Quantifying Opportunity

Thursday, August 1, 2013

More than 30% of calls handled in your Sales Queue may not be viable Sales Opportunities.

The Opportunity Engine

Not all fuel components are combustible. Exhaust and heat represent unconverted potential.

1. Marketing supplies varying quantities and qualities of Sales Opportunities.
2. Opportunities are delivered to call center Agents for conversion into revenue.
3. Sales Opportunities are converted into forward acceleration (Profits.)
4. Unconverted Opportunity exits as exhaust.

Transactional Essentials: Quantifying Opportunity

'X number of calls result in Y number of sales with an average value of Z.'

What happens between X and Y is determined by the quality of opportunities, and how efficiently the opportunities are converted into value.

Not all calls in a sales queue are sales opportunities. Sales calls are the most fragile type of inbound call. It's easy to lose calls and transactional intelligence from sales calls. There are more 'bail-outs' in sales queues than in service, technical support, and retention queues. Intelligence is lost by Sales Agents, under pressure to clear queues and maximize revenue/call, that baulk at collecting marketing intelligence and dispositioning non-sales calls accurately.

Sales Opportunities - Calculation of Potential

Call Intelligence uses a multitiered call classification system. We use five (5) categories of Sales interactions. Fully classifying and evaluating Agent Handled calls, requires that our analysts listen to, and harvest information from all parts of call recordings.

For more detail on our highest level classifications, see: CallTypes,

Chart 1 - Opportunity Cascade of Agent Handled Sales Calls

Agent Handled Calls in Multi-unit sales environments have a 64% 'Potential' rating (% of actual opportunity:)

6% of calls answered have no caller response to initial agent Greeting, or are delivered to an open circuit.
14% of the calls answered in the Sales Queue are not 'Sales Calls'. They are Billing, Tech Support, etc.
20% of the 'Sales Calls' are not sales opportunities. Out of Area, Credit Issues, Not Serviceable, etc
With a 64% Potential rating. An Opportunity Conversion rate of:
90% results in a 58% conversion of Agent Handled calls.
80% results in a 51% conversion of Agent Handled calls.
70% results in a 45% conversion of Agent Handled calls.
60% results in a 38% conversion of Agent Handled calls.
Potential ratings can be improved. Screening 'sales' calls with level 1 service agents significantly reduces the non-opportunity calls entering the sales queue. Screeners greet callers quickly, collect identification and security information, answer basic billing and service questions, forward actual Sales Calls to sales reps, and other calls to appropriate queues.

Transactional Essentials: Quantifying Lost Opportunity - 'Combustion Exhaust'

We will cover this topic more at a later date. Quantifying Lost Opportunity involves comparing a caller's current status, to what they have requested, what is appropriate to offer them, what is offered by the sales agent, and what is sold. The comparisons results in sold vs unrealized or unattempted opportunity...the Combustion Exhaust.

Transactional Analytics is the study of the structure, content, and outcomes of interactions between callers and the systems/personnel that handle their requests.

Call Intelligence Inc specializes in transactional analytics and intelligence. We have over 23 years of experience working on projects for the public and private sectors. We study voice interactions to determine which transactional structures, techniques, and tactics work best.

We use proprietary tools to uncover the current effectors of sales, churn, customer experience, and corporate reputation. We help our clients answer questions that directly impact the cost, efficiency, and outcomes of their interactions with prospects and customers.

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