Marketers also know that traditional ‘fixes’ for the problem usually lead to the same
cul-de-sac. Hours of frustrating phone calls and emails that lead to high blood pressure and lost revenue!

The root of the problem lies partly in the mysterious inner workings of the call center world to which few marketers have access. In a ‘shared’ call center environment (one in which agents take inbound calls on more than one product), there are multiple skill levels ranging from the ‘top tier’ outstanding agents who consistently perform at peak levels, to the above average performer, to the average, the below average, and then ‘new hires’ – Those who are still learning. To add another ‘fly to the ointment’, call center agents’ performances can vary wildly from one campaign to another. To put a fine point on it, no group of shared agents can produce consistently high conversions on multiple campaigns. Even ‘skill-based routing’ doesn’t completely solve the problem as unpredictable call ‘spikes’ can baffle the best skill-based routing technology.

Up until now, the only recourse for marketers wanting consistently high conversions on soft-offers has been to minimize the number of calls that penetrate to the lower level performers. This means pursuing costly and time-consuming alternatives which often lead right back to where you started.

I believe the answer lies in moving more toward the model of building cost-effective dedicated agent groups (agents that take calls on only one product) to handle the lion’s share of soft-offer call volume, then overflowing calls to top tier performers at a sister call center.

This solution provides a way out of the ‘shared environment cul-de-sac’ for soft-offer campaigns and solves the problem of managing heavy call volume and keeping the conversions up while avoiding having to distribute those calls to lower level performers.

Providing dedicated agents at competitive pricing rounds out the model that offers an promising alternative to the soft-offer call center campaign of the future.