#CustServ Chat Topic: “I have a customer service issue, and need help”.

I have been fairly active on Twitter for the last couple of years. I have met gurus in areas from fishing to leadership to sales to customer service. I have spent the majority of my time within the customer service area, and have suggested the following topic for this week’s chat:

“I have this #custserv management issue, and need help.”

Purpose of this chat: To provide a common meeting place for Customer Service leaders to share their challenges and connect with those that have the background and expertise to help them work through them.

Who can benefit from this chat?
1. A customer service leader needing help developing or executing on a critical strategy.
2. A customer service leader that has the strategic vision for a group, yet would benefit from outside perspective.
3. A customer service leader that does not have a mentor, but feels he/she would benefit from one.
4. A front-line customer service representative seeking help to move forward within his/her organization.
5. An author or consultant seeking deeper insight the practical application of customer service strategy.

Philosophy vs. Strategy vs. Tactics
Why this topic? The answer is both simple and complex. One trait of Twitter chats that I find frustrating is the lack of deep engagement that happens. Twitter chats are typically 1 hour of fast and furious tweeting. It is my opinion that the pace of a Twitter chat is not conducive to “real” engagement. Many of the posts end up as catchy quotable re-tweets that do little more than encapsulate an extremely broad philosophy rather than an actionable strategy or tactic. I think this topic gives all of us an opportunity to go beyond the philosophical soapboxes we tend to preach from and seek deeper (and more meaningful) engagement.

I’d like to see this chat result in more meaningful connections. Mentors found, offline discussions scheduled, issues analyzed, problems solved.

What will make this chat a success?
In my mind there are three things that must happen for this chat to be a success:
1. Participants must be willing to outline their challenges and ask for help.
2. Participants must be willing to volunteer their TIME by actively engaging outside of Twitter.
3. If people come armed with their issues, everyone must accept that the issues raised cannot be solved in the chat. The real success is not everyone solving every issue, but at least one “expert” offering to solve issue outside of chat.

Will the chat unfold this way? Probably not, however regardless of the path it follows, it should be an interesting hour.

Trey Pennington

The Social Media world has been buzzing over the last couple of days after the sad news of Trey Pennington’s death. I won’t pretend to have known him personally, but would like to simply say the following:

I would like to offer my sincere condolences to his family and all those that considered him a true friend. I hope he has found peace.

Top 25 Most Influential in Customer Service – (by Mindtouch)

I’m normally not the “self promotion” type of person, however something happened this week that I’m very proud of…so I’m making an exception. Mindtouch (Mindtouch.com) conducted a “Most Influential” poll focused on those in the field of Customer Service. I was proud of two things when the results were announced. First, I consider many of the those voted into the Top 25 as not only people I know, but professionals that I get to interact with on a deep level on a regular basis. Second, I actually made the list!

If you work in a customer facing role (service, sales, leadership, etc) I wholeheartedly suggest you begin to follow and interact with each person on the list below. I guarantee they will challenge your beliefs, share valuable expertise, and push you to improve your game. The list consists of best selling authors, such as Marsha Collier, Social Media leaders such as Tristan Bishop, top minds in leadership such as Ted Coine, and outstanding front-line Service Pros such as Jay Baron. A link to the article is HERE . An image of the final poll results is below.

Congratulations to all. I appreciate each of you for sharing your experiences. I know my career has been greatly enhanced by each of you. Thanks to everyone that voted for me, it’s both humbling and an honor.

Customer Service & the C-Suite

A fairly common topic on Twitter is the lack of focus on customer service from the C-Suite. In most cases the customer service professionals come to a conclusion similar to the following:

“The C-Suite just doesn’t get how important customer satisfaction is to the business, and needs to be more customer focused.”

Before I dive totally into this one I need to stress one thing. Whether you work in a for-profit company, government agency, or a non-profit organization, you work for an organization that is focused on money. It is the job of every member of the C-Suite to maximize the ROI of their areas of responsibility. If the C-level execs do not “get it”, it’s because the customer service leaders haven’t presented customer service in a meaningful way. If you want customer service to be elevated in the minds of C-level execs you need to frame the business in ROI. And, despite all the debates flying around Twitter about “How to calculate ROI”, it’s very simple. You need to show how much NET PROFIT is attributable to your customer service division.

