How often do you have to ask a manager for permission to use an offer? In your call centre how often does it happen?
Well, strap in because we're dissecting that dance of discounts and it's quite the cha-cha of consumer psychology and strategic pricing! In this podcast we role play how these sound to customers – and work out what the customer is thinking. This shows how absurd the whole charade is.
We want you to wave goodbye to the old-school practice of managerial power mongering, and embracing a culture of swift, accountable decisions right from the frontline. We'll chat about the delicate balance between agent autonomy and the company's treasure chest, minus the secrecy.
Listen to this episode if you fancy a fresh take on sales psychology and let's move past this outdated practice of deferring to managers!
Stay tuned for more sessions and please listen and share with your network!
Find more useful and essential contact centre development from realitytraining.com
How often do you have to ask a manager for permission to use an offer? In your call centre how often does it happen?
Well, strap in because we're dissecting that dance of discounts and it's quite the cha-cha of consumer psychology and strategic pricing! In this podcast we role play how these sound to customers – and work out what the customer is thinking. This shows how absurd the whole charade is.
We want you to wave goodbye to the old-school practice of managerial power mongering, and embracing a culture of swift, accountable decisions right from the frontline. We'll chat about the delicate balance between agent autonomy and the company's treasure chest, minus the secrecy.
Listen to this episode if you fancy a fresh take on sales psychology and let's move past this outdated practice of deferring to managers!
Stay tuned for more sessions and please listen and share with your network!
Find more useful and essential contact centre development from realitytraining.com
Speaker 1:
Contact Center Focus the reality training podcast.
Speaker 2:
Hello CCFers, hello Bobby, and welcome to another episode of Contact Center Focus. And what are we focusing on today?
Speaker 1:
Well, jeremy, today's episode follows on from our recent one on I need to check with my manager. So we talked all about the habit that you hear very, very often in contact centers and call centers where people say, oh, I'm just going to check with my manager and then they'll come back and off we go. Now, we talked a lot about that in that episode and we're going to now take an element of that and go into it in a little bit more detail. We have worked in contact centers for years. In fact, our first job you may remember, jeremy was in a contact center in Folkestone in Kent. That was our first gig.
Speaker 1:
And oh, that was back in the early 2000s and if we think back over that period, one of the things that we've come up with is constantly thinking about how people taking calls or making calls interpret prices, discounts and offers. So let's imagine you're selling products for 500 pounds and there's an offer in place where you can get that product for 450 pounds. So the customer comes on the line and you're talking all about the product. Now you have an option you could sell that product for 500 pounds. There you go, it's a really good product 500 pounds Because there's an offer in place. You think, well, I may as well use that. So you say, hey, it's normally 500 pounds, but there's an offer going, you can get it for 450. And the customer goes, oh, that sounds good. And they may or may not decide to buy at that price.
Speaker 1:
What happens, of course and this is a very, very common thing is that brands think, hmm, that's maybe not enough. Maybe we don't understand enough about our customers to believe that they will buy at either 500 or 450. Maybe we need to have a special, special price of 420 that we will only allow a manager to sharing the product we're stock and where to sell it. Well, at least they think that can bealand withoutDon, who did a really great job for that enterprise to agree to. So they will have a certain number of these lower price options in their draw, a bottom drawer offer, and a advisor, an agent, go to the manager and say, look, I've got somebody who's really interested, but I'd love to offer them the 420. And they go will you only have one this week? Yes, you can have another one. Go and do it Now.
Speaker 1:
I want to take this into the psychology of the customer. So imagine, jeremy, you are a customer and you're thinking about buying, and you're thinking about buying at 450. And and then you're going to see if you get any more off. Okay, so there you go, sir. It's a really good product and the good news for you is that today it's available at 450.
Speaker 2:
450 is it the log store? Is 450, right? The log store, yeah, so it's self assembly and then, as you said, I can keep that kind of quantity of logs in it. Okay, good, I've done a bit of looking around the Internet. That looks about 50 quid, more than a lot of log stores that I can also buy. So I'm wondering if you could sell this to me for 400 quid, and then I'll place the order. Well, look, can you?
Speaker 1:
just bear with me a moment. Can you just hold the line for a minute? I won't be long. I there might be something I can do on that, so can you just wait a sec? Yeah, sure, now you put the customer on hold. You go and speak to your manager. Jeremy, you're the customer. What are you thinking at this size moment?
