Jim Keenan is a Senior Sales Executive, Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 Connector, an Entrepreneur still trying to get it right, and a PSIA Certified Ski Instructor for Vail Resorts. Husband to Big E and father to four great kids. In a nut shell, I'm a Sales Guy. Life is good!
Yesterday was Groundhog Day and the little guy saw his shadow. Therefore; it means we have 6 more weeks of winter. I think.
As a kid this made no sense to me. It was confusing as hell, actually. To me, the logic was backward. If the groundhog saw his shadow, it meant the sun was out. If the sun was out, it was warm. If it was warm, spring must be close.
From my point of view, being from Boston, it was cloudy and cold all winter and sunny and warm in the spring. Therefore, the idea that seeing his shadow (made possible by the sun) meant spring was further away was backward.
Selling is similar. Often what makes complete and logical sense to us, is the complete opposite of how the customer sees it. We need to make sure we understand how are customers are looking at the problem. Their point of view my draw very different conclusions.
Don’t be quick to assume your customer is following what you’re saying, they maybe just as confused as I am with Groundhogs Day.
Can anyone explain to me why if he sees his shadow, spring is further away? I still don’t get it.
Customer service is an attitude not a check list. Just because we offer to help, say thank you, return the food, provide a refund or fix the problem doesn’t mean we’ve provided customer service.
People want to be acknowledged. People want to be heard. They want to believe you understand them and their situation. Customer services is the connection between you and your customer. It’s the emotional engagement. Check lists can’t create emotion.
Training your employees to say thank you, have a nice day, or how can I help you, isn’t customer service. Creating automatic return policies or having a good refund process isn’t good customer service either.
Taking back a broken toy with a bad attitude only makes the problem worse. Getting a customer who didn’t like their food a different meal with a sarcastic attitude just makes the customer more angry.
The problem is no response will solve the problem without genuine acknowledgment and a positive attitude. The problem created a negative emotional response. To fix you need to create a positive emotional response. A smile, acknowledgment, and a genuine connection to your customers is where your customer service starts.
Customer service is like any type of relationship. People want to be heard, they want to be validated.
To provide good customer service don’t create checklists. Don’t teach your employees what to say. Get them to emotionally connect and that starts with a genuine smile and acknowledgment of their feelings.
My friend Seth Levine of the Foundry Group is flying to DC today. He’s flying to DC, laying over for 47 min. then flying home. No work, no family visits, no vacation, no luggage, nothing. He’s flying to DC and back to get his 1K status on United.
He’s paying approximately $400 dollars and spending his day on a plane to get United rewards. If you travel, getting to 1K is absolutely worth it. I’d say this is a good investment on his part.
I fly United because of their frequent flier program. They are the main carrier in Denver. I travel 50K to 75K miles a year (haven’t hit 1K yet). I will pay a bit more to fly United to get my points. It takes a lot for me to go with another carrier. United’s frequent flier program is sticky.
I get inundated with special customer deals all the time. But, the truth is they rarely have substance. They are not compelling and do nothing to get me to alter my behavior.
If you have a rewards program, make it worth something. Don’t insult your best customers with an additional 5% off. Don’t create a program that looks like a state fair carnival game, where your “best customers” spend $10,000 bucks and get enough points for a free $250 I-Pod.
If they are your best customers, treat them that way. Create a program where they will spend money they don’t have to just to be a part of it.
Seth’s on a plane right now, the day after Christmas. He doesn’t have to be. He wants to be, that’s how good United’s 1K program is.
Last year Vail and Beaver Creek started using RF scanners to check lift tickets and passes in line. I like the idea because it improves the customer experience. The RF Scanners allows lift tickets and passes to be scanned through ski jackets and clothing. It’s convenient not having to dig through your clothes looking for your pass to be scanned. Faster lift lines and less hassle in the line improves the customer experience.
It’s a good differentiator. But does it have an ROI (Return on Investment?)
I found myself asking this question after being scanned through my big puffy jacket. I can’t imagine replacing the existing scanning system with RF scanners could produce a compelling ROI. Lift lines don’t create revenue, the tickets have been purchased. The time in line, may be shortened, but not enough so that skiers would notice. So, how does a decision like this get made without a compelling ROI?