Do you really believe higher customer satisfaction is important? Then prove it. Take an in-depth look at your customer service department and identify those metrics that directly impact the profit or loss of your operation. Start collecting the data that will allow you to continuously monitor the ROI of your division and report the results directly to the organization’s Executive team. If appropriate to your business keep close track of such metrics as:

• Product Return Rates (PRR)
• Product Return Rates after initial return request was mitigated (Return Anyway Rate or RAR)
• Life-time Value of a Customer (LTV)
• Life-time Value of a Customer that interacted with customer service (CSLTV)
• Upsell Rates (UR)
• Upsell Profit (UP)
• Client Turnover Rate (CTR)
• Client Retention Rate (CRR)
• Client Referral Rate (CLRR)
• Client Referrer Life-time Value (CRLTV)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The metrics above are by no means all inclusive, however they should help you to frame out your path to calculating (and reporting) ROI. Once in place these metrics will allow you to focus on those areas of your business that most directly impacts the organizations profits and losses.

Just imagine a weekly report to the C-Suite that quantifies your division’s contribution on total corporate profitability. Now imagine how much easier it will be to get approval for more staff, better training, CSR appreciation activities, or in these economic times…division raises for staff.

So, a couple of questions for you… Do you know what the ROI is on each member of your staff? If not, do you think you will find out?

How Valuable are Customer “Saves”?

This topic is direct from Twitter conversations, and particularly in response to @MarshaCollier ‘s tweet:

The response garnered many re-tweets, and quickly sparked a conversation about how “saves” are MORE important than sales; however…is it a true statement? At this point I know many people are screaming “of course you idiot!” but let me ask you this: Can you prove it for your company?

I ask this question for a simple reason. I often see customer service professionals touting the importance of retaining customers and quoting the increased costs of acquiring a new one. The most popular quote I have seen follows:

“The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times that of retaining an existing one.”

Do you know the source of this quote? Is it even valid for your organization? After I tell you the source you may suddenly find your company’s ratio may differ significantly. It could be cheaper to acquire a customer, or it could be 100 times more expensive. The following explanation comes from William H. Bleuel.

“Once again, John Goodman gives us the history. They studied new auto customers and found that there was a cost of $375 in advertising for each auto sold. Since the company had a 50% base of loyal customers, the actual advertising cost to acquire a new customer was actually $750 per auto sold. The goodwill expense to retain a customer was $150. Hence the ratio of cost to acquire a new customer versus the cost to retain a customer was 5 to 1.”

If you are not familiar with John Goodman, he is widely considered one of the founding minds behind Customer Experience Management, and is the current Vice Chairman of TARP. I recommend reading the entire article by Dr. Bleuel Click Here to gain incredible insight into some of the most popular statistics surrounding customer management.

In any event, the 5 to 1 ratio comes from a TARP study published in 1999. Not exactly timely data, however even more concerning is the limited scope of the study. How many industries mirror that of the auto industry? I know my industry doesn’t. What about industries that cater to relational service compared to transactional? Acquisition costs for customers are certainly not a cookie-cutter metric to apply universally. So what do you do?

Find out exactly what it costs to acquire your customers. Find out costs by channel and segment and campaign. But don’t stop there. Find out the Lifetime Value of your customers. Factor in everything you can. Return rates, cancelation rates, follow-on purchases, default rates, collection rates, shipping costs, product costs, media costs….you get the picture. Once you have a solid grasp on the Lifetime value of a customer, compare this to the adjusted Lifetime Value of the “saved” customer.

From there you can now easily determine the proper ratio to use FOR YOUR COMPANY. You will know with absolute certainty not only whether it is more valuable to save a customer but how much more (or less) valuable it is.

It is not easy to get your Lifetime Value however the insight into your business is invaluable. You will find it much easier (and faster) to develop strategic plans and will have a strong metric to utilize in your project selection process.

I believe the spirit of the 5 to 1 ratio given to us by John Goodman really helps to highlight the importance of customer service, however I know the ratio itself is entirely inaccurate for many businesses. So what do you think? Is the 5 to 1 ratio relevant to your business?

Brand Consistency in a Contact Center

Brand consistency matters in business. (As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts). Marketing departments spend millions of dollars developing a brand image that sells and differentiates your products and services from those of your competitors. The brand strategy is developed in order to maximize customer conversions, yet too many Contact Centers fall short on delivering service that is consistent with this strategy.

Throughout my years working in the customer contact profession I have seen customer service and sales strategies that are developed independent to the overall corporate branding strategy. As a Contact Center leader it is your job to ensure everything you do within your center leverages the investment made by your organization’s marketing department. You will find the consistency in messaging and approach builds trust with customers and prospects, and ultimately your center will drive more profit for your organization.

