It is wrong to assume that call center customer service can be used only for responding to the questions of the callers. Smart customer service call centers are always on the lookout for selling the products and services that they are working for. To be able to do that, the outsourcing call centers have to be very good at their primary job: customer service. The agents will not be able to push for additional sale unless they have satisfied the caller with the primary need. Callers will be in a better mood to listen to a sales pitch when their immediate requirement has been efficiently solved. With the query taken care of, the agent can take advantage of the available time and go for cross selling and up selling.
The opportunities to sell on the call center customer service department are never explicit. The agent on the call center customer service team has to be on the lookout, without making it obvious. The agents cannot expect to launch into a mode to sell without resolving the issue that the caller wants to be fixed. The customer service call centers have to work towards a very high, almost perfect, First Call Resolution (FCR) ratio. This is the rate at which the callers have their problems sorted out on the very first instance of calling. The number of such resolutions is measured against the total number of calls to determine the percentage. If the caller does not find that his issue has been dealt with satisfactory, it automatically makes him unresponsive to anything that the agent has to offer. The FCR ratio helps because customer service outsourcing unit knows on how many calls they were able to push for sales.
Cross selling at the customer service call center is about selling something additional to what the caller is already using. It could be a related commodity or something entirely different from the existing range of products and services on sale. The call center customer service agent needs to offer the new product/service to the caller and find out if he needs it. Up selling, on the other hand, is pushing for an upgrade on the product or service that the caller is already using. Now a customer will only go for an upgrade if he was satisfied with the services that he is receiving at the present. That is why the outsourcing customer service in question has to be careful about the kind of after-sale service that they provide to the callers. This has a direct relation to the lead generation department of the same customer service call center.
If the customer service call center can do it right, this can add to the leads that the unit generates as a whole. This will also bring about a difference to the usual call center customer service that units do. Clients will be satisfied with this kind of work. That will further lead to other projects in the future. This is one work that will benefit more than one department of the customer service call centers.
Our customer service call centers are always looking for opportunities to sell. The agents working in our call center customer service department know how to keep customers satisfied.