2017

Thursday 21 December 2017

Top Tips for Training Call Centre Agents

Collective Dynamics Administration 04:19 No comments :

What makes a great call centre agent? There are all the obvious characteristics like patience, friendliness, and attention to detail, but at CDA we focus on instilling the right soft skills in our agents. These are the skills that will facilitate a pleasant and professional experience for the client. So much focus is places on reaching targets that often these soft skills get lost along the way, but they’re what will clinch the sale in the end.

1 – Teach them how to deal with an irate client

Whether you run and inbound or outbound call centre, the one thing you’re guaranteed to experience is an irate client. Your call centre agents should be equipped to handle these types of calls. Dealing with aggressive clients can be absolutely soul-destroying for agents, so having the skills to take control of situations like this is essential in turning the situation into a positive one.

2 – How to build rapport with your client

Agents only have two tools to work with: their voice and the limited attention span of the client they are speaking to. They need to know how to quickly build a rapport with the client so that they actually want to listen to what the agent has to say. More importantly, this contributes to an overall positive experience for your clients.

3 – Learn how to truly listen

Inbound call centre agents have to listen, but when it comes to outbound call centres, agents do sometimes forget to take time to listen to what the client is saying. They only have a limited time to close a sale, and their focus on the client can get lost. Many times, sales opportunities are missed because an agent did not listen attentively enough. Listen, repeat details, and if you don’t know, find out and get back to the client. This is what makes an agent a professional.

4 – Every call is a sales opportunity

Regardless of whether the agent is in a sales environment or not, every time a client interacts with a brand there is a possibility that they could purchase. Teach your agents the true value of every lead they call or every call they receive and what that means to them as an agent and to the brand and or business.

5 – You are the face (or voice) of the brand

So few agents realise that when the interact with a client over the phone their voice and this conversation maybe their first and their only direct interaction with your business. If they do not truly understand this, then how can they truly understand the impact of a negative experience a client may have with them? They are valuable brand ambassadors – this not only improves their self-worth (valuable part of the brand image) and self-belief but their understanding of how their behaviour can impact on the overall business.

Looking for a team of professional call centre agents who will add value to your brand? Get in touch with CDA today.

Wednesday 22 November 2017

Direct Marketing: Choosing the Right Product to Sell

Collective Dynamics Administration 06:35 No comments :

Collective Dynamics are experts in direct marketing of products within the financial services sector.

Just in case you’re not in the loop, direct marketing is the marketing and sales of consumer products and services in a person-to-person context away from a physical retail location. Marketing and sales take place via sales representatives (also referred to as consultants or agents) on a range of communication channels including telephone and email.

Since sales representatives do not have the benefit of being able to talk to consumers face-to-face, one needs to be discerning about the products they choose to sell via direct marketing. Overly complicated products or ones that require lengthy explanation tend not to fare as well as simple products for this reason.

How to decide what products to sell

We’re not in the business of selling physical or lifestyle products for just this reason. When you sell via direct marketing, there are a few things to consider:

Can the product be explained in under a minute?
Will the consumer easily be able to buy immediately?
Will the consumer see an immediate benefit from the product?
Will it be easy for the consumer to pay for the product?

If the answer to all these questions is a unanimous ‘yes’, then the product is probably right to sell in a direct marketing environment.

We find that simple financial services products, which require minimal individual underwriting, are well suited to sell via direct marketing, because they tick the boxes above.

Once the feasibility of selling a particular product via direct marketing activities has been established, the most important factor in determining success in any direct marketing campaign remains the quality of the data and the relevance of the product to the target market.

Contact us for a direct marketing strategy

Are you looking for a company that specialises in designing direct marketing strategies within the financial services industry? Contact us for help.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Mistakes to Avoid When Compiling Direct Marketing Reports

Collective Dynamics Administration 04:30 No comments :

Everything step you take in a direct marketing campaign should be informed and influenced by our favourite and most precious resource: data. You’ve heard us harp on about how important data is in the past, but we really can’t repeat it enough. Half of the value of a data set lies in its accessibility; the format in which it is presented. That’s why we’re sharing our knowledge on creating robust reports and how to avoid the biggest mistakes in reporting.

