You may think of your Customer Service Reps in terms of how many calls they can handle in an hour.

Or by how much you pay them per hour.

But here’s how you should really think of them:

By the amount of money that flows through them every shift. 

If you’re a Home Service Company then understand that ALL of your mass media budget ultimately flows through your CSR reps before it can add to your top-line sales.

That may be hard to hear, but it’s true.

And that means months and years worth of effective mass media branding can be undone in a single phone call.

If the goal of your branding ads was to get the customer to think of you first and feel the best about you when they finally need what you sell…

And if the ads achieved that goal, garnering you the prospective customer’s phone call during their moment of need…

Then you’d darn sure better make sure that:

1) You answer the phone with a real human who can help promptly. 

And that doesn’t mean after putting the customer through a seven-stage phone tree or putting them on hold for five minutes or having them talk to an answering service run out of India, etc.

2) You “Show Up” on the Phone as the Same Company that Appears In Your Ads

Your CSR Reps should:

If the employees speaking to customers are mere “Order Takers” with no personality or empathy, you’ll damage your brand.

That makes your CSR reps some of the most important people in your company.

You are used to thinking of your working techs, plumbers, or electricians in terms of how much money they earn the business in a year.

For example, a tech in a truck should be bringing in roughly $500K to the business through his work.

But do you ever think of customer service reps in the same light?

Well, you should.

Because every job that tech went on had to pass through CSR first.

If the job doesn’t get booked through CSR, it doesn’t get run.

And, yet, while tech turnover is a major concern for managers, CSR turnover is often considered ordinary and expected.

So go ahead and calculate how much money flows through your CSR employees.

Now that you have that number,

  • Do you think it’s worth paying them better and offering performance bonuses to keep them on board?
  • Do you think it’s worth your personal time and attention to the CSR department to ensure they feel like valued team members?
  • Do you think calls might be answered differently if the reps knew you personally sampled calls every week and rewarded great calls while addressing bad calls?

In a world where leads are fewer and more expensive to get, investing time and money to ensure every lead is handled properly on the phones is simply smart business.

Why is an advertising guy reminding you of this?

Because I get paid on client growth.

And businesses that don’t make the most of their leads don’t grow nearly as well as those that do.

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