working together makes a difference to the eternal customer-the one who provides their paycheck. Why? If your front-line reps need to provide customers with information and they can’t get it in a timely manner, or if departmental processes are working at cross-purposes, they can’t satisfy the customer, even if they want to. Which brings me to…

3. Empower employees/re-evaluate processes.

I’m sure you all know about the Ritz-Carlton’s famous policy which allows their empowered employees to commit up to $2,000 of the hotel’s funds to instantly resolve a guest’s problem if needed. Yes, it’s important to empower employees to resolve customer issues within certain guidelines and if you haven’t thought about how you can do that, you should. But how about empowering your employees to come up with better processes for serving customers?

Inefficient processes are bad for customers, frustrating for employees, and costly for the company. When we do customer service training, we keep a flip chart (or two or three) in the training room and we jot down all the process improvements that reps mention-unsolicited-while they’re learning skills for providing better service. We present these at the end of the training to the manager. We’re often shocked to see how surprised the manager is by the great ideas their employees came up with. Why wait for Team Impact to sweep in? Just ask your employees.

4. Tie customer feedback to your monitoring form

Often, determining the voice of the customer falls under the auspices of the marketing department. In many companies, this department is a far reach from the QA department in the call center or support center-the department that determines whether the front line employees are doing a good job in serving the customer. To be sure that your service is in alignment with customer’s wants and needs, be sure that what is monitored ties directly to what the customer wants. This may seem obvious but we frequently are called to help companies improve their monitoring process and the people who have been creating monitoring forms for years have never seen customer feecback.

5. Boost the morale of your employees.

There’s a difference between morale and motivation. When morale is high, employees approach their work with energy, enthusiasm, and willingness to serve the customer. They want to come to work and engage with customers. Motivated employees, on the other hand, are driven to get the job done. Highly motivated employees tend to be high producers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their morale is high; they may be motivated by negative incentives such as a fear of losing their job.

Morale and motivation work together. When morale is high, it’s common to see that a high percentage of employees are naturally motivated. When morale gets low-and employees become less self-motivated-managers often resort to unpleasant, heavy-handed, motivational tactics such as nagging, threatening, making more rules, and micromanaging which in turn lower morale even further.

How do you create high morale? There are a number of ways. Sherrie Mersdorf mentions three in her recent blog post (with a particular nod to the upcoming summer months). If you want more in-depth guidance, pick up a copy of Managing and Motivating Contact Center Employees.

5 More Tips for Improving Service via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

I feel for them. I was once upon a time a fledgling salesperson myself and I know it can be daunting. Plus, I’ve also consulted with countless clients whose call center agents face the same thing.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Confidence is as important to this job as the ability to navigate through the computer screens.  In the hopes that it will help all those customer service agents who pitch additional products to me, here are some confidence-building tips related to telesales:

Tip #1: Sales is about service. Your job is to find out if I have a need that your product can meet. Or a problem that you can solve. In either case, you’re not just selling—you’re serving me! (By the way, I can’t go without a mention of Impact Learning System’s key course for this topic: Sales—The Other Side of Service™. It’s proven very successful in helping customer service reps embrace their role as salesperson.)

Tip #2: You’re an ambassador, not just an agent. As a customer, I’m not calling you; I’m calling the big (or not), successful company that you work for. And since this company has presumably developed, branded, marketed, and sold a product that appeals to thousands, perhaps millions, of people, I expect its employees to have some confidence and expertise. So, even if you have to pretend for awhile until it becomes real to you, project this confidence when selling to me.

Tip #3: Diagnose your own discomfort—and then treat it. Given that you do a great job on the customer service portion of the call, why do you suddenly become hesitant and insecure when making the sales offer? Why does the pitch and pacing of your voice suddenly change?  Typical reasons behind a lack of confidence in selling include insufficient product knowledge, uncertainty about the value of the product, and a feeling of being inferior to the customer—all of which can be overcome.

Telesales: Is Confidence a Lost Art? via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

Whatever the reason, here are some key factors to consider to get the most out of your training initiatives:

Use the Right Model

The most effective model for learning retention involves an allocation of time and effort in which:

• Preparation accounts for approximately 25 percent of the effort. Preparation includes customizing the training to make it specific and relevant to the participants, as well as making sure all participants understand the objectives for the training, the right way to access the programs and how to utilize training tools.
• Training accounts for approximately 25 percent of the effort. Whether the training is done online or in the classroom, about a quarter of the effort and resources going into the training initiative should focus on how the content is conveyed.
• Follow-up accounts for approximately 50 percent of the effort. Follow-up includes coaching to the new skills, validation of knowledge transfer and learning retention, and recognition of improvement and the correct application of the new skills.

Use the Right People

There are several roles in an organization who contribute to the success of a training initiative:

• Managers play an important role in preparing for the training. They help set the expectation that the participants will be learning something valuable and integral to the way they’ll be expected to perform their jobs.
• Trainers help make training stick by explaining to the participants how they’ll benefit from the training. They need to develop and implement training that has purpose, relevance, interactivity and holds the learners’ interest.
• Supervisors play a crucial post-implementation role of supporting the training. They need to ensure that the new skills are being implemented and to model those skills themselves. Through monitoring, coaching and recognizing the achievements of their team members, they show that the company places value on the new skills.

Combining the right training model and the people best-suited to guarantee success at each phase of the initiative can help make your training as effective as possible.

Making Training Stick via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems

Recently my husband reordered a pair of shoes and the company sent the wrong size. I called customer service to get the right size. A lady answered and I explained our situation. She interrupted me and said she just needed our last name, and then she told me to check my email for return instructions.

I felt rushed, and I wondered how she had my email, since we never gave it to her. I asked more questions, only to be told “just check your email.” I sensed she wanted to get off the phone.

I really wanted to ask her what kind of call center training she’d received. Instead, I asked her how she had our email, and she replied “Well, isn’t your email xyz…?” I told her it wasn’t, and she asked for my husband’s first name. It turns out she was looking at another person’s account with the same last name.

Only then did she start listening to me.

Customers should never feel like they are not being heard. In order for businesses to thrive, customers’ needs must be listened to and understood. Effective listening skills are essential to provide quality service to customers.

Below are some effective listening tips:

• Avoid making assumptions -when you assume you know what customers need, you are setting yourself up for failure. Listen to what customers say so you have accurate information.
• Focus on your customer - don’t be distracted by other thoughts or outside forces. When someone is speaking, focus only on them.
• Listen for key feelings - not only are spoken words important, but also how your customer feels. Being aware of feelings enables you to be customer-focused.
• Take notes - keep a notepad accessible to capture important information. This allows you to recap information to your customer and provide them with quality service.

So what do you think….are you a good listener? If you answered “yes”, that is good news. If you answered “no”, don’t worry, because good listening skills can be learned.

Help…Is Anyone Listening? via the Customer Service Blog by Impact Learning Systems