At On-Line Travel, there are 40
travel consultants handling between 400 and 1000
calls per day, mostly from people responding to Teletext
advertisements. There is no difference between this
and most other travel agencies, except this one has
no retail shop and no visible call centre. On-Line
Travel is a ‘virtual’ travel agency,
founded in 1997 and flourishing.
In fact, this innovative
agency was cited as the fourth fastest growing company
in the UK and, competing
with 100 other Fast Track companies, won the Sunday
Times/Virgin Atlantic Award for Customer Service.
A similar list compiled 17 years ago in the USA
included Microsoft.
Recruitment:
David Speakman, chief
executive of On-Line Travel. Only employs ABTA-qualified
travel consultants.
Advertisements are placed in the trade press and
applicants are invited to send in their CV’s.
At this stage a specially adapted psychometric
test is completed. “This,” states David, “gives
us a guide to their personality and offers an insight
into their skills, whether they are sales-orientated,
team players and/or well disciplined and it flags
possible problems that may be financial or personal.
David’s objective is to
offer the customer an exceptionally high service
level, and to boast
a zero abandon rate.
“ We look for people who
want to work independently from home for a better
quality of life, who enjoy
speaking to customers and selling travel, who are
disciplined enough to work to schedule and to adhere
to our procedures, whilst working within a virtual
team.”
At this stage issues may be spotted which can
then be discussed in detail at a face-to-face interview.
The interview also allows the applicants the opportunity
to determine the amount of support they will need,
and to gain confidence with the company.
Pay and Conditions:
Successful consultants need only
a telephone. On-Line Travel provides them with all
the equipment
they need, including a PC and headset. However,
as assurety for all the equipment installed in
their home, each consultant must pay a £1000
deposit to the company, which is fully refundable
when they leave – subject to safe return
of the equipment.
The consultants are all full-time
and work a minimum number of hours per week. David
explained, “They
must be professionals, working at least 35 hours
per week, as all our posts are full time. This
is the ethos of the business – the employees
must be fully committed.” They are paid monthly,
commission only. The consultants are free to choose
their own working time, but the company does reserve
the right to override their wishes if operational
requirements need to be met. However, it is in
the consultants’ best interests to spread
themselves as the number of calls they handle effectively
determines their pay. The company advises each
new consultant about the best times available.
However,
there are no guarantees. And, if a call goes unanswered
for 15 seconds, the consultant
is automatically barred from receiving another
call for a pre-programmed amount of time -–say
an hour. With commission-only pay, you don’t
want to risk losing an hour of opportunities by
being unavailable for less than a minute.
Events are
organised twice a year so everyone can meet up
and get to know each other. The main
conference last year was part of a three-night
cruise. For a small sum, an employee can also bring
their spouse. David feels it is important to include
spouses, as their support can be so valuable to
the employee.
Training and Coaching:
All employees are experienced
ABTA consultants before they join. Training, therefore
focuses on
the ethos of the business, customer service, sales
techniques and administration procedures. All consultants
are given one day’s training during the first
month, and a second day during the next.
Following this, training is on a needs basis only.
There are refresher courses and, if a consultant
is experiencing difficulties with conversions,
a personal trainer will go out to their home and
work with them to resolve the problem.
The consultants are not monitored at the moment,
but this facility is available on the system and
it is David’s intention to use it in the
future. At the moment, quality is measured through
customer surveys which are sent out regularly.
David is aware that the consultants need daily
contact and need strict guidelines. “We impose
our standards on the consultants, telling them
what we expect. It is more difficult in remote
telesales, so the supervisor does a lot of stroking.”
Whilst there is no career progression,
David believes people join his virtual agency because
they want
to work from home, but perhaps don’t have
the right skills to be able to build their own
business. You can’t give their arm
a squeeze so it becomes more important to be ‘touchy
feely’ through
building a rapport.
Many people do want to work from home and for
some, it is not the thought of earning buckets
of money that motivates them. Some agents, once
they have earned the amount they desire in any
one month, ask to be taken off the rota.