Are you Consistent?

If you are not sure whether your service and sales organizations are delivering a consistent experience for customers and prospects, ask yourself the following questions.

· How would marketing define our brand?
· How would the Contact Center define the brand?
· Is the Contact Center leveraging the major themes of the brand?
· Where does the Contact Center deviate from the brand messaging?
· What are the selling points of our organization that marketing and advertising leverage?
· Is the Contact Center leveraging the same themes?

There are certainly more questions to pose to determine whether the Contact Center is aligned with corporate branding, however the questions above will give you a start. After asking yourself those questions, do you feel your Contact Center is taking advantage of the brand marketing? If not (or if you are not sure) you have some work to do.

If you are not aligned…

If you find a gap between your Contact Center strategy and brand image there are a few things you can do to get on-track.

· Talk to the VP of Marketing and ask who the best contacts are to determine the gaps in customer experience.
· Schedule a meeting to determine where the gaps are, and be prepared to share any scripts or playbooks with Marketing.
· Find out who the target demographic is for marketing.
· Ask what purchase triggers are being targeted in order to build brand awareness and reputation.
· Ask Marketing to tell you the 5 things about the Contact Center that inhibits their campaigns.
· Have Marketing outline their “wish list” for Contact Center customer experience

Once you have this information in-hand you can now begin to determine where the Contact Center can close the gap with Marketing. Create action plans and begin to transform your delivery of brand messaging.

How to Avoid future Gaps…

Once you believe the gaps between Marketing and Contact Center are closed you should set an ongoing process for communicating with the key players of the Marketing department. When new campaigns are developed you should ask for a preview in order to develop new playbooks or scripts. Ask the following questions to help you design your approach to new campaigns:

· What specific demographic are you targeting?
· What purchase triggers are you targeting in these ads?
· What is the overall experience you want to provide in your advertisements?
· How does this new campaign differ from previous campaigns?
· How does this campaign differentiate our products from our competitors?
· What are the goals of this campaign? (Conversion rate, Lifetime Value, return rates, default rates, cancellations)
· What do you need from the Contact Center in order to ensure success? (Focus on measurable outcomes!)

After going through these questions its time to get to work. Develop a customer experience that will be consistent with the brand messaging of marketing. Create your metrics dashboard and share the goals and expectations with your crew. Make each and every member of the Contact Center accountable for meeting and exceeding the expectations of Marketing.

How to exceed Goals?

There are several ways to help maximize your chances of exceeding the goals for a Marketing campaign. A few include:

· Developing metrics and goals for individuals, teams, department, and division.
· Establishing an expectation of rep involvement in the creation and “tweaking” of campaign messaging. (Playbooks, etc)
· Soliciting regular feedback on the success/opportunities of tactics.
· Creating competition within the Contact Center on the individual and team level.
· Celebrating successes of individual and teams.
· Providing regular and targeted feedback to representatives.
· *Offering incentives for performance

*Note: Be very careful about implementing incentives for performance. Some studies indicate the presence of incentives can be detrimental to the success of a Contact Center. (Although I have documented success utilizing incentive strategies I can attest to the challenge of maintaining incentive-based performance over the long-term)

Summary:

Brand consistency can result in huge returns for your Contact Center, and organization. Smart leaders understand the analytics behind marketing and seek every opportunity to leverage their research and develop brand consistency. When the opportunity to work with Marketing arises I suggest you take advantage and work hand-in-hand to support their initiatives. At best you will see a significant increase in profitability of the Contact Center, and at worst you will gain valuable insight into the performance of your center. I would suggest, however, you will be gaining both!

Social Media? Are you truly ready?

The latest and greatest buzz-phrase surrounding contact centers is “Social Media”. I’m amazed by the number of gurus that have come crawling out of the woodwork over the last several years. Here are some quotes I have read from various message-boards and publications:

· Like it or not, social media is here and its here to stay.
· The success of your business rests on your social media strategy.
· Social media is the most important issue facing contact centers today.
· We’ve swung all of our strategic efforts toward social media.

So I get it. Social media certainly shows the potential for better service and customer experience. The problem is most of the companies touting social media have not achieved service excellence through more traditional channels. What about phones, email, and chat? In 2 of the 4 quotes above the companies being referenced have what I would consider poor service through phone and email. I have not utilized the chat for either simply because they do not offer it.

