How The Quality Conversation helps keep cable customers from cutting the cord

By Bob Davis

Cable companies are faced with competition today like never before. Not only do they have to deal with traditional competitors, they also have competition from content owners, game consoles and cloud-based competitors. All of this has led to the practice called cord cutting.

Whether or not you believe cord cutting is just beginning and will gain momentum, it is impossible to argue with the numbers. The cable industry has lost more subscribers in the last quarter than any other quarter in history.

The number-one driver of this loss is that customers are pursuing lower-priced alternatives. The second most common reason is that cable customers are leaving for bundled products and services elsewhere.

Requests for help versus true cancellation intent

So how do you save a customer who calls in to quit? Well, 50 percent of these calls begin with requests for help related to affordability. Customers start off by saying something like, “I have to do something about my bill! It is just too high and we need to cut back everywhere.” In these cases it is very easy for the agent to jump on the fix and eliminate the premium channels. In fact, this is the number-one solution presented. But is it always the best solution?

And what is the best way to handle calls from customers who have a clear cancellation intent?

My company, Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA), works extensively with customer contact centers for cable providers and many other types of companies, and we have found that the best approach for saving canceling customers is to enter into what we call The Quality Conversation with them. To do so requires certain attitudes on the part of the cable CSR.

The importance of showing genuine interest

The most important attitude CSRs need to engage in The Quality Conversation is one of genuine interest in customers and their wants, interests and needs. Much like you can hear a smile over the telephone, genuine interest comes right through to customers and sets the stage for the save. Unfortunately, not having an attitude of genuine interest comes across the phone line, too.

Discovering the true cancellation reason

Perhaps not surprisingly to anyone who has worked in a customer contact center, most callers don’t at first volunteer the real reason they are canceling. Our studies show that on 53 percent of all cancellation calls, the first reason a customer gives the CSR for cancellation is not the real one. Beyond showing genuine interest, The Quality Conversation is centered on a process that includes using discovery questions to find the true cancellation reason. This is extremely important. After all, if CSRs don’t know the true cancellation reason, they’ll focus on fixing problems that don’t resolve the real issues.

The real magic bullet is to use a complete process—full discovery—to help customers realize the value that they see in the service. For most customers, watching TV drives many positive emotions. The Quality Conversation and the full discovery that is part of the process get customers talking about these emotions and their underlying value.

Here’s an example of how it all works. Imagine that a customer is calling in to cancel HBO because he needs to save money. Through initial discovery, you determine that this is the true cancellation reason. Moving through full discovery, the next question you might ask is, “What show are you going to miss the most once you cancel?” More often than not, the customer will answer by saying something like, “Well, I was looking forward to the new season of “Boardwalk” (or whatever program is the customer’s favorite). Once customers start talking about what they’ll miss, it is very likely that they will reconsider their cancellation request. “You know what? I am going to find another way to save money,” the customer will say. “Let’s keep my HBO.”

Helping customers find the value they see in the service is so important, yet CSRs cannot lead them to it without engaging in The Quality Conversation.

Learn more about The Quality Conversation online at http://robertcdavis.net/process/ or call 678-548-1775.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net), a consulting firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, specializing in improving sales, customer service and retention results in customer contact centers across North America. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), a highly specialized outsource customer contact center serving the needs of business clients across the country.

The Quality Conversation is the key to turning service into sales

By Bob Davis

We were three weeks into a service-to-sales project in a large customer contact center when I overheard the following comment from an agent passing the training room on her way to the break room.

“I wasn’t hire to sell. I don’t care what they say,” the agent said. “I am not going to do it!”

This is not an uncommon reaction to change. My company, Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA), has been helping organizations turn service into sales for many years. We have found that this is a journey to win the hearts and minds of the agents—a journey that is well worth taking.

For example, we helped the billing department of one company move from zero sales to 90,000 sales in just six months. We helped the tech support organization of another company move from .02 sales per 100 calls to 1.8 sales per 100 calls—a 900-percent improvement!

How exactly do you obtain gains like these?

The main way to get there is to engage in what we call The Quality Conversation. If you don’t build a strong emotional connection with customers while solving their technical problem or billing issue quickly and efficiently, your chances of turning the service call into a sale are very small. On the other hand, if you use the following elements of The Quality Conversation on the call, your chances of converting the call to a sale increase greatly:

• Show genuine interest in the customer.
• Handle the call with sincere enthusiasm.
• Engage in full discovery of not only the issue at hand but also the customer’s wants, interests and needs.

The Quality Conversation seems quite simple. The big question is, what prevents agents from carrying it out?

First, you have to address the natural reaction to change. Any time you ask people to change how they do something, they react in stages:

1. Denial (“I can’t believe they’re making us do this.”)
2. Anger (“This really makes me mad. I’m not doing it.”)
3. Bargaining (“Can’t we just keep doing things the way we’ve always done for while?”)
4. Depression (“Why even try? I’ll never be able to do this.”)
5. Acceptance (“Well, it’s mandatory. I might as well learn how to do it.”)

If you understand and expect these stages of reaction to change, you’re better able to help team members move quickly to acceptance of a Quality Conversation initiative.

The other key to changing a team from a service orientation to a sales orientation is to understand comfort zones. People tend to keep doing what they are comfortable doing, regardless of whether or not it produces results. The role of the supervisor or coach is critical. The job is to help agents stay outside their comfort zone using The Quality Conversation approach until they are comfortable with it.

