Outsell, LLC
Company: Outsell, LLC, Minneapolis, MN
Entry Submitted By: Big Swing Communications
Company Description: Outsell (www.outsell.com) is a digital marketing Software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that is transforming the way brands engage with consumers. Outsell’s award-winning Digital Engagement Platform offers clients the ability to consistently engage with consumers across distributed sales networks from the national to local level.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Up to 100 Seats)
Nomination Title: The Customer Interaction Center (CIC) at Outsell
Tell the story about what this nominated contact center achieved since the beginning of July 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
The Customer Interaction Center (CIC) at Outsell consistently provides excellent customer service while continually striving to deliver the best in operational effectiveness. Year-after-year the CIC successfully provides online chat services for some of the biggest brands in the automobile industry such as Chevy and Toyota 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Over the past year the CIC launched three impactful programs to advance its customer service and efficiency.
The first is an agent empowerment program titled “Back to Basics.” This new program empowered the Outsell agents during a chat to recommend what is best for the auto customer. This includes using personalized, on the spot responses to difficult questions rather than relying on canned responses. The Outsell agents are trusted to make first contact a positive one in a way that fits their style with every dealership they represent. This program resulted in consumers having their individual questions resolved more often in chat rather than waiting for a sales person to contact them.
The second accomplishment was the way the Outsell Customer Interaction Team embraced the innovation of its “Smart Chat” product. Outsell’s Smart Chat is a proactive invite to consumers who have been on a dealer website for a certain amount of time and clicks. When implemented, volume increased by 80%-100% for each dealership using Smart Chat. Outsell’s agents developed a new way to engage this type of customer without being perceived as invasive. Over the course of the year, the agents worked together as a team to experiment with a myriad of ways to engage a Smart Chat consumer and then shared best practices daily until a successful set of responses were developed.
The third program that Outsell’s Customer Interaction Center spearheaded was a new “Chat Flow” designed to improve overall efficiency in their average chat time with a consumer. The goal of this initiative was to lower the average amount of time spent on each chat while not sacrificing the amount of leads provided to dealerships and maintaining a high level of customer service. Four high performing Outsell chat agents were identified to participate in a pilot of the proposed changes. After eight weeks of feedback and tweaks from the agents, results were impressive. The program was rolled out to Outsell’s entire CIC to an even higher rate of success. The average chat time was reduced 24% and the amount of leads the agents captured went up 13%. On top of the measurable statistics, agents had fewer chats that were negative because of the adjustments. Also, agents reported they were happier overall because of the ability to cycle through chats more quickly. The agents are therefore more engaged and able to help customers more quickly.
These three programs impacted every aspect of Outsell’s CIC, but most importantly they have improved agent and customer satisfaction as well as gained efficiencies in staffing. The CIC developed a process that ensures a consistent level of quality and customer service on each chat. The process is called the Outsell Customer Centric Sales, OCCS for short. The OCCS has been integral in the overall success of the company’s contact center.
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated contact center:
Ben Herkenhoff, Manager of the Customer Interaction Center at Outsell
For the past year Ben has been the manager of the Customer Interaction Center at Outsell. He has worked in various roles in the Customer Contact Center industry for the past four years. Before Outsell, Ben worked at Target Corporation providing real time trend analysis for two internal contact centers that supported technology at headquarters, distribution centers, and stores. He is an MBA candidate at the Carlson School of Management – University of Minnesota.