Posts Tagged Customer Experience
Trust Between Seller and Client Must Be Mutual
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on June 20, 2016
Would you like your clients to trust you? Presumably you would. And in order to trust you, they must feel that trusting you is a low-risk proposition. They must feel you are trustworthy. Most firms get that.
So, most firms go about trying to appear trustworthy. (The better ones, of course, actually try to be trustworthy, since trust is a hard thing to fake.) This often translates into things such as values statements, corporate social responsibility, efforts at transparency, and programs to enhance customer focus.
All of that is well and good, but those efforts are missing a critical element. Because if all you focus on is trustworthiness—cosmetic or real—then you are forcing your client to take all the risks. And if your client is the one always taking the risks, after a while your client will notice and say, “Wait a minute. I appreciate all of the Boy Scout virtues and so forth, but I notice you never take any risks. And that’s not fair. And so I don’t think I trust you.”
You can be trustworthy to the max, but if you never trust your client, then before too long, your client won’t trust you. And as goes their trust, so goes their business with you.
Trust Is Reciprocally Risky
“The fastest way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” That statement is credited to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, and he expressed a powerful concept: trust is a reciprocating exercise in risk-taking. First one party takes a risk, and the other reciprocates. Then the roles reverse, and the exercise is repeated.
Take the simplest of all trust gestures: the handshake. Smiling I extend my hand to you and say hello, signifying good intentions. You almost certainly return my handshake, smile, and greeting. But you don’t have to.
You could, after all, spurn my gesture, refuse to extend your hand, frown, and turn away from me. I would feel embarrassed, upset, and dismissed. And that would be the end of our budding trust relationship. You probably wouldn’t do that, though. Instead, you would meet my risk-taking gesture with trustworthiness, and our relationship would be off to the races.
Corporate Risk Mitigation
This is not an exercise in corporate anthropology. Think about the context in which you hear “risk” in modern-day business. It is almost always in a negative sense.
Risk is seen mainly as something to be mitigated. Post 2008, financial institutions have laid off layers of employees—except in risk management. The contracting process in nearly all companies has added layers of risk indemnification to its documentation. Lawyers are on hand to ensure not just compliance, but even the appearance of anything that could be considered risky. Insurance businesses are inventing new products to mitigate risk in contracts of all sorts. The last few decades have seen the creation of risk management institutes and certificates in risk management programs.
Despite the protestation that some risk is good (think “risk appetite” or “calculated risk” in the financial world), the emphasis is overwhelmingly on the “calculated” part, not the “risk” part. And once one gets outside of the financial world, it’s hard to find examples of thinking that suggest risk is good.
Execution Risk and Dereliction Risk
The management world is obsessed with avoiding execution risk—the risk of doing the wrong thing. Unfortunately, it makes a pact with the trust devil when it embraces dereliction risk—the risk of not doing the right thing.
We want lifeguards to eschew dereliction risk. If they think someone is drowning, we don’t want them second-guessing themselves. We want them in the water immediately. In basketball, Kobe Bryant is the NBA’s leader in most missed shots. He would rather shoot 4 for 20 than 2 for 5. Another athlete, hockey great Wayne Gretzky, says you’ll never miss a shot you never take—but neither will you make any shots. In all of those cases, they understand the importance of taking execution risks and avoiding dereliction risk.
Yet in business, we are afraid of a hundred execution risks. We fear having the wrong answer, giving offense, looking ignorant, looking foolish, or speaking out of turn. So, we do nothing. And because of our penchant for avoiding execution risk, we absorb dereliction risk, which guarantees failure in the long run.
Trustworthy but Untrusting Does Not Compute
You may be proud of your organization’s record on trustworthiness. But ask yourself these questions to see if you may have some work to do on trusting:
- Do you have onerous non-compete clauses for your employees?
- Do your sales pitches hedge their bets or lead with strong hypotheses?
- Do you make your subcontractors insure you against general liability with no limits?
- Do your salespeople refuse to answer direct questions about price?
- Do you ever admit you don’t know something when asked a straight question?
- Do you insist on client non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) beyond your industry’s norm?
- How many ex-employee lawsuits has your firm been involved in in the past five years?
