10 Tips to Help Call Center Sales Representatives Drive More Sales
Published 17/11/2021
Published 17/11/2021
Best-in-class call centers proactively deliver the best customer experience while driving more sales. They’re focused on gaining the greatest lifetime value from their customers, although it’s not easy it’s possible if you know what you’re doing.
So, how do these call centers uncover their vast sales potential? They follow ten essential call center sales tips.
1. Gain Deep Knowledge of Your Products and Services
First and foremost, all of your call center agents (customer service and sales-oriented) must have an in-depth understanding of your complete list of products and services. They need to be up to date with everything that’s on offer, so they know what they can sell and to whom.
The most frustrating aspect of a poor customer service experience is an agent that lacks the knowledge or ability to solve the customer’s issue, according to 36% of surveyed customers. So, the more your call center agents understand your business, the better they’ll be able to sell it, solve problems, and provide a high-quality customer experience.
One great way to ensure your call center agents have the knowledge they need is to create a database of information about all of your products and services. They should then be able to access this information at any time to answer questions, objections, and concerns put forward by your customers.
2. Take Control of the Sales Conversation
The second most important inbound call center sales technique is to take charge of the sales conversation from the beginning. Your agents should be able to lead customer conversations confidently, clearly articulating how your products or services are relevant to each customer’s circumstances.
The key is to empower your agents to make on-the-spot decisions that will deliver the most desirable outcome. As part of this, your agents should feel prepared to handle customer objections, bridge the gap between what a customer wants and the products/services available, and then finally close the sale.
3. Cross-Sell
One of the easiest ways to increase inbound call center sales is to cross-sell your products and services. For example, if a customer calls in to ask for help on one product, you can take that opportunity to explain how another of your company’s products or services can alleviate some of their pain points. So, if your customer is buying a computer your agents should be suggesting adding a printer to their shopping cart. It’s essentially the ABC rule of thumb- ‘Always Be Closing’!
Don’t be afraid to discuss add-ons, support packages, or upgrades that can improve the customer experience. The goal is to talk about these other products and services in such a way that they become necessary to the customer’s success.
4. Focus on Building Rapport
People don’t like to be sold to. They want to buy from brands that they like and trust. By focusing on building relationships and rapport over sales, the customer will begin to feel more comfortable and open to the possibility of purchasing something.
Train your call center sales representatives on communication skills that will help build relationships with your customers and solve their challenges. Focus on training them to be:
- Consistent
- Self-aware
- Personal
- Empathetic
- Professional
- Polite
When customers have a great experience with your brand, you earn their trust, and they’ll be more likely to buy from you. Another tactic could also include empowering your customers through referral incentives for mentioning your business to friends and family once the trust has been established.
5. Leverage Marketing Personalization Technologies
Personalized marketing is highly effective in driving sales and improving customer loyalty. Your call center sales representatives should have access to the 360-degree profiles of your prospects and customers, so they can personalize every conversation and make product recommendations based on a customer’s past purchases, preferences, browsing behaviors, and past interactions with your company. This is why it’s extremely important that when CSR’s are wrapping up calls they log the details of the conversation in your CRM with notes based on their interests.
Through personalization, your call center sales representatives should be able to better demonstrate empathy with your customer, which is the right approach to selling. If the customer feels like their needs are understood, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.
6. Offer Helpful Recommendations
Your customers are looking for a solution to their problems, and they often appreciate recommendations for products and services that can help. After all, selling is all about demonstrating benefits, not features, which leaves your customers feeling much more positive and confident about their purchase.
Understanding prospective customers’ needs, as well as the challenges they face, allows you to offer special discounts on products and up-sell or cross-sell as needed. To improve call center sales and increase the average order value, it’s about matching every product or service with the customer’s situation and requirements.
7. Check in With Your Customers
The cost of retaining a customer is far lower than that of acquiring a new one. Additionally, a returning customer is likely to spend more because they already know and trust you, thereby increasing the overall customer lifetime value to your business.
Use your call center resources to proactively reach out to existing customers to cultivate relationships, build loyalty, and generate more sales. Do this by checking in with customers on their recent purchases, making suggestions on other products or services that could be relevant to them, and offering incentives to place another order. Just make sure your agent bases the appropriate course of action with the customer’s level of interest, tone of voice, degree of excitement, and types of questions asked.
8. Minimize Wait Time and Optimize Process
The longer you put a customer on hold, the more frustrating the call center experience becomes, and 75% of customers already say it takes too long to talk to an agent. Anything over a minute is too long, according to Velaro. Don’t lose opportunities because your customers got impatient and hung up.
Instead, use an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to help your customers get to the right representative as quickly as possible. And don’t forget to analyze your data to identify bottlenecks so you can expedite the process and improve the customer experience.
9. Be Available 24/7
In today’s global marketplace in which online business has become the norm, customers expect to get support around the clock. That’s why one essential inbound call center sales technique is to be available 24/7. Make sure your call center is staffed appropriately to handle inquiries during off-hours and holidays to service customers from all over the world. And, if this isn’t possible put in place helpful chatbots built with intuitive playbooks that will guide the customer to the answers to their questions or their needs.
10. Create a Healthy Sales Competition
Sales are considered a dog-eat-dog world, which is not an environment that everyone enjoys. However, it works for one simple reason: employees flourish when they are motivated to push harder. That’s why a sense of healthy competition amongst your call center sales representatives is a good idea along with commission-based incentives.
Whether you create sales teams that compete against each other each month for bonuses, or you offer weekly sales winners a special prize, competition is great motivation to close sales. The key is to create a staggered rewards program where there are prizes throughout the year. In that way, you consistently and constantly motivate your sales team to do better.
If you would like to find out how we can help your call center sales representatives to drive more sales for your company, get in touch right now:
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Connect 2 BPO S.A.S is a Business Process Outsourcing company established in 2016. We develop, execute and manage campaigns for businesses around the world.