Until a few years ago, contact centers were strictly treated like a customer care division of organizations. Contact centers would provide the services that solved customer problems like changing reservations, solving service problems or resolving billing disputes. Now, decision makers are realizing with a few changes in their overall strategy, they can turn the contact center into a hidden revenue generator. Let’s take a look at three strategies you can utilize to turn your contact center into a revenue driver.
Implement sales through service strategy
Today, organizations are starting to realize they could be missing a big chunk of potential revenue by not utilizing a sales through service strategy in their inbound contact centers.
According to McKinsey, customer-facing contact centers can generate up to 25% of total new revenue for credit card companies and up to 60% for telecom services.
After resolving the initial problem during the call, customers are more likely to express additional needs and become receptive to making purchases from the agent.
This is great news for organizations who historically believed contact centers were a major cost.
Business leaders have traditionally been concerned about the rising costs of their contact center, often indicated by metrics such as average handling time (AHT). A lower AHT implies reduced staffing requirements and decreased service costs, prompting raised eyebrows among most leaders.
Senior decision makers transitioning to a service-through-sales strategy are realizing the revenue potential of longer average handling time. By utilizing this time for both selling and problem-solving, they can effectively increase revenue.
Improve the agent experience
While organizations have known for decades that happy employees usually equal happy customers, Glassdoor conducted a study between the satisfaction on Glassdoor and customer satisfaction from the American Customer Satisfaction Index by analyzing 293 large employers between 2008 and 2018. The study found that each 1-star improvement in employer’s Glassdoor company rating out of 5 is associated with a statistically significant 1.3 point increase in customer satisfaction out of 100.
A Harvard study took this Glassdoor information a step further by analyzing the effect of the Glassdoor rating on multiple verticals to see what impact this had on their revenue. In general, annual incremental revenue per customer from a 1-point increase was anywhere from eight cents to $104 per customer. While this might not seem like much, when you multiply this by the average number of customers per company, it equates to millions.
See this table below originally published by Forrester for details:
Utilizing new technologies that make your agent’s job easier can pretty quickly improve your agent’s satisfaction levels. Integrating your contact center with CTI gives them a 360 view of the customer in an embedded UI, instead of switching to multiple applications and unlocks valuable tools like screen pop and click-to-dial. Implementing AI and chatbots that can take care of mundane tasks can give agents more stimulating tasks that may require multiple skill sets, making them feel more empowered and satisfied with their daily tasks.
Implement Changes to Your Operations Processes: A Revenue Driver for Your Organization
Implementing changes to your operations processes can not only improve efficiency but also serve as a revenue driver. Here are a few tweaks you can make with little effort:
- Use intelligent routing to prioritize revenue-generating interactions. Analyze your reporting data to identify the types of interactions that typically contribute to revenue. Place these interactions in priority queues and assign them to agents who are most skilled in handling them.
- Incorporate sales prompts into agent scripts. While contact centers often train agents to handle common issues using scripts for consistent service, adding prompts for sales opportunities is often overlooked. Prompting agents to cross-sell or up-sell when appropriate ensures that all agents offer relevant suggestions to customers.
- Train agents to engage in sales during downtime. Use quieter periods to train agents in outbound calling techniques, enabling them to proactively reach out to customers and recommend products or services that may be beneficial.
The most successful organizations are shifting their perspective on the contact center, viewing it not just as a significant cost but also as a hidden revenue driver. By leveraging new technology, optimizing operations processes, and enhancing the agent experience, you can make a substantial impact on increasing your revenue.
