Confidence that stops short of arrogance is the key to call-center success : Conversations must be tailored to each customer's needs

Purpose – Emphasizes the importance of self-confidence in sales people and reveals how these employees can achieve confidence in their call-center roles. Design/methodology/approach – Puts forward a series of spidergrams illustrating the self-confidence of different employees and suggests how they can improve their performance. Findings – Advances the view that sales people need to: know their products and services; know their sales and customer-service processes; know how to get inside the world of prospective customers; know their competitors' products and services; know what has worked, and not worked, in the past; and have faith and belief in the product, service and brand. Practical implications – Outlines development activities for call-center employees, concentrating on knowledge of product, sales process, customer-service processes, competitors' products and performance and the customer's world. Originality/value – Provides a tool-kit for developing call-center skills.