How To Change Your Contact Center From A Cost Center To Profit Center

Transcript

Hi there, this is Blair from BravaTrak.

I've been thinking about the importance of turning contact centres into revenue generators.

As you know, contact centres have become more and more important to organisations for managing customer relationships and generating revenue. Even before the pandemic, there'd been a shift away from traditional in-person interactions to digital and telephone. And since early 2020, that trend has accelerated.

Good Selling Is Good Service

These remote channels now create a significant revenue opportunity for companies. It's been my long time mantra that "Good selling is good service." Excellent customer service is the foundation for generating additional revenue from both telephone and digital channels.

That means operational efficiency is a critical precursor to growing revenue, as is strong employee engagement and a culture of delivering good customer outcomes.

However, while necessary, these attributes are insufficient to grow revenue. Yet once addressed, they create huge opportunity. Here's why.

The Way To Increase Sales Conversion And Cross Selling

In both inbound service, and inbound sales centres, there are typically wide variations in cross-selling and sales conversion rates across agents. For example, the average difference in sales conversion between top and bottom quartile performers - in the very same contact centre - can be as high as 230%.

And the difference in cross-selling rates can be even higher.

There are two key reasons for this, in my experience. The first is agent skill - or lack of it - particularly with regard to rapport building, advanced questioning skills and cross-selling technique.

But addressing these issues alone doesn't make much of a difference, because the second issue is the lack of effective sales leadership. Team leaders hold the pivotal role in enhancing service delivery and sales performance. Yet the vast majority struggle to do so.

From A Cost Center To Profit Center

Addressing both of these factors can directly lead to a 25% increase in cross-sales and sales conversion. And that can be enough to transform your contact centre from a cost centre into a revenue generator, or even a profit centre.

That's my take. What do you think?