IVR sales leveraging is using your IVR system to cross-sell and upsell to current customers who call your customer service department. By automating targeted offers through the IVR system, sales leveraging enables you to increase sales and increase the return on investment of your IVR system. Use this scorecard to rate your IVR sales leveraging effort.

IVR sales leveraging can help increase sales, increase the return on investment of your IVR system and improve the customer service experience. But to fully reap these benefits requires a dedicated effort. Use this checklist to determine how well you are utilizing IVR sales leveraging techniques and how you might improve your efforts. Give yourself a point for each item, and then use our scorecard below to see where you stand.

You use bypass offers only when a customer service agent is immediately available.

The purpose of a bypass offer is to improve the customer service experience by immediately connecting the caller with an experienced customer service agent. Keeping callers waiting for an agent does not accomplish this goal.

You present scriptable offers to only those callers who qualify based on the business-generated list of targeted customers.

Scriptable offers should be presented to callers after they authenticate. During the authentication process the IVR system confirms whether or not the caller qualifies for the specific offer. Presenting offers to customers who do not qualify can confuse or frustrate customers, resulting in a bad service experience.

You use sales teasers to educate callers about company news and answer frequently asked customer questions.

Sales teasers are an effective way to communicate important information with callers when they are receptive. It is also a nice way to engage customers without giving the impression that you are always trying to sell them something.

When callers opt out of the IVR system and request an operator, they are presented with a routable offer.

Addressing a customer issue via a live agent can cost more than addressing that same issue through the IVR system. A routable offer allows you to get the most out of that expense by presenting the caller with a service or product sale via the IVR system prior to connecting the caller to a sales agent.

You use profiling to qualify callers for offers.

Profiling allows you to determine whether a customer meets the requirements for an offer by targeting specific profiles rather than specific customers. Profiling places callers into categories they can fall into and out of over time (such as an age group). Callers who are in the specific profile being targeted are connected to an available customer service agent.

You track offers presented, offers accepted and offers declined by callers.

Tracking offers and callers is a fundamental requirement for IVR sales leveraging. It allows you to make educated decisions about future offers, prevents you from wasting sales opportunities and enables you to measure your IVR sales leveraging success.  It also prevents customer frustration because it ensures you’re not repeatedly presenting the same offer to the same caller.

You build sales palettes for your customers.

A sales palette is a set of offers for which a specific customer qualifies. The IVR system uses the sales palette to determine which offer to present to a caller and when. Without a sales palette, the IVR system doesn’t know which offer to present at a given time, and you may lose valuable opportunities to cross-sell and upsell various offers.

You frequently change the offers presented to your customers.

Offers should change as frequently as sales markets change. This may be when new products or services become available, or prices or rates come down.

You use a hosted service provider to help you implement sales leveraging techniques and best practices.

Implementing sales leveraging techniques and best practices can be difficult without dedicated personnel and a modern IVR system. With the help of a hosted service provider, you can rest assured that you are reaping the full benefits of sales leveraging.

Scorecard:

8-9 – Great job! You are effectively implementing IVR sales leveraging techniques to improve your sales.

5-7 – Good effort! You are implementing some IVR sales leveraging techniques effectively, but there’s room for improvement. Download our white paper How to Increase Your Sales with an IVR System to learn more.

4-0 – Looks like you could use some help! Download our white paper How to Increase Your Sales With an IVR System or watch our webcast The ABCs (Always Be Closing) of IVR Sales Leveraging to learn more. Better yet, give us a call at (770) 409-2441 or contact us to learn how the experts at USAN can help you grow your sales with IVR sales leveraging.