We’ve been cultivating and spring is finally here. Thumbs Up is busy harvesting new customers for all of our clients! From lead generation through appointment setting for our “for-profit” clients, and donor/patron acquisition through donor/patron renewal for our “not-for-profit” clients, ALL are reaping the rewards! The delight is contagious.

Our 30 years of experience provides a proven track record of acquiring new customers/donors/patrons, and our new Cultivation Strategy supplies the “staying power”! If you are interested in learning more about our remarkable results, and want to experience as much as a 20% lift, call us today, and we’ll even send you a FREE cultivation shovel!

Kari Sickinger
VP of Client Services
314-821-8111 ext. 3016

We had a wonderful 2010! We want to thank all of our employees for their hard work and dedication. We are grateful to all of our clients for the trust they put in us in being the voice and the ears to their customers. We are looking forward to a great new year! We are bullish on growth in 2011!

Greg Johnston
President

From time to time, we enjoy sharing success. Just the other day, we were meeting with one of our clients…a major national supplier of custom designed packaging. We were engaged to contact a supplied database of national manufacturers. Our role was to identify opportunity and qualify leads. Their internal sales force was extremely successful in closing new business; however, they just couldn’t find the time to do the actual “Cold Calls”.

After working with our client to develop the calling strategies, our TSRs visited their plant, were trained on the intricacies of the packaging process, and began making calls. On the very first day of calling, we hit GOLD. We spoke with the decision maker, qualified the lead and identified immediate need, – A fortune 50 company! Let’s face it, depending on the industry, most salespeople work 6 months to get 1 lead like this!

We continue our great relationship with this client and during our calibration meeting last week; our client smiled and said “We have found the missing link!” Outsourced Lead Generation. They knew their market, knew how to find the companies they wanted to prospect, but were missing how to take a database of 3,000 to 50 decision makers with immediate need! Thumbs Up Lead Generation – The Missing Link!

A few weeks ago, we blogged on Customer Delight and the response has been overwhelming. Many have actually contacted us asking what we are doing to support our clients in this area. So, we thought we’d share our solution. Two words: Cultivation Calls!

Cultivation Calls are the key to keeping your customers delighted and allow them a two-way communication channel. These conversations include more than just showing appreciation; they are a perfect opportunity to gather market research and increase loyalty. While many companies send follow-up emails or direct mail, an informed caller can drive the point home with a personal touch that makes the customer feel good about coming back!

Our Thank You/Welcome Calls are simply that. Customers are called shortly after their FIRST interaction and thanked for their business. Just listen to the sound a simple Thank You makes when it lands on your customer’s heart! In addition, we take the opportunity to ask how satisfied they were with their interaction, the purpose of their purchase, what impacted their decision on the purchase, etc. This market research is invaluable in steering future marketing and operational efforts.

Our Delight Calls involve a very brief, straightforward conversation simply thanking the customer for their business and informing them of additional benefits or new products. In addition, we will be asking how they are enjoying their interactions with your company. This call is a valuable opportunity to share information and gather actionable feedback. The market research component of these calls is independently a compelling basis for the initiative. This will be a chance for you to find out how and where you can improve, and also confirm what you are doing right!

Research has shown that Cultivation Calls are an investment in the future years to come in growing and harvesting your customer relationships. In fact, these calls will foster “word of mouth” buzz that is PRICELESS! We call this Delight.

Taking the time and effort to make these calls in which there is no ‘ulterior motive’, there is no ‘sales pitch’, is seen by your customers as you making the extra effort to assure that their experience with your company is a positive one. They will be surprised that they are receiving a call that is not asking for anything on their part. Intuitively these calls make sense; they also make sound fiscal sense.

Is it time to rethink some of your marketing and sales strategies? It is five times more profitable to spend marketing and advertising dollars to retain current customers than it is to acquire new customers!

Lastly, and very simple to do, you will want to keep track of those customers who received these calls so you can quantify your successful ROI. Happy Calling!

Kari Sickinger, Vice President, Client Services

Customer Satisfaction is so 90’s. Today, it’s all about Customer Delight! We know people talk about bad service. We’ve all heard the story…One person who has one bad experience will share that experience with 20 other people. The same goes for those who have good experiences. For example, how many of you have tried a brand new restaurant that had fabulous food, awesome service, and was a great value overall? The second you got in the car, you were texting all your friends telling them “You MUST try this new restaurant!”

But what I want to talk about today is the middle ground. Being adequate is no longer acceptable. People DON’T talk about adequate service.

It is 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current customer (Bain & Company Research). Did you know that customers are lost primarily due to indifference (66%) versus dissatisfaction (14%)? Simply said, it is vitally important to raise the bar from indifference to delight!

