Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

How Do I Create A Motivational Ambiance?

Posted by Anonymous on 1/31/2008 at 5:16 PM ET 50 Points
How do I create a Motivational Ambiance for my outbound sales call center. Currently we have goals, incentives, giveaways ect..any suggestions for those things are appreciated, but currently there is a variety of music that is played, which is complicated, because it's hard to find music that everyone likes. I'm interested to hear some suggestions on music to keep sales people upbeat and positive. I think we've decided it may help to repaint the room and possibly put colored plastics over the lights would enhance the mood, but what colors where?? Currently the walls are a light beige, carpet is darker beige with a variety of colored specs that you typically find in most office buildings.

Essentially we want to create an ambiance that will motivate sales

PLEASE HELP.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by michael on 1/31/2008 at 10:34 PM Accepted
    Keep the balloons blown up. Run short and long term contests. Ring some bells.

    I don't think it has as much to do with color as with "atmosphere". With the music...have the winning team pick it for the next day.

    Michael
  • Posted by Harry Hallman on 2/1/2008 at 8:32 AM Accepted
    Feeling needed and important are the best motivators. Yes change the color of the room, but ask them to pick the colors. Thank people the minute you see them doing something right. Tell them when they are wrong and show them how to do it better.

    Have meetings and get input on how you can all do a better job.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 2/1/2008 at 8:55 AM Accepted
    You're treating the call center as a bunch of experimental rats, trying to change their surroundings to manipulate them into better results. Instead, I recommend that you read "The Inner Game of Work", where the author describes how he worked with AT&T's call center people to improve operator politeness & job satisfaction. Small prizes, etc. all send the wrong message - you train them to only perform if there's the right stimulus. You want people to perform because they like doing the job and they receive a specific benefit from it.
  • Posted on 2/1/2008 at 11:13 AM Author
    I see that I do need to explain my situation a little better, sorry this was my first post.

    Mondays we have a sales meeting to kick off the week and inform people what's going on, then we have a short hoorah meeting each morning. When they make sales, we do have them ring a bell (lol, yes kinda Pavlov-ish, I know), first sale of the day gets $5 incentive, 15 sales gets $50 incentive. We play games. Their pay is on a sliding scale so as they make sales their hourly goes up. If they meet a goal by lunch we buy. If they meet monthly goal we have a $1000 bonus $500 is split up by the top 3 sales people (250/150/100) and the rest is raffled off, they each got 1 ticket per tap sale and 2 per cold sale. We currently have about 20 sales people.

    By asking about the colors of the room and music, I know both have an impact on your mood, and I was just wondering if anyone has "EXPERIMENTED ON THEIR RATS" (Jay Hamilton-Roth) and had success. We try to make them feel appreciated as much as we can, but I'm not sure that taking a poll for paint color would be that effective. I'd rather base it on facts or proven strategy, after we did decide color we were throwing around the thought of taking a day off and letting them help paint so that they may "create their own surroundings"-any thoughts on that?
  • Posted on 2/1/2008 at 11:54 AM Author
    By the way I do completely agree with you Jay, I wish it were possible, and it may be if you have super-humans. I have a feeling the book was based on an inbound call center, those are hot leads with people on the other end of the line that have taken interest and want to buy. In an outbound call center the amount of rejection you get can be hard to deal with without some kind of stimulus from what I've experienced.

    HOWEVER, I've been wrong before, so if there was a way to go down this path that Jay spoke about and have a booming sales force, I'd be all for it. But this may mean a whole new call staff since I've tainted them with the stimulus mentality.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 2/1/2008 at 12:50 PM Member
    Matt -

    Contact me off-forum (your profile doesn't have any contact info: https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/profile.asp?userID=775814). I'd enjoy the chance to turn your sales force around.
  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 2/5/2008 at 9:20 AM Accepted
    When I am making my phone cold calls, I find any music distracting. I have the sound turned off on my computer. How can you listen to customers and respond to objections with so much background clutter going on? As far as decor, keep it clean without too harsh lighting. The wrong lighting can cause headaches which will certainly not increase sales performance.

    While I understand what others said in several prior posts-- people do respond best to their job with recognition and feeling important. But in outbound sales, keeping it upbeat, with contests and lots of "thank you's" works. Don't just keep the contests on sales results. The person who has just dialed the most rejections needs some stroking too. Focus on the marginal performers, I bet they are a tweak away from winners.

    While the contests reward monetarily, and some posters may think its "all about the money", its really the recognition that keeps them jazzed.

    Carol
    Sell Well and Prosper tm
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