InfoCision’s sales success
Building the perfect customer experience

How does InfoCision build the perfect customer experience? There are quantitative variables, such as staffing levels, hold times and abandon rates, which are relatively easy to define and measure. On the other hand, there are qualitative variables that can be expressed in numbers, but are no doubt essential to the formula for excellent sales and performance. They are: culture, training, quality assurance and coaching.

Culture of high performers
At InfoCision we don’t think of our employees as agents or TSRs – we think of them as Communicators who build relationships with customers that result in higher sales and satisfaction. Our professionals are enthusiastic, goal oriented, and experienced. To recruit and retain them we:

• Provide compensation and benefits based on performance and prior experience.
• Avoid commision-based conmpensation. Instead, focus on customer satisfaction and quality assurance.
• Reward and reconize top performers often.
• Foster a spirit of friendly competition.

Training that provides a foundation
Nothing is more obvious and annoying to a customer than a poorly trained representative. Take this all too common scenario. A woman calls in for help with a simple billing question, but the agent who takes the call can’t help her. So she is put on hold while her call is escalated, often several times, before her issue is resolved. Not only is she frustrated, but she will certainly not be receptive to cross-sell or up-sell appeals. This is a lose-lose scenario that can be avoided through careful, coordinated training exercises. 

In order to ensure that the training is effective, we start the very first day, before a call is ever made. Our training includes written tests as well as role-playing exercises. In these exercises we include client-specific information that is developed with our client’s input. To ensure that the classroom training transfers to the call center, we continue training for at least three weeks after an employee is hired. Although our extensive training program requires time and financial resources, it ensures that the people we have on the phones helping customers have product knowledge; effective communication, customer service and sales skills; and an understanding of the client’s mission and vision.

Quality assurance at every level
InfoCision’s quality assurance is more than just a single department or assessment; it’s a total operations philosophy that ensures that every call is superior to the one that came before it. One of the most essential aspects of our quality assurance is our multi-faceted call monitoring process that documents all aspects of a call from sales and customer experience metrics to nuances such as tone, timing and volume. 

Supervisors are just one level of InfoCision’s quality assurance. From front-line call center employees to top management, we have a commitment at every level of the company. We won’t ask our clients to take our word for it on quality – we make it easy for them to remotely monitor live calls and provide real-time reports and digital recordings of all calls.

Coaching for continual improvement
If culture, training and quality assurance are present, the only thing left to do is cultivate and retain our exceptional performers. To do this, our supervisors focus their time on coaching and mentoring, leaving administrative tasks to support staff. This means providing objective and subjective criticism that ensures each call is handled with the care and respect it deserves. Supervisors receive formal training in the following areas:

• Counseling
• Motivation
• Teamwork
• Analytics
• Professionalism
• Leadership

Back to Issue 10 / July 2008