- Are your tardy account collections handled by accounting or by account managers?
- Would you ever recommend a competitor to a client if the competitor were clearly the better candidate for the job?
- Do you use lie detector tests for employees?
- Do you encourage your salespeople to comment on their own and others’ feelings?
- Do you share your cost information with clients?
- Do you share your supply-chain information with suppliers or clients/customers?
- How many paragraphs of fine print are in your client agreements? And how fine is the print?
- Are your standard client agreements longer or shorter than your biggest competitor’s?
- How do you handle overruns by you with your clients? How do you handle overruns by your suppliers with you? Which is more onerous?
You can be as trustworthy as a Boy Scout, but if you force your clients to take all of the risks, then before too long, they won’t trust you.
This article was originally posted to the Trusted Advisor Blog by Charles H. Green on June 6, 2016.
Staying Committed to the End-to-End Customer Experience
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on June 6, 2016
When we talk about the customer experience, it’s important to remember that it’s an end-to-end experience for customers. It’s not just about the pre-sales experiences a customer may have viewing products on a company’s website or the interactions a customer may have with a salesperson before deciding on a purchase. The post-purchase support a customer receives is also a critical component of overall satisfaction and loyalty.
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog article about poor customer service that my son and I received from a warranty company regarding coverage on his car that had been damaged in an auto accident. By contrast, as we went through the process of getting my son’s car repaired, the owner of a local auto body shop named Pat provided us with exceptional service – both during and after our preliminary encounters with his business.
In the accident, the front bumper came off my son’s car and then fell beneath the car as the car was still moving. Since damage to the undercarriage could have potentially affected the vehicle’s alignment, Pat made sure that he first had the car evaluated by an alignment mechanic that he works with before starting any of the body work.
In addition to the body work that Pat’s shop took care of, Pat also made arrangements with another local mechanic to replace the engine mounts on our son’s vehicle since those were also in need of replacement. Pat spent a considerable amount of time communicating with our insurance company to make sure that the insurance would cover these costs in order to minimize our out-of-pocket expenses.
We’ve used Pat’s body shop in years past (we’re not demolition derby drivers in our household, but we have had a couple of deer collisions) and he has always provided us with excellent service. I’ve recommended him to everyone who has ever asked for a referral. The time and effort he spent ensuring that all facets of the repair work needed for our son’s car would be covered by insurance reminded me why we keep coming back to him. He’s not just looking to cash a check. He truly wants to make sure that everything is taken care of to our satisfaction.
I pointed out Pat’s actions because he’s a business owner who looks after his customer’s interests across the full span of the customer experience. It’s that kind of attention that generates loyalty and long-term customer value.
This article was originally posted to the 1to1 Media Blog by Tom Hoffman on March 29, 2016.
Focus on the Customer and Magic Happens!
Posted by Rick Pranitis in Sales Process Evaluation on July 21, 2015
Several weeks ago, I did a deal review with a client. It was a very large deal, important to my client. The sales person is an outstanding sales person–one of the top performers in the organization.
As I looked at the notes on the deal, the sales person had a number of good conversations with people in the organization. He had a pretty good understanding of what they were trying to do. He was laser focused on demonstrating how his solution was the best in helping the customer achieve the goal.
He was trying to reach the decision-maker and had hit a road block. He’d made call after call, sent email after email. He was very frustrated; he was normally accustomed to getting into whoever he needed to see at an account. But this particular customer was just not responding to any of the creative offers he made—lunch, a demo, meeting with product managers, an extended loaner of a system—nothing would drive a response. What was worse, is the people he had dealt with before started going dark.
As I looked at the email chain, each email was a variation on the same theme, “Let me tell you how wonderful my product is.” The emails were written much more artfully and each offered an enticement about learning more about the product. But there were no responses.
In the review, I started asking my usual questions, “What are they trying to achieve, why are they doing this, what are the consequences of doing nothing, how does this fit into their overall strategy/priorities/vision, what are the personal wins for each person involved in the decision, ……..”
The sales person thought he knew the answers, but struggled. He realized that he had jumped from “discovery,” to “pitching” before he really understood all the stuff critical to his sales strategy and winning the deal.
