Service-to-Sales Call Center Metrics for Financial Product and Services Companies

STUDY OVERVIEW
Many call centers in financial product companies are tasked to generate revenue as well as provide reliable service to their customers. Some flexible call center structures have adopted marketing channels into their service-to-sales initiatives to alleviate the revenue pressure. However, the sales output of call centers ordered to service and sell can be greatly influenced by the structure and strategic focus of the organization’s service-to-sales initiative. Key performance factors addressed in this study include marketing channels integrated with the S-to-S initiative, greater use of variable compensation, skills based routing and greater dedication to sales of top talent.

This study will benefit those managers and directors of call centers engaged in sales – particularly in the financial product and services industries. By reviewing the metrics and qualitative insights and quotes, these leaders can conduct their own gap analyses and identify ways they can better align and structure their S-to-S initiatives to leverage and optimize the skills of their associates.

KEY TOPICS
• Size/Complexity of Call Center Operations
• Structure & Strategic Focus of Service-to-Sales
• Strategies for Success: Performance Factor Profiles
• Developing Associates and Measuring Success

DATA SEGMENTATION
Due to the variation in size and complexity of call centers in the benchmark class and the expectation that these factors influences structure, sales performance and other metrics related to Service-to-Sales initiatives, the data from the benchmark class of 14 has been segmented into three groups by call center size. This allows companies to benchmark their own S-to-S operations against small, medium or large call centers.
• Small Call Center Segment – This segment consists of four call centers with 0 to 100 associates in only one call center.
• Medium Call Center Segment – Five call centers in the benchmark class had 101 to 500 associates in up to four call centers.
• Large Call Center Segment – Five call centers contained 501 to more than 1,000 associates in up to 10 call centers.

KEY METRICS
• Number of Companies Employing Various S-to-S Channels
• Number of Companies Using Various Methods for Aligning Service & Sales Expertise
• Number of Companies Offering Different Financial Products
• Scatterplot of Companies Attributing Various Percentage of Total Sales to S-to-S Initiatives
• Percentage of Companies Providing Variable Compensation above Base Pay to Associates
• Scatterplot of Companies Reporting Average Percentage of Compensation that is Variable
• Percentage of Companies Providing Sales Coaching Focused on Products & Services
• Number of Companies Using Different Metrics to Measure Service-to-Sales Success
• Number of Companies Measuring Customer Satisfaction through Specific Channels

SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS

• Successful S-to-S initiatives frequently include marketing activities that drive opportunities into the contact center and generate revenue.
• One of the key sales performance factors is a dedicated sales units grown from top-sales talent drawn from service associates.
• No single S-to-S performance measure seems adequate by itself. Multiple S-to-S performance measures should be employed.

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