Relevant Reporting

When you’re dealing with large set of data, fatigue can set in quite quickly. This is especially true if you have to sift through reams and reams of irrelevant data. Having too many reports or reports with every single result and ratio possible is tiresome.

Rather ensure you have a couple key results to compare with expectations. Using that information, you can then determine whether it’s necessary to drill down into the details to answer specific questions.

Real-Time Reporting

In direct marketing a small mistake or an incorrect assumption at the beginning of the campaign can have a snowball effect resulting in escalating costs, to name the least. That’s why it’s so vital to monitor campaign results on an hourly basis when you’re just launching. Properly interrogate the numbers if the results are below the expected levels and implement a solution before the problem can get worse.

“Crap In, Crap Out”

Reports are only as effective as the quality of the data used to create the report. In Direct marketing where inputs are often reliant on agents capturing information (i.e. call results), the results are dependent on human intervention and can be manipulated. So, the more automated or system driven the data input is, the better the integrity of the data and the validity of the report. Simply put, effective data gathering leads to effective campaign results; or “crap in, crap out”.

Timing

Timing is of the essence and acting prematurely is as bad as acting too late.

For example: an Underwriter deciding to roll-out a campaign based on the 1st months successfully collected premiums, a day after the billing date, when the collections seemed particularly good is a classic example of acting prematurely. This is also where experience is valuable, as we know that it takes the banks on average 2-3 days to confirm rejected collections, which would significantly decrease the overall success rate.

Distribute Reports To The Right People

Send reports to the right people, not just all the people. The more people copied in reports, the bigger the risk of no-one paying particular attention to the details or taking responsibility for analysing, recommending changes and implementing changes.

Reporting on results is meaningless unless someone actually looks at the reports and makes business decisions based on the results, monitors the validity of the decision on new results, and makes changes at the right time.

Having a tough time getting your reports in order? Contact us for expert assistance.

Tuesday 10 October 2017

The Importance of Reporting in Direct Marketing Campaigns

Collective Dynamics Administration 04:35 No comments :

We’ve said this before, and we’ll probably say it again, but let us reiterate: 70% of the success of a direct marketing campaign is dependent on the quality of the data. But this poses the question: how do you even determine the quality of a data set? Unfortunately, this assessment can often only be made after the initial campaign results.

So now what?

Direct Marketing Strategy

This is where it is so important to design an overall Direct Marketing Strategy for each initiative, to set realistic expectations and to carefully plan the campaign execution. Setting expectations and planning execution is heavily dependent on the level of reports available. Reports and analysis of previous campaigns to understand the relationship between the data and the campaign performance and to then set benchmarks. Detailed real-time reports and analysis to monitor and understand current campaign performance and data response rates.

Research, Test, Adjust, Repeat

This is what we refer to as a progressive direct marketing strategy. It includes four distinct phases – researching your target audience, testing their response, adjusting it for improvements, and repeating the process again and again until you get the results you need. Continual analysis, testing, and adjustment are essential in ensuring that a strategy is constantly evolving and improving. The advantage of Direct Marketing is that it's relatively easy to test various assumptions or approaches to a campaign, assess results on representative samples of data easily and quickly and managing the level of risk and costs before spending millions on the roll-out. Detailed and effective reporting enables direct marketers to be agile and maximise response rates, which increases the ultimate campaign profitability.

Factors you should be paying attention to when analysing data and designing direct marketing campaigns

The most important factor is ensuring product or service relevance and appropriateness to the base
Timing is everything – how and when to contact prospective clients based on past activity
The higher the affinity to the brand, the better the chances of creating credibility and being given an opportunity to introduce the product and service
Determine the source of data to refine sales process
Appropriate distribution channel based on product and target market

Having the best reports in the world, cannot guarantee the success of a campaign, only a deep understanding of the relevant key drivers, together with (often hard-earned) experience, loads of passion and a splash of stubbornness, will result in success. And if the initiative is still not successful, you will know when it’s time to spend the effort and resources on other direct marketing strategies, still having gained valuable insight and understanding of the world we like to call Direct Marketing.