We decided to do a little research. It took just a few minutes–we went to the company website. We started understanding more of their strategies, priorities, and what might be driving the need to change. We went to Google and pretty quickly we found a number of press releases, speeches, presentations the company had given about their strategies and priorities. This particular project and its impact on the company were mentioned several times. In fact, the key executive we had been trying to reach had been interviewed a number of times–including his priorities around this particular project.
We went to LinkedIn and started looking at the profiles of each person involved in the project. We were trying to discern their biases, motivations, experience with these solutions, and the personal wins. Again, the profile of the key executive was rich with information. He had posted a number of presentations and video’s in his profile. It was clear the executive was a real visionary, he was driven to achieve certain things in the organization, and he had a strong strategy.
I know what you are thinking, why didn’t the sales person do any of this up front? He really should have, in hindsight he recognized the error. He had fallen into the trap too many of us fall into—listening for what he wanted to hear, rather than really trying to understand what the customer was trying to achieve.
To his credit, once we started to see the problem, he came up with a new strategy. Through the research, we had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but he still needed to reconfirm everything with the customer–understanding their strategy, priorities, the views of each person involved.
He wrote a very short email to the decision maker. In that email he indicated his understanding of the key issues–but posed some very good questions about what they were trying to achieve. In one sentence, he explained the experience my client had helping similar organizations on this issue. He finished the email, leveraging some of the executive’s quotes on his vision and the importance of the project in implementing the strategy. Then he asked for a meeting.
Late the other night, I got an email from him, it was titled, “Some Magic Happened!” He had forwarded me the response from the executive. It was the kind of response any sales person dreams of. The customer was impressed with the knowledge and understanding of his and his company’s issues/strategies/priorities. He was intrigued to learn more about how my client might help them address the issues. He was flattered by the reference to his quotes and visions. He was eager to meet, share more about what they were trying to do and learn more about my client’s ability to help.
After weeks of emails and phone calls focused on “Let me tell you about my product,” shifting the approach to focus entirely on the customer and the individual had completely changed things.
The door is now open. The sales person has a long way to go, but he now has a strategy that puts the customer and what they want to achieve at the center of everything he is doing with them. This stuff works! It’s not trickery, manipulation, or any great sales technique. It’s simply focusing on the customer, understanding what they want to do, learning from them–then helping them learn. It’s really that simple!
Take a look at your most important stalled deal. Do some research on both the company and its people. Try answering for yourself the questions I posed earlier in this post. Then go to the customer and ask them, let the words come from their mouths, probe, verify, validate, quantify. Be interested in them and what they want to achieve.
This article was originally posted to the Partners in Excellence Blog by David Brook on June 23, 2015.
Design Your Customer Experience to be Frictionless
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on October 16, 2014
Most definitions of “customer experience” boil down to how customers perceive all their various interactions with a product. And of course this only really makes sense when we try to view it from the customer’s own point of view. The quality of a customer’s experience with your product or service is whatever the customer says it is.
In the vast majority of situations, customers aren’t buying a product or service for the sake of the “experience” of buying or using it. They are just trying to solve some problem or meet some need, and if they could solve that problem or meet that need without having to deal with a company at all, don’t you think they would?
What this means is the ideal customer experience should be designed to be frictionless. The ideal experience would require no extra effort on the customer’s part, it wouldn’t require the customer to repeat anything they’ve already said, and wouldn’t pose any obstacles to meeting the customer’s need.
Probably, in fact, the ideal customer experience would be no experience at all, to the customer. That is, the only thing the customer would “experience” would be the elimination of whatever need or problem drove them in the first place. So when you design your own company’s customer experience, you should aspire to that goal – the goal of receding from the customer’s awareness altogether, fading into the background of the customer’s life, never to cause a worry or require a task of any kind.
Marketing research supports this design concept, because studies have consistently shown customer loyalty is not very highly correlated with customer satisfaction scores, although customer disloyalty does have a high correlation with customer dissatisfaction. In other words, customers don’t necessarily stay because they’re satisfied, but they often leave because they’re not.
