Converting Soft Offers Into Hard Cash

By Leo Gorcey

Remember back in the day when DR ads cheerfully listed the prices of products--followed by a friendly voice-over instructing the viewer to "Have your credit card ready when you call&operators are standing by to take your order"? Those were the days, weren't they? We were in order-taking heaven!

Fast-forward to today's soft-offer (i.e., free trial), skyrocketing media-cost world, where the order-taking approach of yesteryear is leaving piles of money on the table. That lost revenue can be enough to shrink the profit margins and blunt the competitive edge of even the most promising DR campaigns.

ORDERS OR CONVERSIONS?
Even though DR orders are typically reported as conversions, they're mostly not conversions at all. The majority of sales (orders) in call centers are "lay-downs." These are callers who are pre-sold and ready to order when they call. They were already converted before they got on the phone.

Although there are a handful of superstar salespeople in nearly every call center who can truly convert non-buyers (callers who say "no" at least once) into buyers, the general population of agents in most call centers is not equipped to convert calls beyond the lay-down orders.

In other words, the vast majority of calls drawn to soft offers (the curious and undecided) will not be converted by the majority of agents who handle those calls.

That can cost a bundle in lost revenue when research shows that upward of 80 to 85 percent of all soft-offer callers are the curious and undecided--and that most of those 80 to 85 percent hang up without buying.

FIVE SKILLS TO CONVERT SOFT OFFERS
Here are five skills to focus on when training agents to convert at a higher rate:

• Make a strong personal connection with every caller. Creating a sense of urgency starts the moment the agent answers the phone. Eighty percent of all callers make a buying decision within the first 30 seconds of the call.
• Ask a few questions before jumping into the benefits of the product. Find out why the person on the other end of the phone called. Why they call is why they buy. Uncover the caller's "emotional hot button."
• Build relevant value to the caller's emotional hot button. Irrelevant benefits easily turn into objections and too much information raises questions and doubts, and kills the desire to make a buying decision today.
• Present the product offer with lots of value. Use the value-price-value format. Couch the price/payment information between two compelling value statements.
• Call to action. Just like effective creative has a strong call to action to drive the call, call center agents need to assume the sale and ask for the order on every single call. When interviewed, 50 percent of non-buyers report that the reason they didn't buy is because they were not asked. Asking, "Do you want to give it a try?" is not assuming the sale. To convert effectively on upsells or cross-sells (to increase the average sale per order), the same principles apply. "Do you want fries with that?" is not a conversion upsell. That's a "take it or leave it" message. Yet, that's exactly how the majority of upsells are presented. "Take it or leave it. It's up to you. I just need to get through the script." Consider the more compelling, "Because you told me earlier that you entertain a lot, I recommend we go ahead and include the extra set of color-coded party mugs because I can do that on your initial order and save you 30 percent on the cost. Will the set of four or the set of eight work better for you?"

WHAT'S IN A SALES SCRIPT?
It seems counter-intuitive to the marketing mind, but a selling script needs to be brief to convert the curious "impulse" caller into a buyer. Notwithstanding mandatory legal language, scripts often give more information than what's needed to get to a buying decision. When it comes to impulse buying, time kills desire. Less is more.
DR callers are responding to an impulse--a strong emotional urge for immediate gratification--without thinking. Reciting a lengthy, information-laden script to a caller who has acted on an impulse is the equivalent of a cold shower that forces the caller out of the right brain (the emotional side where buying decisions happen) and into the left brain (or "thinking" brain). The left brain is the "Boot Hill" of sales--where potential sales go to die from analysis paralysis. Too much thinking kills desire.
Training call center agents in the skills of converting soft offers will ensure a healthy future for direct retailing programs.

Leo Gorcey is a direct response consultant specializing in training call center teams and profit-building call center scripts to increase revenue. He can be reached at (541) 531-7419, or via e-mail at leogorcey@leogorcey.com.