International airline exceeds sales conversion targets 21 months running

Probe CX began its partnership with a leading aviation company in 2010, rising above the many challenges that the entire industry had faced in the years since then to emerge as its number one supplier.

Together, they developed a strong contact centre culture producing exceptional results, including a more than $4million increase in annual revenue, and a 25% increase in sales revenue.

There has been no greater challenge to the travel and airline industries in history than the COVID-19 pandemic. Some airlines and travel businesses never recovered from it.

As the industry emerged from the pandemic, there were still considerable challenges ahead - a lack of faith in airlines in general, and a backlog of disgruntled and disappointed customers were just the tip of the iceberg.

And, although there was little or no travel and flying during those years, the volume of customer enquiry skyrocketed, due to cancellations, re-schedules and a general lack of information. 

A major reset was required and new and sustainable foundations that would last into a new future needed to be built.

Probe CX launched a program that was nimble and scalable and could grow into the future with our client. 

The leadership team in Australia, as well as local managers in the Philippines worked together to create the sales-focussed culture that would form the backbone of the one that exists today.

We needed to ramp people and technology back up again to regular capacity and rapidly improve contact centre efficiencies and procedures in order to restore revenue and sales conversion rates.

We re-established the pre-COVID, 400 person-strong contact centre across two sites in the Philippines, and sent experienced leaders and trainers from Australia over to the Philippines to enhance culture and skills.

As a result of that and other initiatives, sales conversions increased after just one year of bedding them down.

We launched a sales optimisation program to increase sales conversion and revenue through improved hiring, training, quality management and operational processes.

Our team implemented a range of initiatives to support a more sales focussed culture, including:

• Senior managers conducted coaching with team leaders
• Agent scorecards were revised and updated to bring them into line with desired outcomes.
• Sales incentive programs were implemented, then regularly reviewed and updated accordingly
• Continuous Progress Improvement (CPI) sessions were held monthly
• Regular Quality Calibration sessions and evaluations were introduced
• Advanced sales training courses became part of standard procedure
• Sales and Service queues were separated for greater handling efficiencies

As a result of all of these initiatives, sales and revenue are increasing year-on-year, quality and customer satisfaction is at an all time high, and sales agents are happy and satisfied in their work. There has been a $4m+ increase in annual revenue, a 25% increase in sales revenue and a 17% increase in sales conversion. In addition, we have achieved results of 14% over sales conversions targets for the last 21 months in a row.

Probe CX also created a future state solution design to project the expected shift in digital capability. The team modelled workforce needs based on volume forecasts, using both target and actual average handling time (AHT) scenarios.