In one survey of nearly 100,000 US consumers, each of whom had recently participated in some online or over-the-phone interaction with a business, researchers Matt Dixon, Nick Toman and Rick DeLisi found “there is virtually no difference at all between the loyalty of those customers whose expectations are exceeded and those whose expectations are simply met…[and] virtually no statistical relationship between how a customer rates a company on a satisfaction survey and their future customer loyalty.” In fact, the survey found an R-squared (coefficient of determination) of just 0.13 between satisfaction and loyalty, which is very close to saying no correlation at all. (R-squared values range from 0 to 1.0, and to put this particular score into perspective, an R-squared of 0.71 quantifies the correlation between “getting good grades in school” and “achieving career success later in life.”)
Instead, the key driver of customer disloyalty appears to be dissatisfaction, driven by unresolved problems or service issues – from the customer’s perspective, friction. According to the study, a customer service interaction is roughly four times more likely to drive disloyalty than loyalty.
So when you design your own company’s customer experience, it’s important to deconstruct every different type of customer journey, realizing that different customers need to be treated differently. Then take some time and try to figure out how to suck as much friction out of each customer’s experience as possible.
If you want some guidance in breaking down the elements of a truly frictionless experience, think of these elements in terms of reliability, relevance, value, and trust.
- Reliability. Your product or service should perform as advertised, without failing or breaking down. You should answer your phone, your web site should work, service should be performed on time, and so forth. Your systems and processes should be capable of rendering a product or service on schedule, seamlessly across multiple channels and consistently through time, in such a way that it doesn’t need a lot of maintenance, repair, correction, or undue attention from the customer just to meet whatever customer need or solve whatever customer problem it’s designed to handle.
- Relevance. You should remember your customer from transaction to transaction, never requiring a customer to re-enter information, or to look things up that the company ought to know about them already. Every time a customer has to tell a call center agent their account number again, having just punched it in on their phone, they are coming face to face with friction. The most efficient way to overcome it is to remember each customer’s specifications, once you learn them.
- Value. The value-for-money relationship can’t be out of kilter. As a customer, when you go to Costco you don’t expect a Bergdorf experience. But when you buy a Lexus, you expect more than a Ford experience. Whatever product or service your customers are buying from you must be good value-for-money. It will be economical for customers who are interested in price, and it will provide “fair value” for customers more interested in quality, status, or other attributes.
- Trust. In today’s hyper-interactive world, mere trustworthiness – that is, doing what you say you’re going to do and not violating the law – is no longer sufficient to render a frictionless customer experience. Increasingly, customers expect you to be proactively trustworthy, or “trustable.” Trustable customer experience is one in which the customer knows the company provides complete, accurate and objective information, and will help the customer avoid mistakes or oversights. In the customer service arena, think about reducing friction by trying to improve “next issue avoidance.” Think about a call center rep, for instance, proactively advising a customer how to deal with whatever problems might now occur, once they hang up the phone on this particular call. That would be trustable
This article was originally posted to the Think Customers Blog by Don Peppers on October 7, 2014.
Three Steps to Better Customer Onboarding
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on September 30, 2014
When customers are asked: what’s the most memorable part of their experience with a company, many note the welcoming process as either exceptional or regrettable. And while most companies are working to improve their employee onboarding process, a similar process for customers is often left to chance.
Effective onboarding sets the tone for the new relationship and carries it forward for the duration of the customer lifecycle. Best-in-class B2B companies recognize the value of customer onboarding and invest accordingly. Here are some ways to jumpstart your customer onboarding efforts:
- Define ownership. One of the main reasons customer onboarding goes awry has to do with the lack of a clear owner within the organization. It can be tricky to identify where the proper handoffs need to occur – sales has played point during the buyer’s journey and will likely take a back seat going forward. Formalize the key handoff points and leave nothing to chance. Assign clear responsibility for specific parts of the onboarding process so customers don’t fall through the cracks.
- Welcome customers appropriately. Onboarding is the perfect time to gain additional insights from new customers about their preferences, including how and when they’d like to be contacted, their preferred mode of interaction with your company and their key areas of interest. Upload these preferences in sales and marketing systems to make sure that customer wishes are respected.
