HOW TO DOUBLE SALES PERFORMANCE

A Brava and BNZ case study

An independent review found the Bank of New Zealand well placed to achieve world-class results from its customer contact centres.

Specialist financial services sales training had been provided for the bank's 350 contact centre operators. A sales management system was in operation on both Auckland and Wellington centres.

The review found only one thing lacking: sales skills coaching.

Processes were in place for staff to handle customer's initial needs and to develop "adding value" conversations. The only problem was that these conversations were not being managed or coached.

Brava Doubles Sales Performance

Brava's Effective Leadership system was introduced to remedy this deficiency, and the contact centres' sales performance doubled within 4 months.

The Bank's key indicator,(sales leads per full-time equivalent staff member) increased by 15% on the pre Brava average within the first month. In the second month the increase was 45%. Within 3 months it was 64% and in the fourth month 123%.

Bank of New Zealand continues to put staff through refresher courses and uses BravaTrak to provide ongoing assessment of Team Leaders' and Customer Contact Centre Managers' coaching.

Head of Customer Contact Centres, Susan Basile, saw Brava as a performance management system for managers and team leaders to ensure staff consistently used the right behaviours.

"This was about an ongoing process of improvement, not something like a sales course where you forget a lot of what you've learned.

"Of course , we wanted results and we wanted people to do the right things to achieve that. Brava answered the question of how we were going to motivate people to want to do that. It built a culture of success.

"Before Brava we were doing some of it. But this was an advanced coaching system that complimented what we had, to consistently motivate people to lift the bar.

"We decided to roll it out in non-sales areas because we believe Brava can influence behaviours in other areas as well.

"It was quite enlightening. The benefits are so obvious however the process of achieving them is often missing.

"It was fantastic, both for lifting our results and also for changing behaviour. We became very aware of our own behaviour and how that can change the behaviour of others.

"If your sales are down, Brava can make a massive improvement. And if you're already up there and you think you're doing pretty well, I can almost guarantee Brava will enable you to raise the bar even further."

Brava Focusses on Behaviours

Operations Manager Barbara Horne was the Customer Contact Centre Manager for the Bank's Wellington in-bound contact centre during the introduction of the Brava system. She was in charge of 7 telephone teams and 1 email team; each dealing with in-bound enquiries from existing and prospective bank customers.

Prior to the Brava roll-out, the Bank's financial needs analysis approach was being carried out on an ad hoc basis.

While staff in a branch would interview customers in depth to determine their needs, contact centre staff were expected to carry out a shortened version in telephone contact. However, managers found it was not being done consistently.

"There were pockets of consistency, more due to individual staff members than to any managed approach.

"Now, that particular sales behaviour is embedded in how we do business."

Barbara said the major change was the shift to focussing on behaviours rather than on outcomes.

"It's easier to measure results instead of behaviours. You have to think hard about what the behaviours are that produce the results. Once we started doing that, the results improved significantly.

"In a contact centre you can be measured within an inch of your life; average handling time, time spent not ready, queued call time. These are all outcomes that result from people's behaviours. It's the behaviours we needed to influence, in order to change the results.

"Brava focussed us on the really simple things. It was all about coaching your staff. We realised that the more focussed time that leaders spent with their people , the better the results would be.

"It was about being there for your team, to recognise when things were going well, so you could provide positive reinforcement."

The Brava system ensured a consistent ratio between reinforcing desired behaviours and correcting undesirable behaviours.

The Brava Difference

In explaining Brava principles to others, Barbara said "The Brava approach differs from conventional training which focusses on results.

"We saw this as going beyond training. This was about how to be a leader.

"I also saw other things come from it. I hesitate to use the phrase 'team building' (because that conjures up a picture of white water rafting), but it has had a significant impact on the way we work together.

"My advice to other contact centres who are considering it? Just do it. It's great and it works really well."