Here are some effective techniques for moving from service to sales:

1. Make a strong transition statement. Once agents have taken care of the issue at hand, they need to make a smooth transition statement. This means saying something like, “Now that we have fixed your billing issue, let me ask you a couple of questions to determine if we can add even more value on this call.” If agents make this statement confidently, the customer will usually react positively. This will help agents move to acceptance of the change, because they’ll see that it works.
2. Move to full discovery. Instead of just making a product pitch, agents must ask questions that will allow them to truly understand how they can add value for the customer. RCDA has been working on service-to-sales transitions with cable providers using this approach. Agents become amazed when they see how full discovery focuses on customer wants, interests and needs and consequently creates a positive experience for the customer. The agents see for themselves how willing customers are to answer discovery questions from the agent who drives that positive experience. The customers talk about their wants, interests and needs as related to their phone and Internet service—and how additional products and services can add value. In the end, the process helps customers sell themselves.
3. Coach for sustainability. Coaching from supervisors is critical during the roll-out of a Quality Conversation service-to-sales transition. They need to reinforce all of the new behaviors on a daily basis or the agents will revert back to their comfort zone—doing their job the old, familiar (albeit less effective) way. Side-by-side coaching, skill transfer, small group practice sessions, commitment sessions, and following up on those commitments are all key to succeeding with a service-to-sales transition and sustaining it.

More information on The Quality Conversation and how to make your service-to-sales transition work, visit RCDA’s website at www.robertcdavis.net.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net), a consulting firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, specializing in improving sales, customer service and retention results in customer contact centers across North America. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), a highly specialized outsource customer contact center serving the needs of business clients across the country.

Driving newspaper revenues higher: How to sell more multimedia advertising over the phone

By Bob Davis

Over the last few years, my company—Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA)—has been working with newspaper organizations to help them sell multimedia advertising. In some cases we have helped our clients build multimedia sales centers from the ground up. In others, the task has been to train and coach existing inbound classified reps to make outbound multimedia sales calls. Our experience in these efforts has taught us a great deal about what drives desired results.

Hire the right people. This may seem obvious, but it is clear that not everyone is cut out for outbound multimedia advertising sales. We have learned this the hard way when trying to convert inbound reps into outbound sales stars. Many simply do not have the personality for it. We believe in training and coaching people to do the job, but some individuals just do not have the right traits. When building an outbound sales team, it is critical to test reps for several key traits:

• Empathy

• Resilience

• Energy

• Persistence

• Social boldness

Use good lists. Studies show that as much as 40 percent of success in an outbound campaign is tied to good lists, and our experience supports these findings. Not all prospects are created equal. The multimedia sales rep’s job is to call prospects who are not advertising and are too small to be called on by an outside sales rep. But this does not mean to call on just anybody. Most markets have tens of thousands of prospects, and management must target the prospects and manage the lists.

It is unfortunate indeed to go into a multimedia sales center and see reps spending time on the Internet or looking through the yellow pages for the next prospects to call. They should be on the phones. Almost as bad is to see reps wasting hour after hour calling prospects who are unlikely to buy. You may have 397 nail salons in your market, but is this a list your people should spend a full day calling? Without a doubt, building good lists is hard work that requires exceptional management skills, but it’s much more profitable than using bad lists. Here are a few tips:

• Find businesses in town that do not advertise with you, but that look like your current advertisers.

• Determine the characteristics of businesses that advertise on radio and TV.

• Build a target profile and create a list of businesses that fit it. If you don’t have sufficient resources to generate the list in-house, work with a good list broker.

Create and manage a campaign calendar. Even with the very best lists, the right timing is essential. Calling the snow removal people in the fall and the lawn maintenance people in the spring seems like a no-brainer. But without a campaign calendar to coordinate what lists to call and when, many great dates and opportunities to sell will just slip by.

Insist on 200 dials daily. Keeping the right pace is another key to successful outbound multimedia sales efforts. We believe in the effectiveness of 200 dials daily per rep, and we insist on it. To reach their sales goals, reps must keep dialing and not spend time looking up or Googling the company they are going to call next. When management provides excellent lists and firm campaign objectives, reps hit this number of dials consistently, and it shows in higher sales.

Measure ROI daily. Like prospects, not all campaigns are created equal. To keep reps focused on the campaigns that can make the most profit for the organization, measure your return on investment for each campaign daily.

Have a Quality Conversation. This is the most important and interesting part of the process. As we have talked with thousands of prospective advertisers, it continues to impress and amaze us how many people—after just a minute or two—will open up to a stranger who has called them and asked with a caring demeanor about their wants, interests and needs. The most important thing that we strive to understand is the advertising motive. As we ask prospective advertisers the right questions with genuine interest, they open up and provide the road map to the sale. It’s all part of a proven process in five basic steps:

• An enthusiastic Greeting

• Discovery questions to determine the prospect’s wants, interests and needs

• A Solution conveyed by centering on features and benefits

• An Offer that shows how the features and benefits fulfill the prospect’s wants, interests and needs

• An assumptive Close

Manage the pipeline. It would be nice to think that every sale could be closed on the first call. However, the truth of the matter is that most of the biggest and best sales take several calls. With a level of activity at 200 dials or more per day, a pipeline of interest will grow very quickly.
This pipeline must be managed, and this is the job of the sales coach, who should ask:

• How many leads are being generated by each sales person?

• What is the value of each lead?

• What is the next step to take with each lead?

Then, the sales coach must manage each next step to help the reps close the sales.

Considering the number of advertisers a newspaper has versus the number of businesses in the market, the potential for driving multimedia sales is tremendous. But simply increasing outbound efforts is not enough. It must be done using a proven, targeted and well-managed process.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net), a consulting firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, specializing in improving sales, customer service and retention results in customer contact centers across North America. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), a highly specialized outsource customer contact center serving the needs of business clients across the country.