- Become engaged. Once the sales process concludes, engaging the new customer is critical to long-term success. Marketers can play a lead role in ensuring that new customers are introduced to the various channels available for customer participation, including user groups, product councils, online customer communities and other social media outlets. This is also a good time to share other customers’ early-stage success stories to help the new customer get up to speed more quickly. By effectively managing the customer engagement process, you can also set the stage for customer advocacy opportunities down the line, once the customer has realized value from your product or solution.
Customer onboarding plays a critical role in the first stage of the customer lifecycle. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Challenge your organization to exceed, not simply meet, customer expectations by striving to implement a best-in-class approach to welcoming your new customers.
This article was originally posted to the Sirius Decisions Blog by Bob Peterson on April 4, 2014.
Seven Sales Habits Ruining Your Reputation
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on November 22, 2013
Some would say the sales profession doesn’t exactly have a stellar reputation. And it’s true, the industry is fraught with sales people who will say or do anything to close a deal and this includes companies who condone such behavior. Unfortunately, you might also be guilty of some bad sales habits — habits which could be affecting how your sales actions are perceived.
Here are seven sales habits that might be giving you a bad reputation.
1. Pitching too soon – The vast majority of sales people pitch their product or service too soon. As a result, they end up pitching the wrong solution or they fail to effectively position their solution because they haven’t taken the time to conduct a thorough discovery to determine if the prospect actually has a need for their solution.
2. Opening your pitch by talking about your company – I’m flabbergasted by the number of sales people (and company executives) who still believe this is the best way to open a sales presentation. They use valuable time talking about their company and its achievements instead of focusing on what is important to their prospect…a solution to a problem.
3. Failing to listen – Too many salespeople don’t listen to their customers or prospects and that means they fail to address the key issues that their customer has stated as being important. It sounds simple but it is a common occurrence in the business world. One of the easiest ways to connect with a decision maker is to carefully listen to what they tell you.
4. Not understanding key business issues – In today’s highly competitive business world, sales people are expected to have a strong grasp of issues that are affecting their prospect’s business and/or industry. Bringing new insights to the table can help you stand out from your competition and improve your reputation as a sales professional.
5. Not asking enough high-value questions – It still amazes me how many salespeople think that telling is selling but your prospect or customer should be doing most of the talking in a sales conversation. The key is to ask high-value, thought-provoking questions that get your prospect thinking.
6. Delivering a generic presentation – The objective of a sales presentation is to demonstrate why your prospect should buy your product, service, solution or offering. Unfortunately, very few sales people craft a presentation that is tailored to each prospect. Instead, they use the same slides, the same information and the same approach with every prospect.
7. Failing to follow through – A prospect asks for a particular piece of information and the sales person promises to deliver it by a certain date. The deadline passes and the prospect has to call and remind the salesperson. Because the sale has not been finalized, warning signals sound in the customer’s mind. After all, if the sales person is this slow to respond BEFORE the sale is made (the courting stage), how long will it take him to respond AFTER the sale?
Selling is an honorable profession. Improve your reputation and gain your prospect’s trust and respect by avoiding these bad sales habits.
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This article originally appeared in the Fearless Selling Blog on November 18, 2013.
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Ten Commandments for Creating Great Customer Service
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on October 10, 2013
We all know the realities of the professional sales world regarding the cost ratio of keeping versus regaining a good customer. When it comes to maintaining your share of the market, satisfied – returning – customers are key. AND very likely the most important element in controlling your bottom line in cost of sales. 
Keeping customers happy and feeling valued should be everyone’s top priority. Customers don’t expect rock bottom prices everywhere, but they do expect good treatment. It’s all about Customer Service!
Borrowing from Daniel Kehrer, Founder & Managing Director of BizBest Media Corporation, here’s ten great points – commandments if you will – for establishing great customer service within your organization.
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Happy employees create happy customers. Employee satisfaction translates to great customer service. Employees who like their jobs and care about the business they work for are more likely to go the extra mile for a customer. Creating that feeling in your employees will pay you back exponentially.
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Always respond quickly. Your customers are busy, too. They shouldn’t be left wondering what kind of service they are going to receive or when. Answering email inquiries, returning phone calls and responding to messages or other contacts on Facebook or other social media should be part of a daily routine.