I have been part more of than my share of new idea discussions. Almost every discussion turns to ROI. It’s a fair question. An investment requires a return on that investment. The problem is, in most cases, it’s how ROI is calculated that is the problem. Far too often, companies look to calculate an immediate return. If we invest in the scanners, how much money will we make on that investment. I think this is the wrong way to look at it. I’ve watched too many great customer experience, customer focused ideas go down the crapper because a measurable ROI can’t be calculated.
Companies need to consider calculating ROI differently when it comes to customer service, customer engagement and other types of experienced based investments. They should consider aggregating a number of customer experience projects into one ROI calculation. For example, rather than trying to calculate ROI on one investment, create a budget of a number of customer experience projects and calculate a ROI on the collection of efforts. Customer service is rarely experienced via one engagement but by the collective experience. It should be measured and invested in the same way.
Does Vail and Beaver Creeks RF Scanner system create a strong ROI all by itself? I doubt it. However, when combined with the skiable terrain, the abundance of high-speed lifts, the back bowls, the outstanding service, the world class ski school it absolutely does. Vail and Beaver Creek are two of the best and most prestigious ski resorts in the world. They got this way because of decisions like putting in RF scanners
When it comes to customer experience and engagement ROI isn’t always an easy calculation. But that shouldn’t keep you from doing it. Your customers don’t care about your ROI, they care about what they get for THEIR dollar and it’s more than being scanned through their ski clothes.
I had lunch at the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort and Spa yesterday. I had a philly and a Diet Coke. It was a pretty uneventful lunch. It was just me. I played on my I-Phone and relaxed.
The problem came when I got my bill. It was 12 dollars. I gave the waitress my credit card and when she returned I noticed the above. The tip, “gratuity” was included.
It was just me. It was a $12.00 dollar lunch. It wasn’t a party of 6, with a 150 dollar bill.
Tipping in the United States is optional. Automatically including the tip is foolish on Marriott’s part. It does nothing to improve the customers experience. It provides no additional value. It doesn’t improve service, (I’d actually suggest it makes it worse, because the staff isn’t incented to do a better job). This is simply a self-serving policy.
Sometimes companies can’t get out of their own way. They get too internally focused and compromise customer relationships for their own internal needs. I don’t like this. It’s deceitful.
Don’t force your customers to give you money, give them reasons to want to. Good reasons are sustainable, force is not.
That doesn’t surprise me. Pizza Hut has made it fun and easy to do business with them. It’s not the technology, it’s the fact that Pizza Hut has given its customers an easy, fun way to buy.
Tear down the barriers, be connected to your customers and make it easy to business with you. If you do you’ll sell more stuff.
During the past few decades, making it easy to do business with you meant getting a good, easily accessible, location. It was extra staff so no one had to wait in line. It was a cool, easy to remember phone number, like “303-8-stuffed.” It was home delivery. Making it easy to do business with you today is putting your customer in control. Making sure they have the information they need, in the format they want, using the devices they use.
This story is not about ROI. It’s not about technology. It’s not about web 2.0 or mobile applications. It’s about making it easy for your customers to do business with you.
If you want to sell more don’t over complicate it. Create a great product, listen to your customers and just make it easy to buy. It’s simple.
There are two types of sales organizations. There is the sales business and then their is the sales team. They are similar in that they both are responsible for driving revenue. After that, there isn’t much more commonality. The difference is sales teams are driven by their needs. Sales Business is focused on the customer.
Sales Teams ask;
When are you going to close the deal?
Can you sell them more?
Can you bring that into this quarter?
What else can we sell them?
What if you cut them a deal, will they buy today?
Sales Teams Focus on;
The short-term
Their quota
The transaction
The product
Themselves and their company
Getting to yes
Winning and losing
The chase, the competition
What’s in it for them
Sales Businesses Ask:
What are you trying to accomplish?
What do you need to be successful?
How will the customer benefit?
Can we provide more value?
How does this help?
Why?
