Electronic Retailer - November 2011 - 40

Hiring the Right Agents for the Task, and Compensating Them Appropriately
Every contact center needs to be fully staffed with proactive agents who are not only skilled and competent, but empathic as well. This trait helps ensure that the agent will engage with the customer from the beginning of the call and make successful upsells and cross-sells by the end. Every contact center should be filled with thoughtful, sophisticated agents with vibrant personalities who can solve a problem quickly when it arises. Hire agents using the latest job competency assessment models, because these agents will stay longer and perform above the norm. Further, to ensure agents are performing at their very best, we encourage companies to have a compensation plan in place that rewards performance and positive behavior; not only are agents encouraged to do their best for the sake of their own paycheck, but they are rewarded when they do exceptionally well. It’s a win either way, resulting in a company culture that is fully geared toward client success.

track of it all – a comprehensive order management system (OMS) is critical. You should choose an OMS that supports multiple payment processors and multiple payment methods, but be sure to evaluate these processors carefully; you could save money by eliminating costly gateways. Some processors can also build pre- and post-processing programs that can have a significant impact on cost and profits; these could include identifying fraud, retrying previously declined cards and identifying newly issued cards from current customers that might otherwise be declined.

Save-the-Sale and Save-the-Customer Programs
When effectively implemented, save-the-customer and save-the-sale techniques can often result in recovery of up to 60 percent of potentially cancelled sales. Both your order management system and merchant account can work handin-glove and play important roles in this process, providing dynamic tools to change payment and shipping cycles, payment methods, quantities shipped, discounts and other terms. For instance, your OMS should be able to retry declined cards multiple times, with configurable business rules in place that dictate how many (and when) reauthorization attempts can be made. This approach alone can yield a 40 percent-plus success rate. Then, with an OMS in use, you can automatically move fatally declined customers to an outbound call queue to discover the reason for the decline, make alternative payment arrangements and recover the customer.

Multiple Payment Processing Options and Opportunities
Providing multiple payment methods for your customers can increase revenue and even improve cash flow. But in order to offer this flexibility to your customers – and keep

Higher Perceived Value + Lower Cost of Goods = Highe Perceived Value Lower Cost of Goods he e er e owe

Order Confirmation Programs
An effective outbound program can increase average order values and provide additional opportunities for high performance upsell and cross-sell programs. And the same infrastructure can be used to make immediate callbacks to abandoned customers when call volumes spike.

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Build Your Center for Profits – Even When You’re Doing Customer Service!
Whether you are operating an in-house call center or looking for a great third-party partner, inbound sales, outbound sales and customer service functions can be aligned to work seamlessly together and boost your company’s profits. When you are using technology and data in innovative ways, when you place emphasis on customer-centric metrics and value agents who interact with your customers in a courteous and effective manner, your contact center will be competing with the best of the best, and your return-on-investment will be unmistakable. Clyde Mount is president of 3PL Worldwide Inc., a provider of third-party logistics and call center services to direct response, e-commerce and catalog marketers. He can be reached at (855) 375-9675 or via email at cmount@3plworldwide.com.

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Electronic Retailer - November 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Electronic Retailer - November 2011