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Make it easy to do business with you. Never make customers jump through hoops to buy something from you. Have a return policy that is easy to understand and puts customer interests first. Provide refunds quickly and efficiently.
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Keep customers informed of what’s happening. When customers know what’s happening with an order or request, they can enjoy doing business with you. For example, if you’re handling a return and typing information into a computer, you might say, “I’m entering the date of purchase and product number so we can make sure to give you the maximum refund possible.”
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Use technology to provide good service. Today’s technology offers every small business the means to provide service more quickly and efficiently than ever. Business owners sometimes assume that customers don’t like to be communicated with online. And for some that might be the case. But most people appreciate the ease online communication provides.
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Make your customers feel valued. Understand that each and every one of your customers is special. As the late business guru Peter Drucker said: The sole purpose of business is to serve customers. Make sure your employees understand this, and that above all else they must focus on making customers feel valued and appreciated.
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Remember, disgruntled customers won’t complain; they just won’t come back. If you don’t take time to provide excellent service, customers won’t take time to tell you how to improve your business. What’s more, unhappy customers will tell others about their bad experience. And in this age of social media, the ripple effect can be very damaging.
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Provide special training for front line employees. Employees who interact directly with customers are critical to your business. Their attitudes, communication skills and style of service are what customers associate with your business. Make sure they are trained to handle the potentially stressful task of working with customers.
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Make sure the first customer is happy before moving on to the next. Customers value quick service just as much as they value quality service. But you can’t sacrifice one for the other. It’s important to make sure one customer is satisfied before you move on to the next. That can be as simple as asking, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
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Compensate for mistakes. Never shortchange your customers. If a mistake was made or some other circumstance is preventing you from providing the best level of customer service, find a way to make it up to your customer. Give employees the latitude to provide customers with solutions when they can’t satisfy a need.
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Dealing with Upset Customers
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on June 20, 2013
No one enjoys dealing with upset customers, and people don’t buy a product or use a service with hopes they can call customer service to complain. You need to keep in mind the customer is not simply calling you to ruin your day. How you handle the customer’s complaint will either escalate or diffuse the situation, which will make your life much harder or much easier. And, most importantly, determine whether or not you have lost a customer or retained his or her business. So how should you deal with upset customers to ensure the best possible outcome? Here are some tips to help you out.
The moment you encounter an upset customer, your very first step is to listen carefully and be patient. Allow the customer to vent and explain the problem. It’s natural for your “hackles” to go up when a customer is yelling or starts with personal attacks. But remember, behind the emotion is a genuine problem. So carefully listen and be patient while the customer lets off their steam. If you start off defensive, it will only escalate the customer’s anger, and it will be harder to sort through the issue and get a sense for what the real problem is. Remember not to take the attacks personally, even if the customer is making personal accusations toward you – the customer is looking for acknowledgement he or she is angry, so recognize there is a problem and he or she has a right to be upset. Chances are a patient approach will help diffuse the anger. Once the customer is calmer, you can start working on addressing the problem constructively.
Once the customer has started to calm down, it’s now time to start figuring out how to address the problem and start putting your soft skills to work. Avoid phrases such as “that’s our policy,” or “you’ll have to go to our website”. The customer didn’t call to be shut down or re-directed. The customer called to speak to a live person who will help solve the problem. By reiterating the issue, you’re communicating to the customer how you clearly understand what is going on and affirming to the customer you’re listening – and HEARING!
You risk being perceived as distancing yourself from the customer’s problem by telling the customer another department will help them, or you’ll need to have a supervisor assist with the problem. Instead let the customer know upfront you, personally, will take responsibility to ensure the issue is solved, and you’ll work with them to make sure he or she ends up satisfied. By stating your responsibility, instead of simply passing the customer off (even if you will need to coordinate with another department or a supervisor to solve the problem), you’re communicating you’re on the customer’s side – you’re an ally. This personal approach will reinforce to the customer he or she is being listened to and the problem is being addressed. In a customer service world where customers are used to navigating through automated phone systems and dealing with scripted call center reps, this personal acknowledgement will stand out.