Sales Businesses Focus on;
The long-term
The market and industry trends
The solution
The deal
The customers business
The relationship
The outcome
The business
What’s in it for the customer
Sales teams are about the transaction. They are motivated by the money and what they get. Sales teams are rarely around after the sale. They ignore the data, if it doesn’t help their cause. Sales teams can drive a lot of revenue but often leave a big wake while doing so.
Sales businesses are about the solution. They are driven by the outcome. They measure their success on the benefit the customer received. They allow information to guide the sale, and bet on the long term. Sales businesses drive a lot of revenue, but they also drive a lot of business.
We’re renting an apartment in Beaver Creek. It’s a two bedroom on the ground level. It’s great for a young couple or two friends. It’s close to downtown, it’s a decent size and utilities and cable are included. It’s not a good place for families. It’s just not set up well for a family. So when we get calls on the place, I qualify the inquiry. I ask them what they are looking for. How many people will be sharing the unit, do they have pets, where they work etc. I want to understand as best I can who they are, what their expectations are and how they use their primary residence. If they mention they are a family, or looking to start a family I let them know I don’t think the place is for them.
We don’t have a problem renting to families. We just know the apartment is not conducive to kids. There is no formal sitting area, it’s on a busy street, it’s garden level and therefore doesn’t get much sunlight. It’s just not conducive to families. If they want to see it, regardless, I’m always willing to show it to them. What I don’t want to do is waste their time. The few times we have shown it to a family, they’ve agreed. It’s a cute place, just not for them.
In sales, there are times when your product or service isn’t a fit. Do you tell this to the customer? Do you let your customer know when a product or service won’t deliver what they need or are looking for? Do you give them more information to help them better understand what it is they are getting? Do you warn them against making the decision. If you don’t have what they need do you steer them to a competitor who does? You should!
Selling something your customer doesn’t need does no one any favors. Your customer will be unhappy. You will spend more on customer service. They won’t buy from you again and they will tell others how bad you are. It takes guts as a sales person to tell a customer your product isn’t what they are looking for. If you are a true trusted adviser, that is exactly what you should do. Sales isn’t about giving people what they want, it’s about helping them understand what they need.
We let families know our place isn’t a good fit up front. We let them know we’d be happy to show it but for reasons X,Y,Z it probably isn’t a good fit. When we do this they are extremely thankful for our honesty and for not wasting their time trying to sell them on something that clearly won’t work.
Don’t waste your time or your customer’s time selling them something that doesn’t fit.
We don’t control very much in the world of sales. We like to think we do. We build neat little sales processes. We have weekly, monthly and quarterly business reviews. We make commitments to the sales managers, to the executives and to the shareholders about how much we are going to sell and by when. We build fancy reports to show we have things under control. But we don’t We like to think sales can be controlled. It can’t.
We can’t control when our customers will buy. We can’t control how much they’ll buy. We can’t control who they’ll buy from. We can’t control what they’ll buy and why they’ll buy it. There is not much we can control in sales.
What we can do is influence. We can deliver “best in class” customer service to influnce them. We can create innovative, easy to use, products that deliver exceptional value. We can be easy to do business with. We can give away our products to our best customers. We can be responsive. We can listen. We can make our customers our number one priority.
We can’t control very much in the world of sales but we CAN influence a whole lot of things.
To get the results you want, focus on what you can influence, not what you can’t control.
The customer is not always right. Customers are wrong. They don’t always ask for reasonable things. Most of your customers are not invested in your success. Most of your customers look at you as a one way street. What can they get from you?
Just because a customer is upset, frustrated and wanting blood, doesn’t mean you have to jump. You don’t have to kiss your customers ass.
What you do have to do is listen, understand, ask questions and respond.
Respond in a manner that meets the needs of your customer. Respond in a manner meant to resolve an issue fairly and demonstrates commitment and loyalty. Respond to your customers needs. Respond in a way that is consistent with your brand. Respond with confidence.
Don’t kiss your customers ass. Don’t bend to unreasonable demands just to demonstrate they are important to you, because they’re not. Any customer with unreasonable demands is no customer worth having. Customer relationships, are just that relationships and any relationship that relies on unreasonable demands is an unhealthy relationship.
Any shrink will tell you, unhealthy relationships is no relationship at all. It’s never healthy to kiss anyone’s ass, period.
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