Ideas on increasing revenues

[Fran]

I need some suggestions ... our management team was recently informed of the dramatic decrease of sales over the past 5 months and the numbers are dramatic.
Without being specific about the service we offer I can say that we provide this service nationwide and also have a variety of services within this one service.

The decrease has been affected by different variables such as:
Our competition being aggressive with their "winback offers" and our employees are not aggressive enough to keep our customers when our customers are calling in to cancel the service. We might have to provide them more tools to ensure they are using them to save these customers in addition to upgrading the services.

We are thinking about offering incentives to our existing customers for referrals; incentive to our employees - customer service representatives - for saving customers, upselling our products etc....

Hopefully the above will provide some of you enough information so you can share your success stories. I am looking forward for your suggestions.

Thank you in advance.

[VADIR]

Hi Fran -

From your post it almost sounds as if you're in a new media (catv, I-Net, or technology) industry, based on the competition and upselling opportunities you've identified (I was in that industry recently too, so I'm more than happy to discuss offline if you like).

Anyway, I experienced the same opportunities that you've described below. You'll need to first identify the the state of your organization culture and identify gaps in terms of associate perception (state of the company, state of the industry, and their individual impact on each). Once you've identified any gaps, you can take action accordingly (training to provide associates with the right tools, offers, mindsets) to be aggressive with upsell opportunities, while being able to adjust to limit customer attrition.

You'll also need to provide your associates with as much information about the competition as possible... Product & price comparisons for your employees to reference is extremely important. Additionally talking points on each aspect is also critical. IMPORTANT - Even if you're getting beat in one area or another (say the competition has better features than you do or the competition has the same features or a better price) make sure to address this in the talking points. You'll need to identify your organizational strategy for addressing, but you need to make sure your employees can speak to the questions (good or bad).

If you'd like to discuss further offline let me know, I'd be more than happy to share ideas or be a sounding board! Just message me back here and we can go from there.

VARDIR