Case Study 1:
“We’re Missing Sales Without A Sales Culture.”

Situation:

Viacom’s Vice President of Marketing said, “When I listen to customer service calls, I hear missed opportunities for sales. We can’t be just order takers.” Customer service reps and field technicians didn’t take the initiative to upsell, cross-sell, or retain customers who were downgrading or disconnecting. The VP wanted a sales culture.

Solution:

We worked wtih this clients for several years. Here are some of the steps:

• We taught the “Moses Model of change” so leaders knew what to expect.

• Got GMs and senior management onboard. They attended the training along with the front-line employees.

• Jobs were re-defined to include sales and retention.

• Sales targets for each employee and their supervisor.

• Employee sales and retention were tracked and rewarded.

• Reps were trained by their managers who became role models, mentors, and performance monitors.

• Training was designed for each job in sales and customer service.

• Weekly national sales meetings focused on reporting sales results and sharing successful methods. Became widely attended by all systems.

• Annual skills tests kept skills reinforced and ensured that all kept up with product changes.

• Recognition and incentives for sales champions.

Results:

Viacom Cable accounted for 25% of the industry’s sales of premium units. They increased the premium sell-in rate from 44% to 60% which provided more revenue per customer as well as sales of higher-margin product.

Case Study 2:
Make The Training Design Efficient For Widely Different Jobs And Schedules

Situation:

All of the Viacom customer contact employees – customer service, inbound sales, direct sales, telemarketing, field technicians, and installers – needed the ability to sell.  And once skills were learned in the classroom, skills needed to be continuously supported in an environment with rapidly changing promotions and product knowledge.  But there were 35 different field offices and the jobs were not designed the same way.  Some reps did two jobs such as inbound sales and technical trouble-shooting.  Shifts and schedules varied widely.

How could one training program be designed for such wildly differing jobs?  And how could training be efficiently scheduled?

Solution:

We developed the training curriculum for all customer-contact jobs.  The foundation was customer communication skills.  And then additional courses were built upon the purpose of the customer contact.  Each employee’s training consisted of Core Skills (which we call CARE) + Contact Purpose.  If an employee were cross-trained in two job functions – such as inbound sales and technical trouble-shooting – then the rep started with CARE and needed one additional unit for each job function.  This design eliminated redundancy in content, reduced training time and boredom because it focused solely on the sales or service function itself.

How do deal with the differing work schedules?  Train the front-line supervisors how to conduct the training.  Supervisors learned the skills; then they learned how to teach the skills.  And in teaching the skills, the supervisors because masters at monitoring and coaching.  Sales leadership was embedded in the front-line supervisor who modeled the way.

Supervisors could determine when continuing education was needed.  Monitoring results pointed to needs for skills improvement.  New marketing campaigns and products prompted additional skills.  Supervisors were given further tools – self-study, skills-refreshers, learning games, and formats for sales meetings – to continue building skills mastery.

Results:

Viacom measured results three ways. First, Viacom achieved sustained sales results in many categories, such as call-to-close ratio, more premium services per household, and more retention. Second, Viacom showed that those offices who had implemented the training programs produced better results. As a result, management supported more training. Third, Viacom measured skills every year. They found that those systems with better skills, produced better sales.