Cultor Consultancy - Case Studies - unique and bespoke solutions
Case Studies
In today’s fast moving, competitive and consumer based society many products and services have become commodity items with customers choosing deals over loyalty.
Part of Cultor Consultancy’s raison d’etre is to enable organisations to maximise their business effectiveness and realise their potential. In order to do this, we look not only at WHAT organisations do, but also at HOW they do it.
Organisations need key differentiators in the market place; one differentiator is how you approach the customer interface, no matter what your organisation’s ultimate purpose.
Below are some of the examples of how we have helped organisations with performance improvement.
If you need to achieve similar results or improve performance and realise your potential, contact Cultor Consultancy.
Improving Sales in a Travel Company
Cultor Consultancy was asked to assist a travel company in improving sales performance in a call centre environment.
As a result of our intervention the conversion ratio between calls answered and business booked improved by an average of 50% Our client recognised the need to improve sales and approached us to conduct some performance improvement training. However, having made mystery shopper calls and visiting the call centre to observe calls we realised there were a couple of fundamental stages needed to support the sales effort.
Firstly we needed to revitalise the culture of a supported sales environment in which everyone was valued and received continuous coaching and feedback. Secondly we needed to instil, or in some cases refresh the coaching capabilities of the team leaders and sales management team. With those in place our prime target audience, the agents, could be trained.We introduced a call handling process that was a guide rather than a script.
We trained it in and then supported it with side-by-side coaching on real calls. Along side it we assisted the team managers with their coaching including a “coach the coach” programme and giving them a structured guide to follow.
We also supported the internal training and coaching team so that the initial euphoria could be sustained and become part of the fabric of the call centre. see also Symmetry
Improving sales in Financial Services
Cultor Consultancy was invited to assist a regulated organisation improve its customer interface in a sales and service environment. The introduction of a sales process where the salespeople were not able to offer advice had made the human interaction stilted and almost sterile.
The approach we took was to focus on the interpersonal element. As a result the sales performance was improved and maintained at higher than target levels.
Realising that the process as such could not be radically changed we had to work within a framework but re-engage the sales team in using their personality and unique, individual style to engage the customer. It was a realisation that this was about developing people as individuals. This intervention was less about training skills and knowledge and more about coaching and enabling behaviour and attitude to grow and prosper.
The key aspect of this was to work with the management team and have them fully engaged and supportive. We spent little time in direct contact with agents, choosing to support the management and in-house training team to make the impact necessary.Our approach with the management team was to have a team of them closely involved in the research and design phase of what we did. A major part was checking out the details of what we were producing with the rest of the team. We also ensured we brought the entire team together to explore what had been produced and determine its efficacy and relevance to the agents’ job role. This included a shift in emphasis in what the management team observed and commented on with the agents’ sales performance and process, as well as some minor but effective changes to the sales process. See also Symmetry
Effective Teams in an Educational Establishment
Six individual Further Education Colleges were combined into one whilst remaining geographically dispersed across the six original sites. The Senior Management Team (SMT) decided that team building was of immense importance.
Cultor Consultancy worked with them initially on a small scale team building activity for the SMT itself and subsequently with all employees across the six sites.
Using activities that required different skills, approaches and mental resources, we created a great amount of team spirit, released potential that the SMT had not seen in normal daily work and provided the basis for further team development. These activities, firstly with a relatively small group and subsequently with over 750 people, called for problem solving, creativity, design, imagination and dexterity allowing different people to shine and showing the diversity and wealth of talent available to the College. Logistics with the 750 were paramount but the day proved fun, energising and challenging. Each member of each team became involved and contributed to their team’s efforts, although one or two were a little withdrawn at the start.The SMT were astounded at the capabilities and effectiveness of the teams and what they had produced. As part of our support to the College we gave detailed guidance as to how the skills of the team building days could be harnessed into the daily working practices. See also Effective Teams
Performance Improvement for a European Car Manufacturer (Customer Satisfaction)
In an independent audit our client ranked 20 out of 22 in customer satisfaction. Cultor Consultancy was engaged to improve the customer experience and level of satisfaction as measured by the ranking.
By conducting a “mystery shopper” exercise Cultor Consultancy was able to benchmark our client with its competitors in terms of skills, behaviours and attitudes that contribute to the customer experience. In identifying key factors, including processes, enabled us to design a workshop to introduce the appropriate skills and behaviours within a context of appropriate and robust processes.
Following the workshop we provided coaching to the service deliverers to ensure the behaviours, skills and attitudes became positive habits.
The success resulted in our client being ranked number one for thirteen consecutive months.See also Horizon
Business Processes in a Middle East Telecoms Provider (CRM Implementation)
With a market share of over 40% built in only three years of trading our client wanted to implement the next phase of its customer development plan. This phase included plans to reduce churn and lapse, increase the number of corporate accounts, improve data services, introduce added value services and increase the proportion of post paid accounts.
To support this phase our client was implementing a Customer Relationship Management process and system. Cultor Consultancy worked closely with internal units of the organisation to integrate the new system with other existing systems, review business processes to ensure that clients’ needs were effectively met and to design and develop a training plan to roll out the CRM system with the call centre customer service agents.
Working primarily on the people and process elements, Cultor Consultancy was able to identify the training needs, develop a team who would be catalysts for change, create appropriate competency and evaluation tools to ensure the highest levels of service, define the ideal processes and provide coaching support during the implementation of this phase.
The success of the implementation meant that it became an important reference site for the systems integrator and the role of Cultor Consultancy was recognised as crucial in harmonising all the elements in delivering the results. See also Processes.
Business Effectiveness and Change in Financial Services
Focused upon customer retention, Cultor Consultancy was invited to work with our client on changes in process, behaviours and style within a call centre environment.
Working with and through the management team Cultor Consultancy worked on many levels and aspects of the interface between the client and its customers. This included a change in orientation from pure service to sales through service, revised call routing and automated messages presented to customers to help them route through to the appropriate help and a call handling process that met customers’ needs.
We also realised that our client should focus on employee needs too. We developed plans that changed the working environment, revised the bonus and incentive scheme, introduced more appropriate key performance indicators, provided fairer call evaluation processes and introduced performance coaching to support the changes. Cultor Consultancy spent much of its time in supporting the management team so the changes would bed in and continue after the consultants left.
Results started to improve in the first month of the programme and within six months the team was achieving results well in excess of target, in one month achieving 150% of target.
See also Infinity and Processes
