Having a great supervisor running your outsource telemarketing teams can make a massive impact on your business. Everything from lowering the attrition rates to company reputation can be affected by having a great supervisor. Below are some of the best practices to be a successful outsource telemarking supervisor.
Communication: Communication skills are essential. Supervisors must be able to communicate both to their superiors and with the agents on the program. Outsource telemarketing supervisors coach both veterans and new agents, so they must communicate appropriately to their audience.
I will never forget the first time I received feedback on an outbound call from my supervisor. I was new to the industry and fresh out of training. My supervisor pulled me aside and said, “overall good job, but we need to see that SPH up around a 1.0, so be sure once you hear those objections use your rebuttals then RTPOI. Now get back out there, YOU GOT THIS!” I responded with, “you got it,” and I put my headset back on. Guess what? I did not change a thing because I had no idea what my supervisor just told me.
What should my supervisor have done?
- Asked me how I felt things were going
- Explained that the program’s goal was 1 (SPH) sale per hour and told me where I was in comparison to that goal
- Reviewed that I should not stop after objections, but rather go back to the script where I was interrupted return to the point of interruption (RTPOI)
Too often, we as veterans in the industry get caught using jargon people may not understand.
With so many people working from home, it is also imperative that we know when to pick up the phone or video chat and have a face-to-face conversation vs. spend time back and forth on email/chat. My rule is if you have had more than 3 to 4 back and forth emails on the same subject, we need to talk.
Feedback: Part of communicating is coaching the agents and giving feedback. As I mentioned above, we must be sure we do not use too much jargon that agents may lose in translation. Equally as important, we need to ASK questions. By asking questions, the outsource telemarketing supervisor can understand where that agent thinks they are at and help the supervisor know what the agent understands.
Asking questions helps provide the buy-in that is needed for the agents to make the necessary adjustments. If they come up with the idea, of course, they will buy into it.
Supervisors need to deliver feedback privately; nobody likes public shaming.
Analytics: Successful outsource telemarketing supervisors understand the KPI’s and the story they tell.
Reports help provide insights on individual and team performance. Supervisors should use the data to help understand what to look for during monitoring sessions so agents can be coached appropriately.
High talk time, low conversion, low talk time, high conversion, and low SPH are all metrics that supervisors can identify through monitoring.
Be careful not to overwhelm the agent with too many statistics that may become overwhelming. The key is to stick to the main KPIs, and the others should automatically fall in line.
Attitude: Supervisors are the first line for the agents, so their attitude will set the team’s mood. A positive, upbeat, and can-do attitude is what it takes to get things done, and that is precisely the perspective outsource telemarketing supervisors need when managing their teams!
Motivation: Doing this job is difficult. That’s why companies use outsource telemarketing firms. Motivation is essential to do anything well. We need to help motivate our reps to do a good job, and if they are having fun and enjoying themselves, their results will speak for themselves.
There is a lot of responsibility for being a supervisor. You have many different personalities, and let’s face it, the job some days can be very grueling. By staying consistent and following a few basic best practices, this job is very rewarding!
Tina Lisell is a Senior Operations Manager for Quality Contact Solutions. Tina has over 25 years of call center experience with both inbound and outbound B2B and B2C programs. Tina is a strategic thinker and loves digging deep into the data to determine the appropriate levers to pull to positively impact performance. She is a true professional that makes things happen with intelligent urgency. Most importantly, she loves winning!
