While quotas are commonly given to outbound telemarketers, an emerging belief is that inbound technical support call centers should also set quotas for cross-sales.

If you are wondering how sales are made by representatives whose main duty is to troubleshoot electronics, you should know that part of giving technical support is understanding both the product at hand and the customers’ needs.

This understanding allows tech support representatives to offer additional products that would further help customers solve their concerns and avoid future complications. For example, an elderly woman calls about problems with her desktop mouse. If the tech support agent understands the caller’s needs, buying a mouse pad with built-in wrist rests or an ergonomic mouse may be recommended to help give comfort to the user’s frail hands and lower the probability of future mouse-related issues.

Although cross-selling in an inbound technical support call center can increase revenues, it might obviously annoy customers and cause them to leave your brand.

Cross-selling can also lower the quality of the calls, especially if the representatives do more of the selling than the helping just to reach their quota.
To prevent this from happening, the reps have to know when to make an offer and what kind of offer to make.

Here are two ways to attain both service quality and qualified sales:

• Listen for cues

  
  The products and services that your reps recommend must be relevant to the customer’s needs. Your agents should show their desire to fill the needs and solve the problem through the additional product they offer. They should avoid forcing a customer to buy an image processing software if he only called to seek help with their faulty keyboard.

  How can your agents tell what the customer needs? They have to listen attentively to the current situation and not rely too much on past problems and purchases in the customer’s call history.

• Know the right timing

  
  It may not be the best time to make an offer at the start of the call when the problem has yet to be solved and when the customer is still frustrated. Solving the customers’ tech problem must still be the primary concern, so the offer would be better made toward the end of the call after the issue has been cleared and when the customer is more receptive. At that point, the caller will likely be satisfied and now be in a position to trust in your brand.

Technical support call center can balance cross-selling quotas and customer service quality if its tech support representatives listen closely to what the customers need and only offer additional solutions when one is needed.

Your company needs a customer support team that understands the customers enough to satisfy their needs while opening up other opportunities for your brand. Contact Open Access BPO today so we can start building a program that does both.