Marketing Experiments discusses how to generate revenue from inbound customer service calls.

Websites will often go to dizzying lengths to discourage visitors and customers from picking up the phone.

If someone has a question, instead of being provided with an 800 number, they are directed to FAQ pages, knowledge bases and even forums. It seems that companies online will do almost anything to avoid the cost of someone calling a living, breathing customer service agent.

But do inbound customer service calls have to cost you money? Or could you actually make a profit from these calls?

To answer this question we conducted a series of tests with one of our research partners. This company was receiving dozens of calls from customers who wished to cancel their subscriptions.

The challenge was to turn those cancellation calls into sales calls.

Here's what we did:

• We used a sample size of 662 incoming customer service calls over a one-week period.
• Prior to the test we conducted a half-day customer service and sales training session with the customer service representatives, focused on changing their role perceptions from one of exclusively problem solvers to that of customer advocates and salespeople.
• We set up a contest for five customer service representatives and offered a $100 prize to whoever had the most saved cancellations and up-sells.

At the end of the week we analyzed the data and found that the five customer service representatives had actually turned enough customers around to make a profit of $3.54 per call.

We also projected the revenue over a period of one year, and found that a simple half day of training could result in additional revenues of $121,732.

Each customer service call, which was formerly just an expense for the company, averaged $3.54 in new revenue.

In addition to making the extra revenue, these calls resulted in an immediate increase in goodwill for the company. Many customers who had picked up the phone because they were dissatisfied ended up feeling good enough to continue their subscriptions.

In other words, you can make a profit from taking the trouble to serve your customers well and immediately address their questions and problems.

You'll find the full set of test results in the Marketing Experiments Profit from Inbound Customer Service Brief.

The Marketing Experiments Journal publishes primary test results from work with our research partners once every two weeks. Subscription to the Journal is free and gives you full access to both our archives and teleconference calls. Subscribe here.