Ountbounders and thoughts

[amandaz88]

Just curious who here has CSR's that are strictly outbound callers?  Right now, our CSRs are handling both and I feel like the out bounding is getting a bit neglected.  If you do have out bounders, what does that role look like?  What expectations do you have for that person?  Also, if you have a job description, it would be AMAZING if you could email me at amanda@aircontrolaz.com

any and all info is greatly appreciated! 

[asnow]

I love and agree with both of these suggestions by @reneem and @JessicaSmith ! A few other things we have done at my company is to take turns having our CSRs do outbound calling. During our slower times of the day for incoming calls, we have each CSR dedicate 1 hour to do outbound calling, with a specific goal in mind - whether it's to book calls, follow up on calls, or do happy calls. Of course if the board is not as full, then the goal changes, and more CSRs will spend more time outbound calling to book jobs. The bottom line for me is that if they're not answering calls, they should be making calls.

We did have one CSR who was extremely great at follow up and happy calls and had great success with upselling on those calls. We created a new position for her as a follow-up coordinator which came with a raise, and commission on items she sold. There are a lot of ways you can set up your outbound calling program. We will be sharing some job descriptions and other tips and tricks in our new CSR Community group (please join!) In the meantime, here is a webinar I did last year that focused on outbound calls. 

Best wishes!! 

[reneem]

The way that we combat this is by giving our CSRs a booked job goal. So on any given day, our current CSRs is 12 booked jobs per day. So if phones are slow, that means they have to make outbounds, if inbounds are really busy, then they will hit the 12 more easily (and they probably wont have time for outbounds). This way it doesnt make them feel overwhelmed to get outbounds done on the higher call volume days. We switched this about a year ago and it has been very successful. We look at the numbers during reviews.

[JessicaSmith]

I like separating and cross training. So you have inbound CSRs and outbound CSRs, but when the phones are off the hook you stop outbounding and outbounders answer incoming, and when the phones are dead you have your inbound CSRs doing some outbounding also.