• “How can I get my agents to perform better?”
• “How can I get my supervisors out of their pods and spend more time on the floor developing their agents?”
• “How can we improve our metrics and sustain them?”

Whether call centers want to increase sales or improve retention, these are the questions we are asked most often by call center senior leadership.   Over the past decade OutSell has interviewed more than 6,000 top performers to find the answers.  And surprisingly, the answer to all three is the same…creating a unique and positive experience for the customer.  In other words, the customer experience is True North because when you take care of the customer, great things happen.

OutSell Consulting works extensively with call center operations in many different industries to help meet their organization’s objectives through improved performance.  This improvement is shown in:

• Increased conversion rates
• Increased retention rates
• Increased generation of new line leads
• Increased $ per sale
• Increased net recommender scores
• Increased customer satisfaction scores
• Increased first call resolutions
• Decreased call times

The common theme is to improve results by improving the customer experience.  Some of our recent work in this area includes:

Anthem Blue Cross
Implemented a new customer contact process for Health Plan Advisors and Customer Care Associates to handle various service calls including billing inquiries and potential cancellation calls resulting from the annual premium rate increase.  In the three month period of the heaviest call volume, we saw the following improvements:
The number of unsolicited member compliments and customer satisfaction scores have both increased.

• Number of members retained is up.
• Member complaints and escalated calls are both down.

AIS Insurance (a division of the AON Corporation)
Improved customer acquisition and retention by improving the customer contact skills and the management processes of AIS’ sales and service teams.  Results included:

• The lead conversion of AIS brokers has improved across the entire organization.
• Significant increase in the number of new line leads
• Customer retention has improved over the last year along with an increase in sales of additional products.

Charter Communications
Increased revenue, creating a consistent, excellent customer experience across all 17 sites and generating a quick lift in key metrics in targeted sites.  Results realized were:

• Sales of “Triple Play” bundles (video, phone and telephone) are at an all-time high.
• Monthly closing ratio over 40% for the first time.
• Retention rate at an all-time high.
• Customer satisfaction scores improved 22%.