Sales Process Design
Product upsell increases 90.3%.
The client
The client is a residential energy and home services provider is in a mature, commoditized market and has been looking for growth opportunities. The company wanted to create a sales approach that helped its sales agents have a value-based conversation with customers which would make it easier to capitalize on the upsell/cross sell of ancillary services. These services represented critical revenue growth opportunities for the business, but sales results historically have been poor.
The final developed process was a five-step framework that positioned sales agents as solution providers, not order takers.
The business challenge
The company did not have a defined selling process for the sales agents to follow. As a result, the methodology varied widely between individual sellers and the customer experience was inconsistent.
Driving value with the client
The following steps were taken to build and activate a new customer conversation:
- Process Design: Chally worked with frontline leadership and sales agents to review current customer conversation. Any attempt to upsell or cross sell services was treated as an afterthought and the agents were not positioning value. The final developed process was a five-step framework that positioned sales agents as solution providers, not order takers.
- Content Design: The five-step framework was broken down into 22 shorter interactions, spread over the course of six weeks. The goal of the design was to allow sales agents to learn and apply individual behaviors rather than train to the entire process all at once. The approach also accounted for operational considerations related to training time.
- Leadership Workshops: All frontline team leaders were initiated through a four-part skills development program. The Workshops focused on building skills that would help them reinforce the critical behaviors outlined in the revamped sales conversation. Workshops included modules on coaching, coaching to performance metrics, and learning facilitation and time management.
- Activation: Chally coaches were embedded on site to conduct the 22 learning interactions (“huddles”), observe and coach leadership behaviors, identify best practices and make real-time improvements to the customer conversation framework. The coaches’ goal was to amply prepare the frontline leaders to sustain the program following the initial activation period.
Measurable results
- 9.4% overall sales conversion rate improvement over full-year 2015 results.
- 90.3% jump in attach/upsell rate for subscription-based services.