A call center’s sales operation is essential for ROI and has lots of details that need attention. That’s why we gathered 20 easy-to-apply yet effective call center sales tips to help boost your sales performance!
Improving customer service in a sales call center can significantly boost sales figures and enhance customer satisfaction. In the dynamic environment of a telemarketing call center, where every call can lead to a sale, mastering customer interaction is key.
How to improve call center customer service?
Start by providing comprehensive training that emphasizes not only product knowledge but also communication skills. This ensures that agents can engage effectively with potential customers, handle objections, and guide conversations towards a sale. Incorporating regular feedback and coaching sessions can further refine these skills. Another effective strategy is to equip agents with call center customer service tips, such as active listening, empathy, and the ability to personalize the call based on customer cues.
This tailored approach not only improves the customer experience but also increases the likelihood of closing sales. For any call center for sales, creating a supportive and motivated environment where agents are recognized for their successes can also lead to increased productivity and sales outcomes.
To make it easier for you, we divided them into three categories:
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply Before the Call
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply During the Call
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply After the Call
Read on to discover them!
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply Before the Call
Before you give your sales operations a go, here are some call center sales tips that you can utilize to give you a good start!
1. Set a Goal
Okay, don’t be mad—we know this is an obvious one… We just wanted to make sure that you’re setting informed and knowledge-based goals that rely on customer data and cover not only the number of “closed deals” but also other important call center metrics as well.
2. Be Accessible Across Channels
“Telemarketing” is no longer done only over the phone! With online payment options and even more tech-savvy payment methods like Apple Pay, there are tons of prospecting and sales platforms that your sales team can utilize. Plus, such a presence is perfect for brand awareness!
With Call Center Studio’s Click2Connect, your customers can call you directly from your website with a single click! No phones, call fees, or dialing required!
Talk to our experts to learn more!
3. Product Training
A sales call center is one of the very places you need in-depth training on products/services. Think about any question a customer might have and ensure your agents know the answer to it, as customers like to buy from informed agents. This will also improve customer experience—you’d be avoiding the hold time needed to scavenge the answer.
4. Train Your Team Leaders, Then Your Agents
Every contact center agent needs a well-equipped team leader to empower them. So, make sure that your team leaders are up to the task with regular training. Once you have them all set, your agents would be the perfect mentees for the perfect mentor.
5. Motivate Your Agents—For Real
One of the most important call center sales tips we can share with you is that cherishing and empowering your agents would go a long way and quickly reflect on your numbers! And, we’re not talking about the occasional “go team” chanting. Check out these 5 best practices for better agent experiences for some ideas!
6. Prevent Silos
This is not only one of the most critical call center sales tips but a piece of advice we’ll like to give to every call center out there—prevent silos!
If you get a complaint about how the IVR system is too complex, let IT know. Is there a problem with the advertisement of a certain product? Give marketing a call! Acting on your customers’ words and interacting with other departments to share the feedback will give you a bigger chance of sealing the deal!
7. Equip Your Agents
Did you know that 60% of agents feel like they’re not equipped with the right tools?
Selling products/services is a hard job on its own. Make sure to deploy tools such as Auto Dialer or Smart IVR systems to automate repetitive tasks and utilize your agents’ efforts in processes where human involvement is necessary. A win-win for your sales team and business!
Call Center Studio’s award-winning Dialers help businesses improve sales performance by 35% while saving your agents’ time by 40%!
Read our success story to learn more!
8. Keep Your Customers in the Know
Do you, by chance, have any alerts for discounts, special offers, or upgrades from a brand?
Consumers like to be in the know and feel more prompted to close a deal when they know that it is a “better version” or “more budget-friendly deal” than the one they encountered before! Send out occasional reminders or announcements via your customers’ preferred channel.
9. Tech-Check
This one may seem more like a maintenance check rather than a call center sales tip, but a deal can go south so fast when you experience a technical issue during a sales call, so it was hard not to mention it. Plus, it reflects poorly on customer satisfaction and demotivates your team!
Did you know that cloud-based call center solutions experience 35% less downtime than on-prem solutions?
Book a demo to take a look at Call Center Studio—a completely cloud-born call center software.
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply During the Call
Now that your call center sales department is all prepped up, let’s take a look at the tips that will come in handy when your agents are on a call!