Thursday 28 September 2017

How Technology Has Changed Direct Marketing

Collective Dynamics Administration 04:24 No comments :

We’re lucky enough to have been working in direct marketing long enough to witness huge changes in the sector. As technology advances, we constantly look for ways to adapt our practices and make the best possible use of that technology. The biggest catalyst for change in the past few decades has definitely been widespread internet adoption. Since the internet started to be widely available, the technology has continued to improve, to the point where today we have super high internet speeds – accessible through a device we hold in the palm of our hand.

Where Did Direct Marketing Start Out?

The first widely acknowledged example of direct mail marketing took place in 1,000 B.C. in Egypt. A landowner advertised on a piece of papyrus that he was offering a gold reward for the return of one of his slaves who had run away. However, this would not be a viable method of marketing for many years to come, due mostly to low literacy levels before the industrial revolution. Then, during the 19th century, while Britain was in the midst of the industrial revolution, Aaron Montgomery Ward created the first ever mail-order catalogue for his business.

From there direct marketing became all about mail. Companies would spend weeks typing (and later printing) letters to send to consumers. This was a hugely time consuming task, as the letters needed to be typed or printed, placed in envelopes and sent via the postal service, before having to process all the replies that came after.

The First Leap: Telemarketing

The first considerable leap forward came with the proliferation of telephonic communication. This allowed marketers to contact consumers over the phone and speak to them in person. For a time this was the preferred method of communication, with direct mail remaining in use.

The Second Leap: Email

We’ve already said just how much the internet was a gamechanger for the direct marketing industry. The ability that it gave people to connect with one another was revolutionary at the time, even though it was only at its infancy. With everybody going online, suddenly people had both a physical address to send mail to, as well as a digital address to receive email. Email marketing allowed us to reach a wider audience than ever, in only a fraction of the time.

Along with the proliferation of internet connectivity came huge advancements in computer technology. For the first time we were able to start collecting that all-important data that we love so much in the direct marketing sector.

Where We Are: Automation & Multi-Channel Marketing

Today we have the luxury of using various tools to drive our message to our consumer continuously in the most cost effective and targeted manner. Imagine today a campaign that consists of finding the right target market first. Targeting our market to create awareness through social media and then to drive sales through a combination of SMS, E-mail, the web, Automated Voice Messaging and call centre interaction.

The advantage of this combination of various tools is that customers can then respond using the medium they are most comfortable with. The process can be fully automated to drive the next leg of communication based on client behaviour and finally at CDA we believe that the human touch should never be lost and always an option for our customers, especially when the products one sells is one that is sold and not bought.

Need help getting with the times? Contact CDA for a direct marketing solution that uses the right technology.

Tuesday 5 September 2017

The One Data Analytics Tool We Cannot Live Without

Collective Dynamics Administration 06:12 No comments :

Data analytics is the cornerstone of a successful direct marketing campaign. Without correctly sourced and profiled data, there’s almost no point in contacting your potential customers. That would be like trying to hit a target in a completely dark room – totally pointless and probably costly.

Quality data is necessary for determining your target market, the most effective method of communication, and the most opportune time to offer them your services, as well as determining their likelihood to sign up for your product and remain enrolled for months to come.

But when you’re working with large amounts of data covering a range of complex metrics, having a robust data analytics tool is an absolute necessity. Some companies use a combination of tools that they may have licensed or bought from other suppliers, and these tools, for the most part, offer users a range of benefits. But at the same time, buying these tools and renewing the licenses for them can be an expensive exercise.

That’s why we developed our own data analytics tool, based on over a decade of collected information, machine cognitive algorithms, and advanced actuarial calculations. We call it the Optimum Dynamic Data Scoring model, or ODDS for short. Based on a unique combination of variables, it allows us to score each customer without infringing on their right to protection of personal information.

