Inspiring “Generation C” to sell

Anyone who has spent any length of time managing a modern South African contact centre will know that part of the challenge is getting in touch with a diverse group of young people, who are for the most part connected, communicating, content-centric, computerised, community-oriented, and always clicking.

Nicknamed “Generation C”, they have spent most of their lives with the World Wide Web and mobile phone commercially available, and consequently have seamlessly woven technology into their lives, to the extent that they express themselves and socialise online just as readily as they do in the real world.

Inspiring this group, within a South African context, to make customer-centric outbound sales calls for Momentum's first Loyalty Program product, the aptly named “Multiply”, was the challenge Momentum brought to Siyandza Skills Development.

Siyandza, a SETA accredited Level 3 BEE empowered company, offers full service skills development solutions to a wide range of blue-chip and government clients. Siyandza is committed to delivering creative, targeted outcomes-based training solutions, and has a reputation for tailoring solutions to each client's specific requirements.

The gauntlet laid down, it was for Siyandza's team to propose a creative solution, which sold “Contact Centres”, “Outbound Sales”, “Momentum's Culture” and the product “Multiply” to the newly recruited call agents.

“It was essentially about creating a training system that achieved three goals,” says Mark Jacobs, Business Development Manager for Siyandza. “Goal number one was to establish a positive sales culture in a new call centre; goal number two meant achieving real buy in from the sales agents to the product, because you can't sell what you don't believe in; and finally, we needed to create a program so exciting that the full range of agents, team leaders and senior managers would want to attend and embrace the outcomes.”

Through intensive collaboration with the Momentum management team, a brand centred on a super hero theme called “Team X” was decided on.

“Super Hero Team X stood for all that we needed it to,” says Jacobs. “It lent itself in shape and form to vibrancy; in character and profile to achieving individual desires and hopes; and in subject and concept to rising to team challenges and most importantly to multiplying one's innate selling superpowers.

“We designed an evocative super hero Team X Avatar that everyone, regardless of age, gender or race, could identify with, and included Team X t-shirts in the kit, and developed role-plays, games and coaching models, all around the Team X super hero theme” says Jacobs.

Team X became the Momentum Multiply Sales Team's de facto mascot and icon, making it not only a brand for the team, but perhaps more importantly a nucleus around which a team spirit and identity could develop.

Of course, simply designing a really great training vehicle was only half the battle. Implementing the training and ensuring that every element in the training was transferred over to the Momentum Multiply Call Centre management team was just as important to achieving the desired results. As part of the overall induction curriculum, every agent spent a week developing their individual selling ethos and discovering the ideal team culture in the Momentum Multiply outbound contact centre environment.

“By design, Momentum's Multiply Loyalty product provides the tools, information and incentive for customer's to improve their overall wellbeing,” says Jacobs, “making it in many ways, the ideal product to sell telephonically. We did spend some time training teams on how to overcome their own call reluctance and how to better manage objections,” adds Jacobs, “but these are very much part of the sales game these days.” If any training program is to be effective and have real long-term positive effects on an organisation, it needs to be cost-effective and practically repeatable.

In practice, this meant that Siyandza had to have on site its own expert facilitators for the initial intervention, as well as develop and operationalise a model for training and coaching selected Team Leaders. These Team Leaders effectively become the program's daily ambassadors or Super Hero Users. “It was very important,” says Jacobs, “for the delegates to see that they were fully supported by a team of people after the training and that was not simply a question of 'brain dumping' information and then leaving them to their own devices. Success takes energy and time input from everybody; it's as simple as that.”

“In all the excitement of the design and deployment phases, it is often the case that sight is lost of the fundamental goal, namely, sales agents making sales,” says Jacobs. “So, we included a clearly defined set of report types and report back points in our design.” These allowed Siyandza and Momentum to jointly monitor each individual's performance in the training and compare their performance post training.

“The reports also gave Momentum's Multiply Contact Centre management team detailed and comprehensive information about the effectiveness of the recruitment and training interventions,” adds Jacobs. “But more importantly, linked as they were to the sales volume, continue to objectively and validly measure performance where it matters most - on the call.”

While the Momentum Multiply Outbound Contact Centre has been in operation for a few short months, the management team have already seen an increase in morale and motivation within each team, and perhaps more importantly, a greater level of constructive competition between teams to increase their output and achieve revenue targets.