10. Do Your Research
Some CRM integrations require surfing through windows, making it hard for your agents to retrieve data that may be useful during the call. To avoid that, make sure your call center solution is seamlessly integrated with your CRM and that your agents are able to access all information on a single screen.
Call Center Studio is packed with built-in integrations with popular CRM software like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, SAP, and MS Dynamics, delivering seamless single-screen call management.
Wonder if your CRM is on the list? Ask our experts!
11. Communicate Product/Service Benefits
Which one would you prefer? Being informed of “a brown and black battery” or “a battery that can power your remote control for 10 hours (2 hours longer than your average battery)”?
We know you get the point, so we’ll leave it there before this turns into a commercial.
12. Make Use of Real-Time Monitoring
An outbound sales call center may be the go-to option for sales operations, but there are also many inbound calls that take place within a call center sales model. So, you should be able to have real-time access to your agents’ statuses, queue volume, and other important metrics to up the chance of making sales.
Check out Call Center Studio’s Inbound Solution!
13. Give the Freedom to Go Off Script
A good call center sales tip for agents would be to take initiative when necessary to go off script and be conversational!
If a teenager is looking to get a tux for prom, ask if they have a date? If a woman is looking for a dress for a funeral, pass along your condolences. Kindness always creates great customer relations and has a great effect on sales.
14. Don’t Get Caught Off Guard
As a part of an industry that is notorious for its high turnover rates, one of the most useful call center sales tips would be to always guard your new hires. Not in a micromanagement way that will scare them off, but in a way that they would know that you have their backs. This would also free them of the fear of doing/saying the wrong things.
Call Center Studio’s Agent Assistance Tools like Barge-In and Whisper are great to smooth your onboarding process and help agents when they’re in a pickle!
Check out our full list of features and benefits!
Contact Center Sales Tips to Apply After the Call
You’ve applied our call center sales tips and come this far. Now, it’s time to top it off with a few more easy steps to improve call center operations for good!
15. Look For Loopholes
This one is kind of a follow-up on call center sales tips 6 and 14 (Prevent Silos & Don’t Get Caught Off Guard). Were there any customer calls involving questions you haven’t trained your agents about before? Update your question list! Did you get repetitive calls about a specific matter that should have been already addressed by another department? Pass the word!
16. Performance Check
Listen to your agents’ call recordings to improve their performance and utilize reporting tools to evaluate certain KPIs such as average hold time and average abandonment rate. If your agents’ performance looks like it needs some improvement, create training. If your KPIs are not what you’d like them to be, look for contact center tools that will help you get there.
Call Center Studio’s Call-Back option and self-service bots help reduce average time in queue and average abandonment rate, giving you a better chance of connecting with your customers fast.
Book a demo to discover how else we can help you improve your sales performance!
17. Build Brand Loyalty
Almost all studies show that it is easier and more cost-efficient to retain current customers than attain new ones. So, you have to build brand loyalty for your customers, which is mainly driven by excellent customer support. Be sure to have outstanding customer service to have your customer stick around and up your chances for cross-selling or up-selling.
18. Ask for Customer Feedback
Call center sales operations heavily depend on what your customers need, and what better way is there to learn it from them?
Get feedback from your customers. Asking for their opinion helps improve your overall sales process and will give you a higher chance of building brand loyalty as they’ll feel acknowledged.
Did you know that you can conduct NPS and CSAT evaluations without the need for any agents?
Book a demo today to learn what more you can do with Call Center Studio!
19. Retrace Your Customer Journey
This sales tip mainly applies to managers but will be useful to have team members do it too!
Call your call center! Experience the customer journeys you offer your callers first-hand and take notes! When you put yourself in their shoes, is there something that can be done better?
20. Cultivate An Agent Appreciation Culture
Our last but certainly not least call center sales tip is to appreciate your agents!
Acknowledge your well-performing agents’ success with tokens of appreciation or a well-established bonus system. Doing so will not only help your best-performing agents to always be in top shape, but it will also help agents who have room for improvement gain motivation.
To Wrap It Up
We know that sales operations are stressful environments with lots of targets to hit—we hope that these call center sales tips will help you ease the process and help you improve your sales performance.
If you have any questions on what else you can do to improve your numbers or how Call Center Studio’s tools and features can help you improve your sales operations, feel free to ask our experts!
