Zolv, the travel software specialist, gave TTE visitors a first look at a new system designed to help call centre workers interact with customers via their laptops, tablets or smartphones.
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TTE 2013: Zolv Sales Assist brings inspiration to call centre selling
Zolv, the travel software specialist, gave TTE visitors a first look at a new system designed to help call centre workers interact with customers via their laptops, tablets or smartphones.
A demonstration version of Sales Assist was completed in time for the annual trade exhibition showing how a call centre agent can share images and other content to inspire the customer during shopping mode.
Once a caller has been picked up they are directed to click a Sales Assist button on the firm’s website and a joint session is created enabling the customer to take a hands-off approach to browsing content as the agent takes control, delivering content relevant to the conversation taking place.
Olly Wenn, Zolv founder, said the system was devised to emulate the way a high street travel agent can interact with a customer face-to-face in store by flicking through brochures and other material appropriate for the request.
The web hosted browser-based platform does not require the customer to download anything and all sessions are recorded in a personalised timeline allowing both the customer to review the call and call centre managers to monitor interactions with customers.
Sales Assist allows agents to easily place destination and property images, videos, maps, links, relevant urls, forms to fill in, online promotions and quotes from reservation systems directly on the customers’ screen while talking them through the content.
Zolv believes this will not only help to cut down average call times but also increase conversions, making a call centre agent more productive and boosting their own individual commission earnings.
The content is drawn in via XML feeds from clients’ content management systems meaning they can determine what is available to the call centre agent and direct that agent to offer certain products.
Conversely, Sales Assist also allows the customer to send information back, such a spelling of names, which will reduce mistakes during bookings, or even a photograph of an invoice or other correspondence, so the agent can see it and answer any questions.
Wenn said Sales Assist is potentially ‘revolutionary’ for call centres in the way it will help agents to upsell and promote premium product in ways it is impossible to do over the phone.
He added the key to it is that it is easy to use by agents who are trying to do three things at once. “This is day one out of the box. It’s such early days and there are lots more things we can do with this. We have not developed this in partnership with anyone but just knowing what the industry needs.
“We have not got a pricing model yet because we do not know how much effort it’s going to take to roll it out in terms of training. We are hoping in terms of training it costs pretty much nothing because if you have to train staff to use it it’s not worked.”
As the system develops Wenn expects intelligent functionality to be added in which the system will learn from what previous customers looked at and call centre agents can be prompted to show customers more relevant content and products based on what other people have viewed.
