Format

A UX researcher partner and I were able to fly out to Phoenix and spend two days getting to know these Experts and understand how they worked. We did a handful of individual user interviews with some Experts, and then at the end of both days we got 5-7 Experts together in a room to do a co-creation lab. Some questions we wanted to answer with this research:

• How do call-center based experts feel about having to use the GLOW app? Why/what elements and features make them feel that way?

• How does sales fit into call-center based Experts' jobs, and how do call-center based experts feel about that?

  • What are the call-center based expert's goals and KPIs?

  • What motivates call center experts (to sell/not sell)?

  • What are an call-center based expert's most common work/sales flows?

• In what ways is sales different in a call center from in-store?

• What does a successful pitch/sale look like?

  • How do they decide when and how to pitch SCMH to a customer?

  • What are some commonalities between successful sales pitches?

• How are call-center based experts finding or learning product info when asked product questions they can't answer?
  
  
   

Synthesis

The research we did in Phoenix was invaluable and was something I kept referring to during my entire time on the GLOW team. Here's what we learned:

​

"Selling verses Solving"

There's a split in the background of our experts: a tech support background versus a sales background. For those with sales backgrounds who transition to tech support, there are many resources to help ease this transition (Helix, tech leads, other various tools at their fingertips), but the transition from tech support to sales is not as smooth. Performing the two roles of tech solver and salesperson simultaneously also sometimes competes with each other, where solving the customer's problem and giving the best experience doesn't always include selling the smart home product.

 

Sprint Complete My Home as a tool to solve customer problems

Successful Tech Solvers are able view and pitch SCMH as a tool to solve a customer problem:

"You called about a problem with your data, but you have another problem: you have all of these smart devices that aren't covered! Let's solve that for you too."

This positioning is clever and aligns well to the Expert's goal of serving and solving, but challenges the notion of selling as a distinct phase, reframing it as just another step in the the solve.

 

GLOW has no resolution for customer

Experts know how a call goes: roadmap → solve a customer's issue while collecting breadcrumbs → pitch the product → customer enrolls → Expert sees confetti... but then what?

As far as the Expert is concerned, it's out of their hands at that point and it's up to the customer to onboard themselves. Experts know there are probably actions the customer can take after enrolling but aren't exactly sure what they are. They do know that customers can receive mini tech sessions right away (and sometimes use this fact to aid their pitch) and can't file a claim for 30 days, but that's where the knowledge ends. In one co-creation lab, an Expert even designed a customer-facing app for customers to manage their subscription and file claims because they felt this lack of customer resolution.

 

More stick, less "ick"

Some of the sales tactics witnessed in the call center were downright icky. Many Experts have adopted the "assumptive sale" technique, using language that assumes the customer has said yes as long as they don't say no (instead of saying "would you like to sign up?," they say "let's get you signed up.") and often glossing over the details to make the sale.

While the assumptive sale is a valid sales technique, it doesn't do much to create sticky customers. Once the customer has come to their senses about what they've bought, the ability to cancel the service is made easy, having no repercussions or associated fees as long as they cancel before their first bill.

In fact, the Experts rely heavily on this aspect of the program to make the sale: many pitches we observed were built around the fact that you can cancel any time and not get charged, making it easy for the customer to say yes now just to get off the phone and cancel the service in the next few days. We see the results of this technique in our high 0-3 day churn metrics.

 

How they make the pitch

Experts have a variety of ways they form a pitch, which is influenced by coach feedback, training, peer recommendations, and what they've personally seen work. What's missing from this list? GLOW. While Experts admit the tool would be helpful for new salespeople, they don't reference the sales material as much as they become more experienced and find their own techniques. Some of the most popular sales techniques:

• Breadcrumbs Breadcrumbs are the things the customer mentions that can help inform the Expert's pitch, usually how many/which smart devices the customer owns. Hear kids in the background? Ask if they have a tablet or gaming system. Customer having problems with bluetooth? Ask which bluetooth devices they have. These pieces of information help the Expert personalize the pitch and even add these things into the smart home device calculator to put the investment into perspective for the customer. Unbeknownst to the customer, the Expert is making a mental note during the tech support portion of the call to bring up later in the pitch. But what if the Expert does all of this work to collect this information and the customer responds to the pitch with "not right now, maybe later"? The next Expert loses all of this context and has to start from scratch. Experts would love a feature in GLOW to track these breadcrumbs.

• Planting the seed early/roadmapping Roadmapping is how the Expert sets expectations for the customer about the path they'll take on this call: first we'll take care of your problem and then I'll let you know about this new service I think you could benefit from. This piques their interest and sets the expectation so the customer doesn't get off the phone right after the problem is solved.

• Don't overwhelm the customer Experts have seen success in being minimalistic with their pitch until the customer's interest is piqued and they're asking more questions. Overloading the customer with all of the details right out of the gate has seen little success for the Experts in most cases.

