Case study
Using process mapping to solve problems and add value
The Business Problem
During a monthly coaching session with a client, we drilled down on why sales were below expectations although sales appointments were at full capacity.
I took the client through a simple process driven approach through the white board.
This is how we did this:
Understand The Process Of Lead Generation To Sales Close.
This was as follows:
- A majority of leads were generated from shopping centre mall pop up stalls.
- The leads were passed to the outbound sales call centre who called the potential customer and set up a sales appointment at their home.
- A salesperson attended the appointment and tried to sell the product.
Understand The Efficiency And Effectiveness Of Each Step Including The Way Each Member Was Incentivised:
- Shopping centre leads were plentiful but considered warm leads at best due to the nature of the interactions. Staff were casuals and paid by the hour with their performance monitored by the sales manager. Performance was generally judged by lead quantity (per hour) based on experience on the time of day and shopping centre traffic.
- The lead to appointment ratio was satisfactory. The outbound call centre staff were paid based on appointments made so they had a high incentive to follow up and get the prospective customer to agree to an appointment.
- The appointment to sales ratio was very low. Sales staff remuneration was heavily weighted on commission.
Identify The Core Issue.
An interview of staff highlighted the following:
- The quality of the appointments was poor. In many instances the prospective clients weren’t home or if they were home weren’t expecting the sales person to come.
- Due to the above reason, morale was low and efficiency down through time wasted on poor appointments.
After observations and discussions it was accepted that because call centre staff were paid to set appointments that there was little care in qualifying leads and appointments were pushed hard regardless of customer feedback.
Implement Improvements
After reviewing a number of potential improvements, it was resolved to eliminate the outbound call centre and have the sales staff make their own appointments from the leads generated.
The results were as follows:
- Sales staff qualified the leads when they made the appointments so that the quality of the appointments and conversion of appointment to sale was significantly improved. This improved morale and enabled sales staff to earn more income.
- Surprisingly the sales staff were happy to take on the role of setting appointments as they had more control over quality of the appointments and less time wasted driving around on wasted leads.
- Costs reduced through elimination of the call centre team.
After observations and discussions it was accepted that because call centre staff were paid to set appointments that there was little care in qualifying leads and appointments were pushed hard regardless of customer feedback.
Key Points In Ensuring Successful Outcomes:
- Analyse the data to validate the assertions made. In this case all the key metrics were validated and quantified by reference to profit effect.
- Get the front line people engaged in the issue. As they are closest to whats really going on this is where the issues can be identified.
- Measure the results. In this case there were a lot of variables.
- Lower cost of running call centre outbound staff.
- Reduced appointments as a ratio of leads generated.
- Increased conversion of appointments to sales.
- Overall sales volume increase and cost decrease giving a double benefit through to profit.