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Details
- What: BellSouth wanted to increase revenue through in-bound telephone sales
Key measure: revenue per hour per person, revenue per call per person, average work time.
External customers who were making the purchases over the telephone, never knew they were involved in a test.
- Who: Sales call centers
- Where: Florida
- How Long: 3 months (includes 3 weeks of testing)
- How: Six Sigma approach
- Why: An increase of 10% = $3 million annual increase in revenue for the two centers in Florida alone.
Collect Ideas : Ideas were collected from the front line (100+) concerning “What do you say to your customers that makes them purchase?”
Ideas tested/Time frame : The ideas were reduced to 23 testable ideas. All 23 were tested at the same time for a period of three weeks. Only 3 were significantly helpful, 2 actually hurt revenue (one of these was an incentive) and the other 18 made no difference at all.
(Note: We use this example to show that what you measure or how you measure can be critical to your success. In this example revenue per CALL was eliminated as a future key measure. After the test, they realized that revenue per call was causing the employees to stay on the phone and wear the customer out with the sales pitch. There were employees who were closing an average of $10,000/month and were considered “stars” because their revenue per call was high. The employees with a high revenue per hour, closing $30,000/month were being ignored because their revenue per call was low compared to the others. As a result of this project, the center sustained the new level of 50% higher revenue and changed their key measure to revenue per hour. Random compliance audits are conducted on an ongoing basis to ensure the three ideas have not been dropped. Compliance is reported on performance evaluations.)
Revenue increased by 50%, from $137 per hour to $205 per hour.
Some ideas that were tested : selling a product with its benefits, selling a second product by its benefits, selling a product by just giving the total package price rather than itemized pricing, in the sales proposal telling them they are getting a $75 value for only $26, training employees 5 days prior to a promotion, having weekly 15 minute section meetings, having weekly development sessions.
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