• Drawing connection between mobile insurance and SCMH Experts can naturally draw the correlation between the technical support the customer is receiving now and the comparable benefits you can receive for your smart home devices with SCMH and relay that to the customer as a pitch tactic.
  
   

General stuff / #pains and #wishlist

While observing and talking to experts, we uncovered some key opportunity areas. Some are future state things to consider (and possibly outside the scope of GLOW), others were highly actionable adjustments to things like decline reporting and bugs in payment collection.

 

#GLOWprobs

GLOW is not perfect. From bugs (the wrong name sometimes populating; the credit card collection page refreshing, losing all of the customer's information) to not using the space in a valuable way (too much empty white space; right rail not being valuable for experienced sellers), there are many issues Experts have with GLOW that not only make the tool not as useful as it could be but sometimes gets in the way of doing their job and giving the customer the best experience.

 

Decline reporting isn't as robust as it could be

While experts do find that marking a decline reason and being able to see that information from a customer's previous calls is helpful in curating their pitch, it fails to capture the nuance of a decline.

It not only lacks common decline reasons (customer is already paying for a competitor program or even one of our own programs, they're wary of the credit card collection process, etc.), but it also doesn't give the next agent enough information about the nature of the decline. A soft decline is different from a hard decline which is different from a "never ask me again" decline or an "I already churned from this product" decline.

Today, all these situations end up bucketed into "other"

• Agents making a a future offer lack crucial information that could help them close the sale or have an effective rebuttal prepared.

• Experts we talked repeatedly suggested a place to add comments to their decline reason in order to provide context to the next agent attempting an offer with this customer.

• Specific, un-captured decline reasons we observed or heard mentioned
  
   

Product information

Agents often pull product information from memory, customizing the delivery to match personal conversation style, though some do leverage the bullet points in the GLOW application, most have a good working knowledge if the information and try to answer most customer questions from memory. When specific question requires and answer beyond their general knowledge, they typically look for the answer in the GLOW app, though some quickly ask deskmates or refer to laminated reference materials (cheat sheets) instead.

 

Español limitado

Our current support for Spanish is limited at best, and this wears on our bilingual agents. Not only are they often having to translate rebuttals on the fly, but our follow up information SMS link doesn't have a Spanish option. Even more taxing for our bilingual agents: they feel it's unfair to sell a product to Spanish speaker without a Spanish speaking claims number, knowing from experience that many times these customers will hang up instead of waiting for an interpreter to join the session.

 

Collecting payment is a big problem

While the model of separate Asurion billing for SCMH has business benefits, it is a big problem for experts while trying to close the sale. Experts find that customers want to be able to add the service to their Sprint bill and, when they're informed this isn't an option, the sale is sometimes lost. Whether it's because the customer doesn't feel secure sharing their credit card number over the phone or they simply don't want to take the time, the credit card collection process can be the catalyst that breaks the sale.

 

🎶 GLOWs just wanna have fun

We heard over and over that the confetti is one of the best parts of a call. It means they sold the product, but it's also just fun. Call center work can be stressful, so managers and agents are always looking for ward to boost their team morale. Agents we spoke to suggested numerous ways for us to inject more fun into the GLOW application — including a dancing panda!

 

Serving, Solving, Selling is a team sport

We repeatedly heard experts talk about (and display) behaviors of supporting and helping each other. Whether that was building a cheat sheet for common issues or sharing a clever sales tactic, they see serving, solving, and selling as a team sport.

 

We leave value on the table at the end of a call

Experts talked about the loss of context when a call is ended. Bread crumbs they've collected vanish as soon as they hang up and nuanced decline reasons are lost, forcing the next expert to start from scratch. All the work they do to build empathy and understanding during a call is essentially lost at the end, sale or no sale.

 

Help them help us help them

In group sessions on during observation, experts frequently shared strategies, positioning statements, and rebuttals they've found successful. This peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is lacking from their toolbox today, relying on informal hallway conversations or coaches to connect the dots. Experts want to know what's working (and what's not working) for other experts.

Experts repeatedly mentioned how helpful it would be to have feedback mechanisms built into their sales tools so they could learn new techniques and report in real time on what is (or isn't) working for them.

 

Their toolbox runneth over

Experts have so many tools that they need to use to do their jobs. From Asurion tools (SoCo, Helix, GLOW), to carrier tools (CST, Glance), to tools they've created themselves (Helix bible, competitor product matrix) Experts have to constantly pivot to new windows on their two small screens to get anything done.

 

SoCo is Experts' homebase

When conducting co-creation labs with the Experts where they were able to create their ideal tool, Soluto Connect was most often the base on which Experts built upon. However, when asked which tool they would want to keep out of all of them, none of them chose SoCo, showing that while it's an integral part of their job, it's not extremely valuable in its current state.