Our client was a medium sized distributor in a business-to-business selling environment. They recognized that they had a variety of skill sets among their sales team and that they had not been able to ramp up any of the newer members. The sales team clearly fell under the classic 80/20 rule, where a small number of salespeople were delivering the lion’s share of the sales results. Turnover was high among new sales associates because of their inability to earn their draw within a 12 month period. The top performing sales people (top 20%) were often unmanageable because of their relative sales success in relation to the other 80%.
A mid-sized publishing firm purchased a competitor located geographically near them. While the physical plant was somewhat outdated, the products, customer base and management talent were worth the investment. The challenge then for the firm was to not only retain the new managers, but have them fully engaged side-by-side with the managers of the purchasing firm.
A large, multi-site organization had a 100 year history of being a service based organization that serves the public. With changing technology and competition eroding their revenue streams, top leadership recognized the need to transform the service based culture to a sales based culture. The challenge was to change the beliefs and habits of 750 employees in an integrity preserving fashion.
What used to be called the Customer Service Department has now become the Call Center with added technology to monitor calls. A large office products manufacturer recognized that the majority of their customer interactions were conducted by a high stress department experiencing low morale and high turnover. The call takers felt they had little control over their work environment and higher levels of stress, because their work was even more scrutinized. A negative environment prevailed. Senior management recognized that each customer interaction was a critical moment of truth that impacted customer satisfaction rates and eventually the overall profitability of the company. The challenge was to create a world class call center with lower turnover and absenteeism and higher customer satisfaction rates.