Companies that have achieved this have 5 commonalities:
They know how to WOO! They have the ability to win others over.
They practice EMPATHY. The ability to understand the mood of others.
They are DISCIPLINED. They work systematically and consistently.
They COMMAND. They control a situation through effective communication.
They take RESPONSIBILITY. They own a problem until it’s solved.

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

What is your company doing to stand out in the crowd?
What is your company doing to create a life changing experience?
What is your company doing to create positive stories?

Actually, customer expectations are typically not very high. Our job is to SURPRISE them. Customer Delight is doing something they haven’t even imagined. What will cause them to say WOW!

Think of 2 things you can do within your organization to impact Customer Delight. Michelangelo stated it best…”The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Kari Sickinger
Vice President, Client Services

Kari has over 15 years’ experience in the teleservices industry and has been called upon repeatedly to “turn on a dime,” as our clients turn to Thumbs Up for quick and effective solutions to their teleservices needs.

Things have been tough.  They still are.  They will continue to be so for some time.  That does not mean marketing stops, it means marketing must get smarter.  Here are some tips for today and tomorrow.  The smart moves you make today can help you prepare for continued cost-effective growth, as times get better.  Thumbs-Up!

1.  Hold on to your current customers.  Be proactive.  Do not take their business for granted.  Communicate with them; ask them how it’s going.  Thank them!

2.  Reign in the cost of new customer acquisition.  Don’t stop the process; just be sure to control the costs of it.  Measure activity and results. Measure your costs – twice.

3.  Welcome your new customers!  Formalize this process; make sure not one single person falls through the cracks.

4.  Communicate (at least twice) with any unhappy customer.  Remember the power of a Disenchanted Customer in a Digital World.  It takes a few minutes and a couple of bucks to perform this function.  The cost of an unhappy customer who goes viral? Unlimited.

5.  Integrated Marketing.  Look at the options in multiple channels for your organization.  This used to mean phone and mail, not any more… twitter, linkedin, FB.

6.  Triple check the math on your ROI.  Look at all the true cost of your growth.

7.  Empower your front line to resolve your customers needs and wants. Your customers want and expect solutions not excuses and the run around.

8.  Use technology to reduce costs not to add overhead.  Look at your processes, architecture and, configurations.   The driver here is what will reduce costs and provide better service – period.

9.  Survey your customers and prospects.  Be proactive.  Ask them what they want and how they want it.  Ask them if they are delighted!

10. Plan for smart growth.  As things improve, use what you have learned in these lean times.  Don’t go back to the old ways of expensive growth.  Be smart and lean in your growth initiatives.

Greg Johnston
President
Thumbs-Up Marketing

Mr. Johnston has been the president of Thumbs-Up Marketing for 20 years.  Thumbs-Up is 30 year-old, Call Center Marketing firm based in St Louis, Mo.

We would like to thank all of our clients for voting Thumbs Up Marketing “Best Customer Service” in 2010!  After more than 30 years of providing our clients with superior customer service, we look forward to working with you in 2010!  Developing top-notch customer service can be the key to retaining satisfied customers and ensuring your company’s future success.  Check out www.sbmon.com for “Best in Business” awards for 2010!

The most important aspect of running a “Best in Class” Call Center is to develop an effective Quality Assurance System.   “When quality monitoring programs are well designed and institutionalized, they yield great benefits for customers, enterprises, contact centers and agents.” Donna Fluss, President, DMG Consulting LLC

Developing this system involves a number of steps

1. Ensure that you have the call monitoring equipment necessary for a quality assurance program, and determine which calls will be monitored. Make sure your quality measurement includes the data entry, as well as the voice quality and script.
2. Determine the frequency and personnel that will handle the quality monitoring
3. Calibrate!  Make sure that everyone monitoring are scoring employees the same way. The monitoring team should have meetings weekly to ensure they are all scoring the same way (calibration meeting). Develop a scorecard for every campaign, and make sure that all the personnel are on the same page. The call center quality assurance program must be consistent.
4. Institute specific performance goals for your employees and hold them accountable for reaching those goals.
5. Support the Quality program with proper reviews with the staff.   These should include side-by-side coaching, and monthly reviews.
6. Develop specific reward programs.

Monitoring Equipment
In today’s call center, it is important that you have the ability to record all calls, not just a sample.   In addition to having these calls for any compliance issues, it also allows you to select calls based on specific selection criteria for quality review.   This is also important so that the agent can review the call with the Quality analyst, which eliminates pushback or denial from the agents.

When and Which Calls should be Monitored?
If the objective of a Quality program is to improve the performance of the call center, and one only has the ability to listen to a small percentage of calls that an agent makes, then one must use strategic intelligence to determine which calls should be reviewed.  There are certain factors that should be analyzed in making this determination:

• Calls which are much longer, or shorter, than the norm for a particular campaign.
• Specific call outcomes. Though the tendency will be to monitor the positive call outcomes, it is important that refusals be incorporated as well.  We not only want to make sure the positive calls are good, but also make sure the agent is not missing opportunities with their refusals.
• Calls during a particular time of the agent’s schedule.  How does the agent handle their first call of the day, or the last?

