The philosophy of customer relationship management (CRM) stresses that agents should consider every communication with a customer as an opportunity to maintain the customer's loyalty with the goal of generating more revenue. As companies recognize that outbound telemarketing isn't the only way to make sales, they are asking agents to sell products and services in addition to handling problems and taking orders. At the same time, agents who are primarily involved with sales are following up with customers to make sure they're satisfied and to uncover potential problems that could lead these customers to go elsewhere.

CRM places new demands on agents, requiring that they develop skills that they were not expected to have when they started in customer service or sales. And they have to show they can serve customers on-line.

Peter Gurney, vice president of product development at Service Intelligence (Seattle, WA), a firm that measures company performance, says that sales training is especially important for support reps. But when companies first begin to advise agents to cross-sell and up-sell, Gurney observes, they first have to show agents how to apply what they know about customers.

"Cross-selling gives these agents an opportunity to deepen the relationship with these customers, as long as it is offered in the context of assessing and meeting their needs," says Gurney. "There is a risk that agents will anger customers by making inappropriate recommendations. Therefore companies should, instead of mandating cross-selling and up-selling, train agents to probe customer needs and make recommendations based on the information gathered from customers."

Todd Beck, market director of customer service and Web-based products for training firm AchieveGlobal (Tampa, FL), has seen a growth in demand from call centers to provide more thorough sales training for customer service reps. He finds that some companies are blurring the distinction between sales and support, and he observes that companies are realizing the value of certain skills, such as recognizing unspoken needs from customers, more than they did in the past. He also explains that companies cross-train agents because they realize they can reduce costs if they don't have to escalate calls or receive repeated calls from the same customers with the same questions.

AchieveGlobal recently upgraded its customer service training, The Service Difference. AchieveGlobal shows agents how and when to connect emotionally with customers, how to guide conversations and how to restore customers' confidence when they have bad experiences with your company.

Marcy Branum, vice president of Centralized Marketing Company (CMC; Cordova, TN), a service bureau that offers training through an affiliate known as Performance Training Group, says that it requires a lot of effort to show an agent who only has experience with customer service or taking orders how to cross-sell and handle cold calls.

"It is much more difficult to train customer service agents to sell because they first have to be educated to think like a salesperson," says Branum. "That's because customer service and order taking is reactive to what the callers are saying, whereas outbound is proactive, which is key to building customer loyalty."

Service Intelligence's Gurney agrees. "Most effective salespeople have always understood the value of service in retaining customers," he says. "It is how they keep them."

Chad Burbage, president of training firm and consultancy BC Group International (Dallas, TX), points out that there is a big difference between identifying opportunities when certain products or services could help customers and placing cold calls to make immediate sales. He suggests that when you train agents to up-sell, you should encourage them to make sure they're meeting customers' needs before launching into their pitches.

"There has been a lot of talk for years about the importance of up-selling," says Burbage. "Some firms are moving toward that practice but many others are not. One of the concerns is additional training and managing costs. But there is a real benefit to the bottom line if a sale is made. It boils down to opportunities seized versus opportunities dropped. Up-selling works best if you can weave it into the satisfactory response to the customer so that the interaction is seamless."

Implementing Cross-Training

Mary Beth Ingram, founder and president of training firm PhonePro (Indianapolis, IN), says that one way to cross-train agents is to switch agents who typically answer incoming calls to make outbound calls during periods when the center is receiving few calls.

"This is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde strategy, and few people have equal abilities to succeed at the service and sales disciplines equally well," she says. "Management's desire to use downtime productively is wise. The expectation of having high-functioning responsive service staff change into high-functioning proactive sales staff is often unmet."

Ingram also suggests that customer service agents step out of what she calls "an order entry culture" into a "true customer service culture."

"Instead of fulfilling the single concern or question of the incoming call, [which is] an order-entry discipline, the service discipline tells us to search beyond the revealed need into the unrevealed," Ingram says. "It can be as elementary as asking, 'what else can I quote you on today?' to as complex as probing to find needs for new business."

She also advises that agents learn to be proactive with customer service, for example, by making outbound customer care calls and thereby taking on the roles of account managers.

"While this takes tools and training to accomplish, it is truly an account management strategy that exceeds expectations," Ingram says.

Kathryn Jackson, associate with Response Design Corporation (RDC; Ocean City, NJ), believes that customer service should always be part of training for new hires. She says that an agent who does not possess strong customer service skills is apt to alienate callers and face the potential of losing business.

Yet developing training programs for new hires and retraining experienced agents is not easy, nor does it happen overnight. There are always agents who are skilled in serving customers but who prefer not to sell.

"As companies start migrating from a totally dedicated service environment into a combined service and sales role, we have to consider what we are going to do for the current employees who were hired to do service only," Jackson says. "We can certainly change our job description and implement new training but there will still be people in the job that do not want to do sales. The company has to determine the course of action for these people. We also need to change the hiring profile to accommodate the new competencies, set the expectation for the new hires and then train to the new skill requirements."