Speaker 2:
Ah well, chance in my arm. I mean, 450 is all right, it looks quite a good log store. If I can't get one, at least he tried. If I can get one, marvelous. What do you know is going to happen? Honestly, I'm going to get a bit of money off, aren't I? I'm going to get a bit more off, whether it's a tenner, 15 quid, so I come back on the line and I say well, I've just spoken to my manager, sir.
Speaker 1:
He's never done this before, right, but I'm now able to offer you that log store for 420. Shall I process the order for you 420.
Speaker 2:
So another 30 off.
Speaker 1:
That is an includes free delivery.
Speaker 2:
Yep, I'll order that. Thank you very much, kerching. Do you want me to do an inflated fake NPS about you? Oh, sorry, wrong podcast.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we'd listen to our podcast and NPS to talk about that.
Speaker 2:
Contact Centre agent, make sure you're sharing CCF with your colleagues. The short podcasts from Reality Training are perfect for huddles, buzz sessions, learning sessions and group coaching. For more info on how Reality Training transform contact centres, visit realitytrainingcom and get in touch.
Speaker 1:
Now let's think about the psychology there. The customer knows he's going to get some money off the moment you go and ask for that lower price. The customer knows this. You do not have to do this. Now there's two things you can do as an organisation. You can either say look, you are all empowered to sell at the lower rate if the customer is pushing it, because we're still making money at 420. So, rather than go to your manager, just improve the customer experience and do it. Or you can try something else, which is this so there you go, sir. It's a lovely log store and it's £450.
Speaker 2:
Right, I have done a bit of research, looking at other log stores same sort of size, say, type of wood grain tilt, and a lot of them are coming in around the 400 mark. So if you could do it for 400, I'd be very happy to place the order with you.
Speaker 1:
I understand how you feel, so you're saying that you found similar log stores for 400. Yeah, similar. Ok, do you have any other issues with this particular product that we've been looking at? No, I think it's easy to assemble.
Speaker 2:
I think it's about the right amount of wood I could store. No, no other, just the price. Ok, if I could just remind you why this one is absolutely perfect for you.
Speaker 1:
Would that help? Yeah, go for it. Well, you said to me earlier that, because of the size of your wood burner, you have to have 17 inch logs to go into your wood burner. And this particular log store is 25 inches across and only is it going to take the size of logs that you're having, but you're also going to keep the rain off those logs as well, which means they'll be dry and will burn more effectively. And, of course, I would just remind you, there is free delivery included. So at 450, you're getting a brilliant log store and it'll be delivered to your door tomorrow. No, fine, yeah, yeah, let's get on with it. Ka-ching Now, what are we doing there?
Speaker 1:
We're handling a price objection, but we're also not devaluing what it is we're selling by saying hang on a minute, let me go and see if we can get it. Let me go and see if I can get you a discount from my manager. Why couldn't you offer that in your first place? Were you trying to rip the customer off at 450 when you could have done it for 420 the whole time? This is a really, really important point. Why do we keep deferring to managers for further discounts. Why not handle the objection effectively, jeremy? So?
Speaker 2:
strategically if we to use such a grand word, which we don't even really need here you could decide and the message could come out going the lowest rate wheel selling our log stores for right now is 450. We're coming out of season anyway. People buying them now are not going to be burning as much with so actually they want a new one for Next season. So it's worth every penny, and as the out of season comes up we're going to creep back up to 500. So instead you can tell them that it's 450 until a week. Thursday.
Speaker 1:
Brilliant. Now this is again underused. This product will be this price until this date when it will go back up to the original price. That's it. There's your incentive to buy. It's called scarcity. That's a really important persuasive factor. Now we will be doing other podcasts on this subject because it's one that reoccurs and reoccurs.
Speaker 1:
But we believe that deferring to managers for discounts hugely devalues you, the individual, as a professional, but also, I think, it devalues the brand and the product. It shows that there's a lack of integrity. It shows that there's something a little bit loose, a little bit market trader-ish about what you're doing. You're not in a market. You're on the phone or you're doing web chat and you are engaging with the customer in a professional way, selling your products or services at the full value to that particular customer. Now, of course, you need to ask customer questions, you need to create value statements, you need to make sure you understand the value of that product to that customer. If you don't, you're not doing a job properly. You haven't been trained properly. So that's another thing to consider. Anything else to add, jeremy?
Speaker 2:
No, I just hope you have logged to this and you can act on it. Any more wood-based puns, no. So let's stop deferring to managers full stop. And especially for the extra bottom draw under the counter in the sealed envelope Back of the packet. Whatever it is offer, they should not exist.
Speaker 1:
Okay, we'll see you on another CCF very soon and if you like this, please share it and look out for more. Take care Bye.