There are other factors in making these decisions; the operations and QA staff should meet periodically to review the call selection criteria.

Quality Personnel
It is important in call centers that both the agent’s team leader, and an independent quality analyst conduct the Quality monitoring.   In small call centers, these two departments can share the monitoring responsibility; for example, if the goal is that an agent is to be monitored once per day, then the Quality department can handle Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the team supervisor will handle Tuesday and Thursday.

Scorecard
Scorecards should reflect the organizational and campaign goals, and be organized into specific categories.   These categories normally are:

1. Opening - This is where we evaluate how the agent introduces himself/herself to the customer.
2. Presentation - This section is where we explain what we are offering to the customer. The agent must make the customer completely understand what we are offering to them. We also want to answer any questions that the customer has.
3. Delight - This section is where the agent is scored on their attitude and composure. This is expressed by the way the agent speaks to the customer.
4. Closing - This section is to make sure that the customer leaves with positive thoughts about what they agreed to during the call. The agent uses a courtesy close (e.g. thank you for your time, I appreciate your interest, Etc.).

Calibration
The Quality Process can quickly lose its effectiveness if the agents feel they are being scored differently.   The fact that quality includes such things as “courtesy, accuracy, listening, and other subjective attributes, make calibration a necessity.  Calibration sessions narrow the differences on how these subjective factors are defined and scored.

“Calibration, by its’ very nature, is a conflictive process. When you try to get a group of people to analyze the same call the same way, there are bound to be disagreements. The calibration session is not focused on the 90-95 percent of the call a team agrees on, but on the handful of things on which they disagree.” Tom Vander Well, C Wenger Group

These calibration meetings should include all personnel that are responsible for monitoring.   A call is chosen by the quality manager, and played to the entire group.  Each participant should score the call, and then each of them shares their scores with the group.  If there is a significant difference, the facilitator leads the discussion to reconcile the significant differences.   It is through this continued process that the quality team build consensus.   This will translate to a fairer and more consistent evaluation of the agents.

Goals
It is important that Quality be included in an agent’s evaluation, in addition to production and attendance.   Agents must understand that any incentives they gain through their work must have the required quality scores associated with it.

In most organizations a 90% to 95% quality score is required to stay on a campaign.  This score should be evaluated weekly, and monthly.  If an agent’s score is below 90% on a given call, coaching takes place.  If they agent’s scores continue to fall below 90% for a given month, disciplinary action is taken.

As well as removal from a campaign for substandard quality, the agent should also understand that their incentive structure is tied to the quality metric; in order to receive their incentive, they must have met the stated quality level.  This sends the message to the team that quality is an important factor in their compensation.

Agent Reviews
Coaching is integral to an effective quality program.   It must be constructive and timely.  By constructive, it must be more than sharing the score with the agent.  The analyst must point out both areas of superior performance, and areas of improvement. Myra Goldman, a leading call center trainer, recommends to “Use the “sandwich” approach. Tell your employee what s/he did well, followed by constructive feedback, and then end with positive feedback.  When offering constructive feedback, share only one opportunity for improvement. The employee has likely observed and stated several improvement opportunities so there is no need to bring these up again.  Try to mention one thing the employee did not bring up and offer this as your constructive feedback.”  It is also important that the agent’s reactions be noted.  Did they understand the areas where improvement was warranted?  Do they agree with the quality analyst’s score?  Did they offer any constructive feedback that can be shared with other agents?   All these issues should be noted and discussed.  Most call centers digitally record all calls.  Allowing the agent to listen to the call in question during their coaching session will eliminate any “he said/she said” situations and shorten the learning/coaching curve.

Side by side monitoring, where the agent and the supervisor review the calls together, is a very effective tool, but it can be very time consuming, and therefore many call centers bypass this tool.  It should be mandated that at least two calls a month be side-by-side monitoring sessions.

Recognition
With all of the time and effort spent in quality assurance, it is important that the organization builds a culture where quality is the number one goal.   Recognizing the agents that consistently have the highest quality does this.   Reward high-quality work through mechanisms such as ‘agent of the month’ awards and staff excellence certificates, and highlight agents in your company newsletter and intranet site. And if consumers are pleased with the service, make sure the whole team sees this communication.

When your quality assurance reaches “Best in Class”, you can then begin focusing on Customer Delight…

By Joe Dawidouski – Joe is the Quality Supervisor for Thumbs Up Marketing, a 30-year-old Call Center Services firm in St. Louis MO   www.thumbsupinc.com