Obviously the call volume dictates whether or
not this is viable. But it proves the point that
motivation, for some agents is the better quality
of life they can achieve by working from home.
Home can be anywhere in the UK.
There is a relatively low drop-out rate – it
is mainly those consultants who are unsuccessful
with conversions who leave. David is pragmatic: “Not
everyone can do telesales. Although training helps,
some will never made the grade. Also, when stressed,
people become unfocused which adds to the pressure
so they do less and less business.
“We try to offer solutions but there is
only so much you can do when you are not party
to the problem. Because of the distance, we place
emphasis on person stroking.”
David continued, “You develop
a much more personal relationship than in a conventional
call
centre, you are creating extra bonds because you
need to impose yourself more and bring discipline
and friendship on a one-to-one basis. They have
no other colleagues they only have you to talk
with. You can’t give their arm a squeeze
so it becomes more important to be ‘touchy
feely’ through building a rapport with each
one.
David added, “We try to build mutual respect.”
At the moment the business is expanding and David
is recruiting six new consultants every month.
The current profile mix is approximately 60% female,
40% male.
The business is fully covered with blanket insurance
and David expects his employees, who are intelligent
and fair minded, to be sensible. Homes are not
inspected before employment but if there were to
be a concern, the personal trainer would visit
the consultant.
Technology:
The potential customer is attracted
by a holiday advertisement on a Teletext page which
has its
own 0800 number. The caller dials, and on arrival
at the call server, is identified and placed in
the appropriate queue. The system, GemaTech’s ‘Remote
Service Manager (RSM) ‘automatically dials
up the next available consultant with appropriate
skill sets. The call is programmed to wait in queue
for an appropriate agent for a maximum of 15 seconds,
at which point it seeks another consultant in that
same group. If all such agents are busy, it will
overflow to a consultant in another group of skill
sets. During this time there is an intercept and
music is played to the customer.
However, few customers ever need to wait. David’s
objective is to offer the customer an exceptionally
high service level, and to boast a zero abandon
rate. With no fixed labour costs, he can ensure
there is always an agent waiting for a call, rather
than customer waiting to be answered.
For customers, this is Nirvana. The transfer of
calls to the remote agent is seamless and the customer
believes they are speaking to an agent with a standard
centralised call centre.
Further flexibility is built-in to this system.
New consultants can be placed on a lower priority
scheduling so that they receive fewer calls during
their training period. If desired, calls can also
be routed to each customer’s own geographical
area, to provide the benefit of local knowledge.
RSM can support up to 2048 home workers per unit
and receive up to 120 simultaneous calls. It is
Windows NT –based with high-speed resource
scanning, enabling 100 database look-ups per second
and up to 2048 on-call look-ups per second. As
the business grows, 255 units can be linked, offering
consolidated reporting.
RSM can also work in tandem with existing call
centre equipment, and offers unified handling of
voice, data, fax, video and ISDN. However, ISDN
lines are not mandatory, and remote access diagnostics
and configuration further reduce the costs of the
company’s geographical distribution.
Management Reports:
Easy-to-use screens, with colour-coded icons,
enable David to monitor the whole system. He finds
the system easy to configure and modify, and changes
can be made dynamically.
Management data is presented in Excel spreadsheet
format and can be manipulated into any design of
report for full analysis. Data, such as length
of call, etc. is linked to the in-house computer
which automatically calculates conversion rates
for each agent, together with system averages.
The number the customer has called from is stored
so the On-Line Travel can contact prospects who
are cut off, or who fail to book.
RSM has been in operation at On-Line Travel for
one year now. David advises it has exceeded his
expectations and yet he knows he is not yet using
it to its full potential. It can create workforce
schedules, which are currently produced manually.
Using the system, agents would be able to complete
their own rosters remotely and add them into the
system, which would save time and improve efficiency.
With solid support from GemaTech who sold, installed
and continue to maintain the equipment, David is
happy that RSM, which enabled him to set up his
virtual business, will now help him to grow it.
Report by Janette Menday, Editor Call Centre Focus
June 1999 |
