Coaching as a Packaged Intervention for Telemarketing Personnel
Bundle quick coaching with token rewards to push adult workers’ key job behaviors and bottom-line results.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tilka and colleagues worked with telemarketers in a call center.
They paired short coaching sessions with small token rewards.
The team tracked key sales behaviors, pending deals, and closed sales.
What they found
Every worker’s sales behaviors jumped after the package started.
Pending deals and final sales also rose for the whole group.
Gains stayed high as long as the coaching and tokens continued.
How this fits with other research
Davis et al. (2023) later showed the same coaching logic works on Zoom.
Their dance-instructor study proves you can drop the in-person piece and still win.
Cameron et al. (1996) used tokens alone to boost volunteer sign-ups decades earlier.
Tilka’s team added coaching to those tokens and turned a small lift into a big one.
Why it matters
If you train staff in any revenue-linked setting, pair brief BST with token pay.
One ten-minute coaching huddle plus a gift-card raffle can spike the numbers you care about.
Try it Monday: script three sales steps, model them, rehearse each worker, and hand a ticket for every hit.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Prior literature indicates that although the sales function of an organization is a critical element for its success, there is a lack of research on specific actions managers can take to influence sales subordinates. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of a coaching package combined with incentives on sales performance for telemarketing personnel in an organizational setting. Following the implementation of the coaching package, there was a substantial increase in critical behaviors performed, pending sales set, and final sales completed by all telemarketers.
Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 2018 · doi:10.1080/01608061.2017.1325821