The philosophy of customer relationship management (CRM) stresses that agents should consider every communication with a customer as an opportunity to maintain the customer's loyalty with the goal of generating more revenue. As companies recognize that outbound telemarketing isn't the only way to make sales, they are asking agents to sell products and services in addition to handling problems and taking orders. At the same time, agents who are primarily involved with sales are following up with customers to make sure they're satisfied and to uncover potential problems that could lead these customers to go elsewhere.

CRM places new demands on agents, requiring that they develop skills that they were not expected to have when they started in customer service or sales. And they have to show they can serve customers on-line.

Peter Gurney, vice president of product development at Service Intelligence (Seattle, WA), a firm that measures company performance, says that sales training is especially important for support reps. But when companies first begin to advise agents to cross-sell and up-sell, Gurney observes, they first have to show agents how to apply what they know about customers.

"Cross-selling gives these agents an opportunity to deepen the relationship with these customers, as long as it is offered in the context of assessing and meeting their needs," says Gurney. "There is a risk that agents will anger customers by making inappropriate recommendations. Therefore companies should, instead of mandating cross-selling and up-selling, train agents to probe customer needs and make recommendations based on the information gathered from customers."

Todd Beck, market director of customer service and Web-based products for training firm AchieveGlobal (Tampa, FL), has seen a growth in demand from call centers to provide more thorough sales training for customer service reps. He finds that some companies are blurring the distinction between sales and support, and he observes that companies are realizing the value of certain skills, such as recognizing unspoken needs from customers, more than they did in the past. He also explains that companies cross-train agents because they realize they can reduce costs if they don't have to escalate calls or receive repeated calls from the same customers with the same questions.

AchieveGlobal recently upgraded its customer service training, The Service Difference. AchieveGlobal shows agents how and when to connect emotionally with customers, how to guide conversations and how to restore customers' confidence when they have bad experiences with your company.

Marcy Branum, vice president of Centralized Marketing Company (CMC; Cordova, TN), a service bureau that offers training through an affiliate known as Performance Training Group, says that it requires a lot of effort to show an agent who only has experience with customer service or taking orders how to cross-sell and handle cold calls.

"It is much more difficult to train customer service agents to sell because they first have to be educated to think like a salesperson," says Branum. "That's because customer service and order taking is reactive to what the callers are saying, whereas outbound is proactive, which is key to building customer loyalty."

Service Intelligence's Gurney agrees. "Most effective salespeople have always understood the value of service in retaining customers," he says. "It is how they keep them."

Chad Burbage, president of training firm and consultancy BC Group International (Dallas, TX), points out that there is a big difference between identifying opportunities when certain products or services could help customers and placing cold calls to make immediate sales. He suggests that when you train agents to up-sell, you should encourage them to make sure they're meeting customers' needs before launching into their pitches.

"There has been a lot of talk for years about the importance of up-selling," says Burbage. "Some firms are moving toward that practice but many others are not. One of the concerns is additional training and managing costs. But there is a real benefit to the bottom line if a sale is made. It boils down to opportunities seized versus opportunities dropped. Up-selling works best if you can weave it into the satisfactory response to the customer so that the interaction is seamless."

Implementing Cross-Training

Mary Beth Ingram, founder and president of training firm PhonePro (Indianapolis, IN), says that one way to cross-train agents is to switch agents who typically answer incoming calls to make outbound calls during periods when the center is receiving few calls.

"This is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde strategy, and few people have equal abilities to succeed at the service and sales disciplines equally well," she says. "Management's desire to use downtime productively is wise. The expectation of having high-functioning responsive service staff change into high-functioning proactive sales staff is often unmet."

Ingram also suggests that customer service agents step out of what she calls "an order entry culture" into a "true customer service culture."

"Instead of fulfilling the single concern or question of the incoming call, which is an order-entry discipline, the service discipline tells us to search beyond the revealed need into the unrevealed," Ingram says. "It can be as elementary as asking, 'what else can I quote you on today?' to as complex as probing to find needs for new business."

She also advises that agents learn to be proactive with customer service, for example, by making outbound customer care calls and thereby taking on the roles of account managers.

"While this takes tools and training to accomplish, it is truly an account management strategy that exceeds expectations," Ingram says.

Kathryn Jackson, associate with Response Design Corporation (RDC; Ocean City, NJ), believes that customer service should always be part of training for new hires. She says that an agent who does not possess strong customer service skills is apt to alienate callers and face the potential of losing business.

Yet developing training programs for new hires and retraining experienced agents is not easy, nor does it happen overnight. There are always agents who are skilled in serving customers but who prefer not to sell.

"As companies start migrating from a totally dedicated service environment into a combined service and sales role, we have to consider what we are going to do for the current employees who were hired to do service only," Jackson says. "We can certainly change our job description and implement new training but there will still be people in the job that do not want to do sales. The company has to determine the course of action for these people. We also need to change the hiring profile to accommodate the new competencies, set the expectation for the new hires and then train to the new skill requirements."