The challenge
Businesses of all sizes understand that one of the best ways to reach consumers is through online advertising. However, due to significant demand and a high attrition rate, a major online advertising provider struggled to meet the advertising needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
The customer experience was negatively impacted since clients were not receiving adequate advertising support. In addition, the outbound sales team, which handled more than 500 accounts, was already stretched thin and unable to balance their focus on both existing businesses and acquiring new businesses. The advertising provider was seeking a partner with the expertise and resources to help it retain associates as well as rapidly optimize and increase the efficiency of its sales team.
Our solution
As a trusted partner, TTEC has helped the client troubleshoot previous sales and customer support issues. The client once again turned to TTEC for help with a new challenge. We proposed a strategy that would address the problem from multiple fronts: provide personalized coaching for both new and tenured associates, build the new hires’ confidence in pitching advertising solutions to clients, and develop a more efficient customer acquisition strategy.
The client agreed to our proposal and we set to work. We implemented the following solutions:
- Dedicated sales manager – Promoted from inside the sales team, a sales manager with extensive sales and product knowledge was appointed to provide underperforming associates with weekly one-on-one personalized coaching and to help them establish steps to meet weekly goals.
- Weekly team-wide meetings – We introduced meetings with the senior sales manager to increase team morale and overall motivation.
- New customer acquisition strategy – Utilizing our sales expertise and industry knowledge, we helped the sales team rethink and optimize its acquisition strategy, such as how to identify customer buying signals and develop a more efficient contact cadence.
The results
The implemented changes were well received by the sales team and had a significant impact on their performance. Through personalized coaching and KPI tracking, we successfully identified coaching strategies that worked for both new and tenured associates.
Learning how to have more quality conversations with clients and pitch more robust advertising solutions helped associates increase customer acquisition and optimize existing contact frequencies. As a result of these improvements, associates were able to get more customers on the phone while increasing the quantity and quality of pitched solutions. In turn, the higher quality pitch solutions and the greater support from the sales team helped customers increase their ROI through online advertising.
The personalized coaching also helped newer associates gain the confidence needed to handle high-level marketing conversations and pitch the right solutions to clients to optimize their ads. In fact, as the associates’ confidence and performance improved, attrition decreased.
After implementing these changes, attrition decreased 57%. Weekly pitch solutions offered to clients per new associate and tenured associate increased 48% and 20%, respectively. In other words, clients were receiving more advice and suggestions from sales associates on how to increase the ROI of their ads, increasing the value they received from the advertising provider. At the same time, the weekly average of new customer acquisitions by new and tenured associates rose 52% and 24.5%, respectively.
