Cosmetics maker improves customer experience, average order value increases 2x

Summary

A client needed to reduce call abandons and raise AOV. We helped do it by focusing on customer experience quality.

Average order value increased by 200%

Call conversions increased

Customer Satisfaction scores increased

Contract renewals (cancellation saves) increased

Upsells increased

A cosmetics company was using three outsourced contact centers in the United States—one of them in-house and the other two outsourced. Reports showed that, when their contact centers interacted with Spanish speakers, performance was poor.

Adding resources might reduce call abandons, which hovered around 50%, but it probably wouldn’t improve low save rates, low conversions, and low average order value this company was getting.

The company hired a senior customer experience management expert to take a fresh look at how to handle customer care and direct response calls going forward. He met with a number of outsourced contact centers, and chose Callzilla.

Taking a holistic approach

Finding root causes

Our client needed answers and guidance, quick. But we made a conscious effort to ask the right questions and learn from the answers, before making recommendations. For example, how were agents communicating during attempts at account saves? Was Spanish typically a first language among buyers? Which messaging led to the largest orders?

Handpicking the team

This client was having particular difficulty with selling its skin care products to U.S. Hispanic customers. But just because the customers were of Hispanic heritage didn’t necessarily mean they spoke Spanish as their first language. (In fact, one of the problems with the incumbent contact centers was that its agents didn’t speak either language well enough.) Among other things, the agents we selected had to be fluent in both English and Spanish.

Immersion and training

We immersed agents and supervisors in the client’s brand identity, to truly grasp the company’s mission and values. Agents and supervisors also used the products we would be selling, so agents could authentically relate to customers’ experiences. And we embarked on rigorous training in specific features and benefits of each product we would represent.

Reinforcing KPIs

Often the “carrots” and “sticks” for agents run counter to customer experience goals. In some sense it’s understandable — it takes work to shift away from traditional measures like cost-per-call to modern metrics such as cost-per-resolved-issue. As in other campaigns, we aligned agent and supervisor incentives with campaign key performance indicators.

Scoring with granularity

As in other engagements, each mission-critical task had its own line item and was scored individually. Our evaluations were performed on an individual call level basis, agent basis, shift (time of day) basis, program/campaign basis and other variables. This approach allowed us to take data samples and benchmark our performance against the criteria and standards that we agreed on with the client.

Keeping it fresh

We integrated e-learning and gamification into the client’s solution to enhance agent engagement. The shared vision was to reinforce team and individual engagement and speed to competency through social collaboration, support from a gamified platform, and ensuring a feeling of recognition.

Rigorous rehearsals

Callzilla practiced spotting appropriate opportunities for closing sales, upselling, and account saves on the course of diverse interactions. By practicing these kinds of scenarios, we reduce or eliminate the need for scripts. And that frees agents to have natural, trust-building conversations with customers and potential buyers about their options.

Results

  • As Callzilla began providing this client with customer care in both Spanish and English, call conversions improved, average order value rose, upsells increased, and average Customer Satisfaction scores increased.
  • Today, the client’s in-house center consists of three people, and one of the original outsourced centers has been dropped entirely in favor of Callzilla.
  • The remaining outsourced center now handles 15 percent of the total call volume, and Callzilla has become the primary center.

“At a company our size, we really have to be very strategic about our partnerships. We want to make sure that we’re picking the right people, that we’re getting the right partners that truly embrace our philosophy. Callzilla was one of the first call centers to come along and actually embrace all of our philosophies. They took it right down to the details at the individual agent level.”

Director/Customer Experience, Cosmetics Company

Behind the scenes

Quality management systems

The elements of the above solution only work in the right context. In particular, Callzilla has invested heavily in creating a robust quality management system. Certified to ISO 9001:2008 standards, it proactively generates actionable insights to improve customer experience and client services. It is this system which has helped us earn praise from Customer Magazine, which named Callzilla a Quality MVP in 2015 and 2016; and to earn recognition in 2015, 2016, and 2017 for Contact Center World Awards from the International Customer Management Institute.

Talent systems

Callzilla came into this engagement with an exceptional pool of talent. Our proprietary talent acquisition program yields 3-4x longer employee tenure than average contact centers. Year-over-year retention is in the top tier globally. In recent years, Contact Center World named Callzilla employees as Top Contact Center Agent, Best Manager Client Service Manager, and more.

Technology systems

We couldn’t execute, track, report, and fine-tune without state of the art technology infrastructure. Our proprietary technology intelligently routes and supports interactions. Infrastructure and data are protected in a secure Miami-area data center with backbone access to all major carriers. Callzilla is PCI-DDS compliant, so always ready to handle sensitive information like credit card numbers.