The challenge

A major telecommunications company’s sales team struggled to keep up with customer demand for over-the-phone assistance when purchasing wireless products, reviewing price plans and data features, and more.

Wait times grew longer and the sales team was unable to provide the quality customer experience that the brand was known for. A shortage of staff impeded the company’s goals in new customer growth, revenue, and profitability. The telco company needed to quickly expand its sales staff while controlling costs and still deliver an excellent customer experience.

Our solution

Prior to partnering with TTEC, the client’s customers calling into this department solely interacted with onshore sales associates. We proposed a proof of concept pilot with offshore sales associates who worked from home in the Philippines. A team of 25 associates assisted potential and existing customers over the phone with opening a new account and/or adding a line to their account, purchasing products, or helping activate a customer’s high-speed internet service.

The client was impressed with our experienced team of associates and sales leaders, who produced exceptional results with minimal overhead costs. Our associates exceeded the client’s expectations in many areas, including a 60% Net Promoter Score (110% to goal), attendance reliability (94% reliability versus 90% goal), and beat new customer accounts and activation goals. We also ramped quickly. In a matter of weeks, we ramped the team up to more than 130 teammates.

The client had this to say about the team:

"Strong collaboration and partnership around new product launches and process improvement initiatives." –Senior Manager of Operations

"Operations team is responsive to client needs. " –Director, telesales

"Strong employee culture and career advancement efforts" –Manager of Operations

The results

With TTEC’s help, the client successfully increased its sales support and improved the customer experience. Within seven months, our team exceeded numerous key performance indicators (KPIs). Home internet sales were 110% to goal; sales operational conversion was 160% to goal, and accessories conversion 166% to goal.

To further help the client increase its operational efficiency and savings, TTEC proactively proposed implementing new technology solutions, such as speech analytics. We demonstrated to the client how speech analytics improves operational performance and gathers key business intelligence around customer sentiment by automating the ability to listen to and analyze interactions. We are currently working with the client on implementing a speech analytics solution that will enable the sales team to raise the bar even higher on an excellent customer experience.