Instead of dictating to the customer your company’s policy or telling the customer what will happen, re-phrase the process by saying something such as: “What would you consider a fair solution?” When you do this, you’re helping the customer be part of the solution and help set the starting point for a negotiation, as well as setting a level of expectation for the outcome. Even if the customer suggests something that is beyond what your company can offer, it gives you a starting point to work down from so the customer is compensated for time lost on a service or a broken product.
Once you have ended the call, your job is not over. After you’ve dealt with an upset customer, it’s vital you follow-up, after a few weeks, to make sure the problem was sufficiently resolved and the customer is pleased with the result. By checking back in, you’re demonstrating your company really does care and is focused on customer satisfaction. And you’re letting the customer know his or her business really matters and you’ll go the extra mile to keep them as a customer.
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Never Say “Thank you for your business.”
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE, GENERAL DISCUSSION on April 1, 2013
Every sales person appreciates winning a big order from a key customer; but it’s rarely appropriate for him or her to say so to the customer. Saying “Thank you for your business” is bush league, and can significantly weaken your position.
Top performing sales executives recognize that customers buy their solutions because to do so makes good business sense for the customer’s organization. That isn’t to say that personal relationships don’t play an important role in the process. Strong relationships throughout the complex network of buying influences can play a significant strategic role in the sales rep’s ability to understand and communicate the relevant value that their solutions offer their customers’ organizations, to the exclusion of the competitors.
World class sales organizations train, coach, and provide the tools necessary to enable their sales reps to systematically investigate, identify, quantify, and prioritize customers’ specific value drivers, and enable them to formulate and communicate high value solutions across the buyer’s organization in order to clearly differentiate their offering against the competition.
Receiving a big order is confirmation that the sales team has successfully established its solution as offering superior value versus the alternative competitive options. This is no time to weaken your value proposition with a bush league “thank you”. Receipt of the order means that it’s time to proactively manage your customer’s post purchase evaluation phase. A strong competitor is not going to go down without a fight, and purchase orders have been known to be withdrawn after their award for a variety of reasons. Receipt of the purchase order means it’s time to reconfirm to all of the important buying influencers that their decision was the correct one. Saying ‘thank you’ serves virtually no purpose towards this objective, and will more likely plant seeds of doubt about their decision.
Send your customer a message that successful execution of this project is a top priority to your organization, and that it will be planned and executed in a manner that exceeds the expectations of the customer. Be careful not to open any cans of worms that may potentially cause doubt, but be thorough in communicating that your organization has a solid plan to execute and deliver.
While it is certainly acceptable, and generally expected, to send an order confirmation, the confirmation should convey the message; “We look forward to working together with you to ensure the successful execution of this very important project,” versus “We would like to thank you for your business.” Below is a sample listing of some key activities you can initiate to solidify your position and competitor-proof your Purchase Order.
- Provide your customer with a Point/Counterpoint Table illustrating the customer’s key issues and how your offering will successfully address each;
- Initiate an internal project kickoff meeting to ensure that your organization is prepared to deliver 100% customer satisfaction;
- Submit a detailed production, service, installation schedule that illustrates how your solution will meet the customer’s key milestones;
- Initiate a joint production kickoff meeting with your customer and the key influencers in the decision;
- Develop a joint project communication protocol and milestone update schedule that highlights the collaborative teaming nature of the project;
Yes, receiving a six, seven, or even an eight figure purchase order is a milestone that deserves celebration. It may have taken you and your team months to secure such an order. But don’t put such a huge win at risk by letting down your guard. In today’s highly competitive business environment, receipt of the purchase order doesn’t signify the end of the race. It represents the beginning of a joint collaboration between your company and your customer’s team to successfully execute and deliver a complex high value solution that will solidify your long-range organizational relationship.
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This article was originally posted on the Sales Racehorses blog.
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Turning Customer Complaints into Productive Communication
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on September 10, 2012
Fielding complaints is often considered the most difficult and least enjoyable part of a career in Sales and the Customer Service profession. However, in their book Complaint Management: The Heart of CRM, Bernd Stauss and Wolfgang Seidel assert that it is also the most important element for any successful business. The authors found that effectively handling complaints doesn’t just keep a company from losing customers – it actually builds happier, more loyal customers. In short, someone who lodges a complaint and walks away satisfied becomes a better customer than those people who keep their gripes to themselves.