What are the ODDS?

ODDS allocates a score to each potential customer, indicating the following:

Likelihood of a client purchasing a product (response ratio)
Likelihood of a client paying the first premium
Expected number of months a client would pay premiums

Most importantly, ODDS enables us to help our clients maximise the data they have already available, and drive the best possible return on investment for each marketing endeavour.

The Optimum Dynamic Data Scoring model has now been tried and tested over a period of 2 years and we are exceptionally excited about the results it has delivered for our insurers and database owners.

But a great data analytics tool can only take you so far. You may be able to get all the relevant information and insights, but unless they are used smartly and effectively, there’s almost no value to the data. That’s why we believe that the best thing to compliment a great data analytics tool is a great team with solid experience.

Tuesday 22 August 2017

You Can Use AVM To Save Time At Year-End

Collective Dynamics Administration 00:45 No comments :

In just six weeks we’re going to be entering the final quarter of 2017. Crazy, isn’t it? This year, avoid the fourth quarter rush before “silly season” kicks off by putting plans in place to optimise your workflow and communicate annual increases to your clients – leaving you with more time in the fourth quarter to plan for 2018.

Snail Mail just doesn't move fast enough

Annual increases in premiums can sneak up on you. Even though the original contract or policy document are required to detail any annual escalations, from a compliance point of view, we are required to communicate and notify our clients of any change to their premium and confirm the new amount within a reasonable time frame. In the past, the preferred method of communication was printed letters mailed to the clients’ postal address, sometimes with a secondary electronic follow-up mail.

Unfortunately this process is flawed for a few reasons. The first being that there is no control within the SA Postal Service’s process to confirm that the client received the letter, and the second is that we don’t receive any confirmation from the client that they have received or read the notice.

Sending these letters is costly, and it’s actually done more to ensure that we remain compliant with industry rules and regulations so that we can “tick the relevant box”. It doesn’t necessarily add value to our clients or improve our service to them. We asked ourselves: “What if we manage this process more cost effectively and efficiently, where we create an opportunity for clients to communicate back to us so that we can deal with their queries and concerns immediately?” Taking a proactive approach not only improves client relations and retention, but it also creates an opportunity to schedule annual reviews and update the client’s cover.

Speed up the process with AVM

Our solution is to utilise AVM (Automated Voice Messaging) to communicate any annual premium increases. You can read more about the benefits of AVM in our previous article. In summary, this is a cost-effective way to communicate with your customers within a short period of time through an interactive voice message. The message provides personalised information relevant to each client, monitors and directs the responses received, and then prompts the relevant internal action to deal with their response.

The messages are professionally recorded (preferably by the broker themselves as they have a personal relationship with the client) and based on our experience, should achieve a contact ratio of at least 80%. Depending on the responses and requests for call backs or assistance, one could potentially contact thousands of clients within a few hours. This process is fully compliant as it records exactly which clients listened to the message and how long they interacted.

For those who were not contactable via this method would still require a physical letter of notice. When you weight up the savings in direct costs (AVM can decrease costs by 10-30% depending on the duration of the call and interaction), using AVM just makes sense. Additionally, you will see an overall improvement in turnaround time and a decrease in labour costs required to prepare all those letters.

Put the process in your customers' hands

Your customers will feel that you have given them an opportunity to respond and a platform to communicate should they wish to do so. Giving them this feeling of control will enhance your existing relationship, while an impersonal letter certainly won’t win you any brownie points.

The entire process is automated and hassle-free for the client, broker, and underwriter – leaving more time to concentrate on finishing up all your final quarter obligations before the holidays start.

Monday 7 August 2017

Retention In Direct Marketing Campaigns

Collective Dynamics Administration 06:08 No comments :

Running a direct marketing campaign without paying attention to retention is like filling up a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You keep filling the top of the bucket with new customers, but if you’re not paying attention to who’s trickling out of the bottom, the bucket will never be full. Patching the leak and keeping your customers in the bucket is the quickest way to maximise profits. This is why retention is one of the most important factors in our direct marketing strategies.

