Improving the performance of an outsourced telesales channel in the energy sector.
The electricity and gas supplier, npower, had been through significant ownership, strategic and organisational change. Due to an increasingly competitive and price sensitive market, they adopted an aggressive new customer acquisition strategy using both direct and indirect channels.
The work undertaken by CCL focussed on the management of the outsourced telesales operations. Four agencies had been contracted to fulfil the telesales or indirect sales acquisition objectives, all of which were off-line. As a proportion of overall new business acquisition, telesales was always expected to be significantly smaller than the larger direct sales force and as a result, management time and resource were tight. The assignment was to plan and support an increase in productivity of the existing operations, working in partnership with existing telesales management. Firstly, CCL helped develop a strategy and plan for achieving performance improvement within telesales. Out of this work emerged several clear areas where improvements were to be made in order to lever results, four of which the CCL team focussed on:
1. Creating alignment to clear and focussed targets. Targets had been set before any real telesales know-how existed in the organisation and had proved to be unrealistic and confusing. Work was done to understand the business drivers and levers that made up the targets and changes were factored in to a revised matrix. Once the targets were re-agreed a process of communicating them to the newly appointed agency Relationship Managers was undertaken and their ownership established. This created a greater focus of energy, time and resources enabling everyone to increase their productivity immediately.
2. Increasing results in each agency. All agencies were off-line in some areas of the cost/quantity/quality matrix. A more aggressive and dynamic style of management was required and this was delivered through the coaching and facilitation of operational management. New levels of authority were established via these managers and agencies responded with urgency, respect and a new commitment to achieving the result.
3. Creating a virtual centre of excellence. Each agency had its own way of operating and running client accounts and had different technological capabilities and facilities. Full standardisation was out of the question. However, selected key performance measures and procedures were standardised (and were incorporated into a new project brief and quality improvement document) and implemented.
4. Programme control. The team was very new and people had been joining the department all year. Departmental standards and controls were needed to increase efficiency. To this end, a meeting structure was designed and implemented (complete with standard agendas and action logs). A campaign management strategy was also designed and implemented across the wider business. The focus for this work was on educating the business in how to optimise results and learning from campaigns implemented through the telesales resource. As a result, Telesales established a new reputation for itself as a productive, professional, supportive department, which adds value wherever it can.
Summary of Performance improvements:
