But here are some things to consider before you change that script!

Ask yourself, how often do you make significant changes to your sales scripts? If it is too frequently (more than once per month) then your sales agents may not have a chance to get comfortable with the script before a new script is rolled out.

On the flip-side, if you change your script less than twice per quarter, your agents may become too comfortable with the script, almost to the point of being bored. Listen to your agents closely, unless they are memorizing legal confirmation statements that have to be repeated a number of times throughout the sale, if your agents have memorized any other portion of the script, it is time for change.

How do you tell if it is time to tweak the sales script?

Review your script from time to time, and see if it’s still leading to some form of lead capture. Ultimately, your script should lead to a sale, customer contact information (a lead), a request for more information, or an invite to a future contact from your business. Look at sales performance on a weekly basis. If you are noticing a trend where results are dropping, then it’s time to work with your agents to change the script. That’s right! Work with the sales representative and listen to their suggestions, and follow these steps before rolling out a new script:

1. Ask your sales agents. After all, they are where the rubber meets the road. They know first hand the objections that they have to overcome day to day. They listen to your customers and know what they want.

2. Add your own suggestions, but only after doing research on customer response and retention. Knowing the demographics of your customer can be the deciding factor on whether they want to be enrolled in a health forum that they access online, or prefer to receive the monthly newsletter in the mail.

3. Thirdly (this is probably the most overlooked step), evaluate how the agents are compensated. Are the agents incentified to pitch the continuity (aka autos-ship) or do they make more money if they sell the year supply? The customer is going to buy what sells and the sales agents are going to sell what pays. I cannot tell you how many times a new script is rolled out and the auto-ship price is dropped but the auto-ship conversion doesn’t go up, just to find out that the call center pays .50 for each auto-ship but $1 for every buy club. If you were a commissioned agent, what pitch would you put your focus on?

And of course, there is no rule that says that you cannot test a new script with a controlled group of seasoned agents and/or revert back to the original script after a couple of weeks if performance takes a nose-dive.

As long as your goals are clearly communicated with your call center and agents, every script change should go smoothly.

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In the Direct Response industry, your call center agents are like athletes in a football game. The sales agents are your front-line, assertive minds that dig their heels in and “go for it”. They typically have more of that “competitive edge” and they are motivated by money or just numbers in general. They are the ones with the loud voice and want to be known or have the upper hand, or at least that is what most employers want in a sales employee.

But what about if you need an agent that works in customer service? What characteristics equate to the perfect support agent? In many centers, if your conversion numbers do not meet the needs of the sales floor, you are transferred to customer service, but depending on the dynamics of your company, if the agent does not make it in the sales department, chances are, they are not well suited for customer service either. 

In many ways, recruiters are looking for the same qualities in a sales agent that they are for a customer service agent but they just don’t realize it. If you are hiring for your sales floor, you need someone who works well in a team environment, has little to no issues with authority figures, is assertive and feels comfortable making suggestions to a customer, has the persuasive tendency to be able to “sell” a customer,  and just over all, a bold, and out-going personality right? 

If you are hiring for your customer service department, you want someone who works well in a team environment, has no issues dealing with figures of authority, can be suggestive to a customer…noticing a trend here?

 Working in customer service for 9 years, I can verify that when hiring, whether it is for sales or c.s. you should be seeking the exact same type of person, a supportive thinker, innovative, respectful, professional, dynamic, and a “roll with the punches” attitude because the DR world is ever changing. What is MOST important, is finding out what the potential employee enjoys doing most. In most cases, that is the “driving” factor.

 In several instances over the years, my best c.s. agents were the best agents when it came to “saves” (customer retention) and they had the highest revenue for reorders, as well as converted more sales than anyone else in the department. These same individuals, were also successful on the sales floor, but chose to come to customer service because they were “happier” doing it. A “happy” agent = successful agent.

 So how do you get the best of both worlds? Look for the same individual, but find out where they feel most comfortable. Provide the same type of training for all employees. Sales training integrated with a customer service supportive philosophy, and then you have your hybrid employee that can take either sales or c.s calls depending on call volume. After all, whether you are playing on the front line, or your position is safety, we all should be thinking customer retention.

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I’ve probably had ten people in the last week ask me “what does the KPI (in your name) stand for?”.   No, it’s not our initials, nor does it stand for Knowledge, Power, Income (not sure how they came up with that one).  It actually stands for Key Performance Indicator (well, there are a few others like Kuwait Petroleum International).  Wikipedia defines KPIs as:

Financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals.

We at KPI Direct are firm believers in the use of KPIs or what we’ll call metrics-based management (so much so that we put the acronym in our name).  You could even go so far as to call us the metrics dorks (that’s how much we like this stuff).   So, after I answer the first question about what KPI stands for, in many cases the next question is “what is a key performance indicator.”

One of my favorite examples is found in Good to Great in the discussion of Walgreens.  One of their keys to success was the fact that they had a clearly defined central metric for their business:  Revenue per customer visit.  Every strategy, every initiative, every department strived to maximize this core metric.  Now, that’s not to say they didn’t look at many other metrics like rev/square foot, merchandising efficiency, repeat visitor revenue, etc. but all of these metrics tied back to their core metric of revenue per customer visit.  From the CEO down to the cashier, everyone knew that if they maximized that core metric, then the business would be in good shape.

I’ll admit that some of this may seem very much like consultant speak - all great in theory, but not useful. I would argue the opposite: clearly defined business metrics allow not only crystal clear insight into your business, but are incredibly practical.  Why? Because every person, vendor, or initiative now can clearly be looked at through the lens of the core metrics.  Whether you are hiring/firing, selecting vendors, or launching a new program you can carefully evaluate, measure, and manage based on your clearly defined metrics.  Believe it or not, your employees and vendors will work better when they know exactly how they’re being measured and how the organization overall is being measured.

What we hope to do over this series of blog posts is dig deeper into what are the metrics (KPIs) by which to manage a direct response business and show how clearly defined metrics make management easier.   Some of the areas we hope to cover include:

• Call Center Metrics
• Media Metrics
• Fulfillment Metrics
• LTV Metrics
• Web Metrics
• Benchmarking Metrics

This list is subject to change - feel free to share your thoughts.

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We frequently hear questions from clients about radio advertising and I can’t say we have all the answers.  What we’ve often suggested is for people to talk to the team at Strategic Media, lead by veteran radio experts (in the spirit of full disclosure also went to college with the KPI founder Scott Badger…and their office is just down the street from ours).  While we’re not in the business of ego stroking, we do want to give Jeff Small and Brett Astor props for the launch of their new book this week.  It’s called Direct Response Radio: The Way to Greater Profits with Measurable Radio Advertising. No, I haven’t read it yet but I’ve already placed my order and look forward to a good read.  Expect a full review in the next few months as well as some more information on radio advertising metrics (part of a new series of posts discussing business metrics).

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