Focussing efforts on retention just makes sense

Existing customers are our favourite kind of customers. They’ve already opted in for your services, they know your brand, and they’ve remained loyal. Unfortunately, circumstances change and making sure that you’re able to anticipate and provide solutions to clients’ challenges requires consistent effort and improved services.

The most important retention strategy is simply to engage with and understand your clients’ situation. Give clients back a sense of control when they understand that they have options and they are not made to feel defensive or embarrassed. Service and product providers are all fighting for a share of their clients’ disposable income, so make sure your relationship with your clients are strong and maintain the value of your product or service.

AVM as a retention strategy

The best method to engage with your clients in a non-invasive and cost-effective way is through Automated Voice Messaging (AVM). Yes, we have all received irritating AVMs through badly executed marketing strategies and at CDA Solutions, we are not fans of using this technology to solicit new clients.

AVM as a “client service and information tool” though, is very effective, if done professionally and consistently. We use AVMs to communicate with our clients should they be at risk of losing valuable cover and we present the various options available to manage their policies. Our AVM technology then facilitates the clients’ selection and manages the process, whether it leads to simply updating client information or facilitating revised payment methods.

The effectiveness of AVM technology

We’ve been using AVM for the last 5 years to enhance our retention strategy and besides also ticking the “Treating Clients Fairly” box, we have found the following:

By using AVM we are able to speak to 25% more clients than through an outbound call centre and at half the costs of outbound telemarketing.
Our customer could interact with us using their phone keypad and 40% of the options selected required no further interaction, other than updating information or confirming processes on the system.
The customer could choose to connect to the call centre and speak to an agent at no cost to themselves, or the customer could request that an agent call them back at a more convenient time.
We could track exactly who had listened to the message and for how long.
We can identify who has interacted with us and at which point.
We are even able to verify that we are speaking to the right person, through ID number validation using the telephone key board

Some learnings along the way:

Customers respond well to this medium. Most South Africans much prefer to resolve an issue of non-payment without having to talk to someone.
By giving the customer choices and by addressing the problem with them, you are more likely to get better results.
We saw a significant improvement in “catch-up” payments once we’ve communicated in this manner and less cancellations compared to the control groups.
We gave our customers the option to cancel their policy. Where we crazy to suggest cancellations? No, in fact, once a client chose this option, our consultants had the opportunity to ensure that the client understood the implications and gave them the option to downgrade their cover. With the result that only 2% of the clients actually cancel, compared to the 12% who would generally choose this option. They did not realize that they had an option to downgrade and make the cover more affordable for them!

This takes us back to basics: talk to your customers and understand what their challenges are, find solutions for these challenges and give your customer options!

Keep an eye on our articles over the next few weeks and months as we delve deeper into this fascinating topic.

Monday 10 July 2017

Direct Marketing 101

Collective Dynamics Administration 07:24 No comments :

From destroying forests and creating litter to persistent and irritating call centre agents, Direct Marketing has terrible street cred. With all the negative publicity, one would expect that the effectiveness of direct marketing initiatives would be dwindling, but the opposite is true and evident by the ever-evolving direct marketing-related solutions and strategies. Why? Because direct marketing WORKS!

Direct marketing (DM) can be defined as a way of communicating specific and personalised messages to those you know will be interested in your product or service.

It’s just simply a question of where, when and how 😊

Direct marketing loves data

The hot topic of DATA is as relevant, if not more so, in DM Strategies. We probably sound like a broken record to our clients, but can we repeat…. “70% of the success of the direct marketing campaign is dependent on the quality of the data”. You can have the best sales agents, the most amazing product, if the data or the “list” you are marketing to is low quality, the campaign will fail.

The quality of data can be assessed through some basic analytics and testing based on DM and industry experience, benchmarks and expertise.

