Call center sales isn’t a glamorous job, by almost any stretch of the imagination. But it is a vital one. Call center sales provide a cost-efficient and scalable way for a business to reach out and engage with their prospective customers. The problem, as Call Center Success: The Sandler Way explains, is that most call center staff are treated like traditional salespeople who happens to be on the phone. As author Thomas Niesen explains, call center sales is a unique breed of sales. His book explains how call centers face a unique set of challenges to be surpassed in order to reach maximum success.
What is Call Center Success About?
Call Center Success was written to shake up the call center industry in two ways. The first way is by introducing the Sandler sales method as a structured approach for getting more sales. In Call Center Success, Niesen argues that the popular Sandler sales method offers a structured but adaptable approach for call center staff. The Sandler sales method shifts focus away from chasing customers towards adapting your sales approach for the right kind of customer. In Call Center Success, the unique focus on speed and adaptability in the Sandler sales method is promoted as the perfect approach in an environment where the seller only has a short time to convince a prospect to buy.
The book also stresses changing some things in the call center environment. Niesen believes that call centers are focused too much on hiring the same type of personality (extroverted), training these employees the same way (with little to no coaching), and little feedback. Call center managers never question these “best practices” and get the status quo as a result. Call Center Success asks call center leaders to consider: Why don’t we coach call center sales staff and give them immediate feedback so they can continue to adapt and grow? How can we allow them to move around and see other people succeeding (instead of hiding in their cubicle)? How can we structure the job so that it’s exciting and focused on helping everyone (including the staff) enjoy making more money?
Niesen is an experienced sales trainer, winner of the 2014 Sandler Awards, and the CEO and founder of Acuity Systems, Inc., a sales training business.
What Was Best About Call Center Success?
The best part of Call Center Success is the in-depth industry knowledge of the call center industry the author combines with the Sandler selling approach. The book doesn’t simply ask readers to consider the Sandler selling method, it shows readers how they can apply the Sandler selling method into their call centers simply and without any additional strain on their budget. Niesen then takes it a step further. He invites call center management to challenge traditional assumptions about call centers and provides specific recommendations on how to implement immediate changes.
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
The downside to Call Center Success is the limited scope of the book. If you are interested in or a big believer in the Sandler selling method, this book will offer plenty of ways to adapt this philosophy (especially B2C businesses) to your call center. On the other hand, if you are not a fan of the Sandler selling method or want insight into other possible sales methods, you won’t find them in this book.
Why Read Call Center Success?
Call Center Success is a guide for call center management and leadership to take a second look at their assumptions about sales, talent and the call center work environment. Using a highly popular and adaptable approach (the Sandler selling model) and his own in-depth experience about sales “on the phones”, Niesen demonstrates how tiny changes (like the addition of whiteboards or the changing of a sales script) can dramatically decrease your turnover, improve your employee morale, and grow your profits. Even if you don’t plan to use the Sandler method in your sales environment, readers can gain insight from the book’s suggestions on improving the call center to boost morale and decrease turnover.
This article, “Want Call Center Success? Start Breaking Out of the Cubicle” was first published on Small Business Trends