Dealing with a fired-up, dissatisfied customer doesn’t have to be a nightmare. In fact, when handled with skill and understanding, these interactions can be rewarding experiences, both personally and professionally. Here’s some advice to keep in mind to help you keep things positive;
It’s Not Personal – anger is an off-putting emotion. It pushes the recipient to respond in kind and leap to a defensive position before launching a counterattack. Customer service professionals know better. They step back and assess the situation. What do angry people need? First and foremost, they need to blow off steam. They need to feel they have the listener’s attention, that they are being heard and understood. They are not angry with an employee; they are angry with the product or service that has failed to meet their expectations.
During this initial phase, it is important to give affirming verbal cues. If the customer is lodging a complaint in person, the recipient’s body language should be open, understanding and earnest. As is often the case in any business interaction, keeping quiet is probably wise at this stage of the game. In the best-case scenario, the customer will talk himself/herself through the problem and may even reach a solution that works for all parties involved.
Work to Understand – effectively managing a complaint is dependent upon accurate and insightful fact-finding early in the conversation. Asking the right questions shows the customer that the company’s representative is anxious to resolve the problem. It also should elicit feedback that will help the company improve its product and process. As Stauss and Seidel make clear, there are two objectives in handling a complaint: to satisfy the customer and to aggregate and report data provided from these interactions to prevent future occurrences.
Assuming the customer service professional stayed calm and listened to the content – rather than the emotion – of the complainant’s opening salvo, this step is the logical follow-up. If parts of the complaint didn’t make sense, this is the time to fill in those gaps and get a complete picture of the situation.
Genuinely Empathize – the most important aspect of customer service is taking responsibility for the customer’s experience, from initial contact to resolution. That means making a personal connection. In today’s automated, hyper-segmented business world, consumers can feel adrift in a sea of buck passers. True customer advocates are rare and valued.
As the management training company MTD Training discusses in its e-book Dealing with Conflict and Complaints, if a company has not implemented or acted on a strategic complaint management system, there is a good chance a customer service rep has dealt with the same complaint multiple times in the same day. The trick is to beat back complaint fatigue and step into the customer’s shoes. It may be just another call to you but to the person on the other end of the line, it’s a make-or-break deal that will dictate future business decisions.
Know the Corporate Culture – everyone has heard the cliché: “The customer is always right.” It sounds good but it may not be de facto policy in all companies. In order for customer service professionals to be effective, they must be familiar with the decision-making models and tools at their disposal. In general, small, up-and-coming businesses will do whatever it takes to retain a loyal customer base. In contrast, large corporations have the flexibility to undertake a more complex cost-benefit analysis, asking the question: “How much is the continued business of this customer really worth?” It sounds harsh but it may be the reality for some big businesses.
Customer service employees must understand what their supervisors expect of them and how much authority they have to resolve complaints. That way, they can steer angry customers toward officially sanctioned solutions, whether that means refunds, replacements, store credit or other perks. Ideally, managers will give their employees the autonomy to handle conflicts. Not doing so simply creates a cumbersome bureaucracy of middle management, not to mention increasingly agitated customers who are weary of demanding to “speak to a supervisor.”
Communicate Openly and Follow Up Often – again, it’s all a matter of taking responsibility for a customer’s dissatisfaction to ensure they feel they have a trusted friend on the inside. If the complaint and proposed resolution are complex and require a supervisor’s approval, it is vital to stay in frequent contact with the customer and provide status updates. If the matter is simpler, a quick synopsis of the plan of correction should suffice, with a follow-up call to ensure all went as expected.
Successfully defusing an explosive situation can provide a feeling of great accomplishment. In many ways, customer service professionals are the frontline heroes of the business world. Not only do they keep customers satisfied and coming back for more, they provide the rest of the company with crucial data necessary to improve operations and increase the all-important bottom-line.
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This article was originally posted on the CustomerThink Blog on August 9, 2012.
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