It's all about retention

When selecting data, priority should be given to ensure a pro-active retention approach. This means quality over quantity, based on the propensity to retain the customer for the maximum period of time. This is where the immediate marketing and sales targets compete with the longer-term profitability results.

Warning: when your initial sales ratios are sky-rocketing, keep the celebratory bubbles on ice, but first wait for the persistency ratios after a couple of months. Most companies embark on ineffective re-active retention strategies, when the initial acquisition costs have already been incurred.

Research, test, adjust, repeat

It is probably obvious that DM is not a one-size-fit-all solution, neither is it an immediate and precise solution. Designing a progressive direct marketing strategy is essential to ensure profitability and sustainability.

One of the key advantages of DM is that continued testing and detailed analytics will limit initial expense and risk while creating the best suited DM strategy for the relevant product and target market.

Through continually analyzing, testing, and adjusting our strategy, we ensure that our strategies are constantly evolving and improving.

Our model:

Data – Product – Distribute Data – Product – Distribute Data – Product – Distribute

Data without analytics is worthless

Detailed analytics and reporting throughout the DM process is crucial, not only to measure the results against the expectations, but to identify trends and anomalies. The IoT and digitalisation has revolutionised direct marketing with omni-channels being used effectively across different market segments and for different initiatives. Gone are the days of simple maildrops!

With various communication tools at our disposal, based on customer preference, across various platforms from telemarketing to digital marketing, direct marketing has become more relevant, extremely cost effective and above all customer centric.

Ready to start your direct marketing campaign? Contact us so that we can discuss a strategy.

5 Reasons Why Your Direct Marketing Campaign Might Be Failing

Collective Dynamics Administration 07:22 No comments :

Have you recently launched a direct marketing campaign, but aren’t getting the results that you expected? With any direct marketing campaign there are many variables that need to be considered. After years of running successful direct marketing campaigns, and collecting data every step of the way, we’ve identified a few checkpoints that could very quickly lead you to the underlying reason for the failure of your campaign.

Having unrealistic expectations

Always start with the end goal in mind. In order to run a successful campaign you need to know where you are heading. Set a realistic expected ROI and then identify ways to work towards that with the resources that you have available.

Beware of starting with an unrealistic desired ROI. Rather, calculate the most likely ROI based on the variables of the campaign such as product, available data, and general customer behaviour in your sector.

Data, data, data and more data

Simply put, the better the data at hand, the better your chances of success.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Have you targeted the right market? Have you taken the time to understand your consumers and determined exactly what they need?

2. Did you profile the data? Data profiling is the process of examining the available data and collecting statistics, summaries, and conclusions from that data.

3. How will your data selection affect the long-term results of your campaign? We’ve found that, especially in the financial services sector, it can be easy to find consumers who are willing to buy, but you need to consider whether these buyers will pay the premiums and how long you expect them to remain subscribed.

The wrong product

If your ROI is realistic and your data is up to scratch, but your campaign is still struggling, then your product may be the culprit. There are various elements to consider when deciding on what product to market to your database.

Most importantly, is it the right product for your target audience? Defining the right product may include questioning whether your target audience really needs it, if it comes in at the right price, or if there’s actually a demand for it.

Secondly, consider whether your product is simple enough to sell over the phone. Does the product need lots of explaining for the consumer to see the value? The best products for telesales are simple ones.

Is it your sales consultants?

When it comes down to it, the telesales consultants are the ones who need to convince your audience to buy. Do they have the right product knowledge and do they believe in it enough to sell it? Is your sales system easy enough for them to use?

Train, test, rescript and retrain if needed. Listen to what consumers are saying on the phone and apply this your scripting and campaign moving forward.

You’re not reporting accurately

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, data is vital to campaign success. But so often reporting is neglected. Just keeping track of sales isn’t enough; you need to collect, analyse, and report on all the data in order to determine what the root of success was – so that you can repeat the recipe. Get the right reporting tools and analytics team to identify areas that need improvement, then test and retest until your formula is spot-on.

If you’ve tried all the above and your campaign is still struggling, just contact us for expert advice in direct marketing campaigns.

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