My Perspective on Social Media

Social media is a potentially game-changing medium for customer communication. With the wide exposure of tweets and posts, social media exposes any company to significant risk. At the same time it offers a great deal of potential for positive press as well. But, before you swing all of your efforts toward social media I would suggest getting your Contact Center “house” in order. For some companies it’s a bit like a person buying a $500 car with a blown transmission and installing $3000 rims and a $2000 stereo system. Yeah, it makes it look good and sound good, but in the end you aren’t going anywhere.

What do I propose if you MUST get into Social Media?

· Take a look at your business model and accelerate your non-social media improvements. If you want to get involved in this new medium you need to optimize those other mediums first.
· Assess the risk and reward of launching a social media program. I suggest concentrating on one social media platform to start. If you want to utilize Twitter, go to search.twitter.com and set a schedule to search relevant keywords. This will give you a sense of your company’s current popularity on Twitter. You will also gain insight into the tenor of the tweets.
· Analyze the content of any content regarding your company and determine what types of customer issues are most popular. (use the 80/20 rule!)
· Thoroughly analyze the social media strategies of other companies in your industry. Compare these strategies to the more popular companies utilizing social media. Are the companies in your industry experiencing positive or negative results? What types of social media content do they deal with on a daily basis? What backlash have they experienced?
· Develop a clear achievable social media strategy before creating accounts and communicating with customers. It is critical to attach a P&L to this new channel, and manage the channel profitably.

These bullet points should help you to get started, however I want to revisit my original point for a moment. If you have not optimized the existing channels in your contact center, you need to concentrate on them before dedicating all of your resources to social media. I have yet to encounter any organization that handles the majority of their customer issues through social media. Incidentally some of the biggest names in social media service route social media discussions to their phone or email departments. What good is it to route a social media user to the phone group if they can’t pick up the phone quickly, and have achieved poor results in the past?

Social Media has killed Profits!

I will admit I do not have actual statistics to back this statement up. Anecdotally I can tell you I have yet to discuss social media with a “guru” that doesn’t take the “Give the customer whatever they want” approach. I cringe at the potential loss of revenue that results from this type of practice. It seems more like opening the floodgates to the company bank accounts rather than providing great service.

As social media expands this type of approach cannot be sustained. Corporations are in business to make money, and the “give the customer whatever they want” approach is the same one that has given contact centers the reputation for being debt-centers. This approach is neither strategic nor effective. Run your center like a business, not a government agency.

Summary

Don’t ignore the rise of social media, but don’t get too caught up in it either. Sit back and analyze your individual company’s situation and forecast the potential profits and increases in customer satisfaction before launching the channel. And please, make sure your traditional contact channels are in order first!

Relational Selling – Why it works

Pre-Note: This is written about hypothetical situation. I use an example regarding a recruiter and outline particular needs I have. These are not true needs for me at this time, it is for illustration of a point only.

Throughout the course of my career I have been contacted hundreds of times by outside sales representatives that claimed to have solutions for my every want and need. I have also had the opportunity to both sell and lead outside sales. During this time I have came to realize one poignant fact. Effective sales people stand out from the crowd because they build relationships.

These sales professionals don’t try to make people buy what they want to sell. They sell what the people need to buy! Often times they employ either the information dump sales tactic where they try to overwhelm you with features (a method of selling that went out of style in the early 1980s) or they try to become your friend. I’ll start by saying those employing an information dump will not get my business. As for the “Wannabe friends”, I’m not saying I don’t enjoy meeting and getting to know new people. There is another issue at play.

My issue lies in time management. Just think for a moment… as a successful professional how much spare time do you have in your day? How much time are you able to dedicate between 8am and 7pm to your friends? If you are like me that question is very simple to answer. Not much if any! As a matter of fact, at work a colleague and I have an odd sort of daily ritual. It goes something like this:

Colleague: “What do you have on your calendar for today?”

Me: “This morning I am working on the XYZ project, then have a meeting with so and so, followed immediately by a project retrospective for the Super-Big Important Project. This afternoon I’m going back to back to back with meetings for Sales, Retention, and collections. That will take me to about 5:15pm, but I also have to work in some time for the Not so Super Big Important Project and meet with these other two colleagues. How about you?”

At this point she launches into an equally packed daily agenda (albeit typically more organized than mine!), and we conclude with a collective deep breath as we plunge headfirst into our days. That’s our ritual. Perhaps it’s a bit of an odd story but it does illustrate the basis of my basic point.

I don’t have the time…

Now take the daily schedule above and add a few contacts from sales professionals. I have already outlined my lack of available time, so when I speak with a sales rep that spends more time trying to get to know me as a person rather than spending time getting to know my needs I quickly terminate that relationship. The reason is simple. The sales process is like a dating relationship and I just don’t have time to get to know about your kids (although I’m sure they ARE the cutest in the world) and I don’t have desire to “break-up” with you later. I may as well save us both the heartache and pain down the road by breaking it off now.

So what do you cultivate a sales relationship?

This answer is fairly simple. Concentrate on the needs that I have. Just because you have saved one client thousands of dollars does not mean you can save ME thousands of dollars. If you represent a staffing firm don’t come to me telling me my ROI calculation was flawed when I decided to hire an internal recruiter. I know what my ROI is and I know the myriad of responsibilities our recruiter has that I would never outsource. So don’t try to replace her, find out what you can do to support her.

Ask targeted questions and when you encounter a real need, zero-in on that and create value for yourself. For example, instead of telling me how much money I’ll save by hiring your firm to fulfill all of my recruiting needs ask the following questions:

· Do you foresee any periods of rapid growth or high turnover where we might be able to supplement your candidate pool?
· Are you growing as a division of your company?
· With the growth you are experiencing, are you adding new positions to your organizational structure?
· Have you fully fleshed-out the requirements for each new role you are planning to add to your business?
· Do you find it difficult to obtain competitive information around these new roles?

After asking a few of these questions (and hopefully many more) go right into your close. You could take a thousand different directions with the information you learn but one close could be:

“I understand you have your internal recruiter in place and have no interest in replacing her role with an outside agency. At this time that obviously makes sense for you. What I can do is offer support and resources for this divisional expansion you anticipate. We have a wealth of data available to help you quickly work through the creation of roles profiles for the new positions you plan to add to your group in th enext year. How about if we set up a time to discuss what I can offer to you and schedule a face-to-face meeting sometime in the next week?”

This approach does a few things that will pay dividends to the sales person in the future. While it doesn’t attain the primary objective of selling full staffing services on the spot, it does do the following:

· It fosters trust and mutual respect with the prospect. – You acknowledged my decision to hire an internal recruiter was correct, and you offered to support that decision and help ensure the overall success of it.
· You got your foot in the door – If you had simply focused on getting my recruiting business I would have hung up the phone, but by focusing on a real need for my business you have differentiated yourself from your competition and laid the foundation for an ongoing professional relationship.
· You have now positioned yourself ahead of your competition- If I am ever in need of staffing services your name will now be at the top of the list. After all, if you obtain a contract to support our role creation process you will already have an insight into the type of organization we are building.

By focusing on ME you have created a significant amount of value for yourself and your organization. Our contact quickly evolved from a cold call to a budding professional relationship. That is your goal! I fully understand the desire for immediate sales and commissions, but I can tell you I have made a lot more money by developing solid long-term relationships than I have with one-off sales. If you are in sales, try this approach. Develop a list of questions that can help you to build value for the prospect. Look at your company’s services and products and be prepared to ask targeted questions that will lead you to a solution for every possible prospect need.

Lastly, just a reminder….as I stated in the beginning of this blog, the example above regarding the recruiter is JUST A HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE to illustrate a point. I honestly have no need for an outsourced recruiting agency or support defining future roles. If you are going to contact me from a recruiting agency you’ll need to go down a different path.

The Maturation of Customer Interactions – Gone are the days of talking about the weather…

I remember when I began my career in a call center. It was (and still is) a company renowned for it’s customer focus and customer service. It is the company where I “grew up” professionally and deserves much of the credit for the positive impact I’ve been able to bring to positions I have held since moving on with my career in 2004.

When I began my career in customer contact/sales I started as a temporary associate with The Vanguard Group. I accepted a permanent position while still working to complete my degree and had no idea what it really meant to work in a call center. I paid close attention to the training, and was able to perform at a very high level almost immediately following my introductory training and coaching completion.

A few weeks ago I was discussing the new-hire training curriculum within my current company and found myself comparing our current program to the one I completed almost 15 years ago. After a very short period of time I could see just how much the field of customer contact and sales has changed since my career began.

Many of the requirements for top level customer interactions were very similar (job knowledge, professionalism, etc), however one particular point has changed significantly. Quite simply, rapport and positioning. When I started as an entry-level associate in a call center I was taught to discuss the weather, or the customer’s hometown. I focused on very general topics in the hope of finding a subject I could speak knowledgably about. I remember very clearly my constant hope that I would either speak with a local customer or a sports fan. Incidentally, it can be very difficult to find someone interested to talk about sports when they called to process a $200,000 mutual fund redemption to cover a house-closing coming up in 3 hours!

So what has changed? Well, the way successful associates build rapport. In my call center, I would be engaged in very heavy coaching of any representative that approached rapport building in the way I did when I began my career. The skepticism of society has flourished over the past decade, and many customers will not hesitate to tell a representative flat-out that they have no interest in chatting about anything but the reason they called. So how do you build rapport?

Building rapport:

Building rapport in today’s sales organizations is a bit more involved. Instead of seeking to build personal relationships through discussions about “life” a representative needs to very tactfully focus the discussion on the customer’s needs. You need to get to know the reason the prospect called. You need to have a deep understanding of their needs and desires and you need to be prepared to offer them what appear to be customized solutions. How do you do this? You ask questions…strategic, targeted questions. Then you follow the question with appropriate positioning of products and services.

The Art of Questioning:

Reps need to be proactive and strategic. They need to actively seek opportunities to discuss the customer’s reason for calling. If the customer calls into a bank’s call center and expresses a need to open a new account, the typical response from a bank agent is “great, what kind of account?” Many believe this to be an effective and relevant question…and on some level it is. However, what if the agent were to say “Great, I can help you with that. Now, before I get started, can you tell me what the money for this account is being designated for? For example, is this an emergency savings fund, college investment. In other words, when you take the money out, what are you going to do with it?”

Yes, it’s a longer question, but it really gets to the core of why they called. The customer didn’t call because they wanted a new account. They called because they have a vision for their money that can be supported by opening a new account. Their primary goal isn’t to open a new account, their goal is to use that account to execute on a plan. It is this primary reason that a rep should be using to base all of her questions on. This is the customer’s purchase trigger.

What to do with a purchase trigger?

Once a rep has discovered a customer’s purchase trigger she needs to immediately begin to position products and services around that trigger. Start by reminding a person of his trigger.

“It sounds like you have an incredible vacation to Italy planned. I can certainly help you to open an account to help you save for it.”

At this point you’ve re-energized the customer. He isn’t thinking about just opening an account anymore, he’s thinking of strolling the streets of Milan with his wife. Now keep digging! You now need to uncover any additional information that may assist in positioning your products. And, since you can now show an interest in the customer’s emotional purchase trigger, he will willingly offer any information you need. In this scenario the call center rep might consider the following questions:

· “When do you plan to take this vacation?”
· “Are you going alone or are you going with someone else?”
· “How long will you be staying in Italy?”

The questions sound very personal. I would imagine many reps would hesitate to ask for such information. You may even encounter a customer that shares the same viewpoint and tells you that your questions have nothing to do with the new account. But, there’s a method behind this questioning madness. Every single question must have a direct relation to a product or service feature that will be of value to the customer. Take the questions above as an example. How can these questions be tied to product features? Imagine a prospect has been asked the questions above and now demands to know why the rep wants to know. The answers could be presented as follows:

· “When do you plan to take this vacation?” Answer: “I’m sorry you felt that was a personal question. You mentioned you are going on this vacation so I want to be sure I offer you the best solutions to help you meet your savings goals. In this case I wanted to determine whether a 1-year CD account would be most appropriate for you. Are you leaving in the next 12 months?”
· “Are you going alone or are you going with someone else?” Answer: “I want to be sure to offer you the best options for this account. I wanted to get a sense of whether an individual account or a joint account would be most appropriate for you.”
· “How long will you be staying in Italy?” Answer: “The reason for this question is fairly simple. I want to gain an understanding of how much flexibility you need in this account. Do you need to draw small amounts out over time, or will you be depleting the account rather quickly? I want to be sure the options you select will meet your needs and won’t become a source of concern while you are traveling.”

As you can see, each question was asked with a purpose. Each question lays a foundation of customer needs that a representative can build a solution for. This is the first step toward leading truly consultative sales conversations. Of course to reach true consultative selling you must go much deeper and have a much stronger focus on the customer’s needs, however this is a great first-step.

How does it come together?

In the end, the consultative process ends with the close. At this point you leverage all of the information you mined through your questioning and build value for the customer. Everything you mention should be specific to the questions and answers from your discussion. Here is one way the bank rep may close his new account call.

“Based on all of the information we’ve discussed I have put together an account that you will be very happy with. Since you are going to be in Italy for 6 weeks I wanted to be sure to provide you with an account that allows you to take small amounts of money out at any time. When you are in Milan you don’t want to be worried about having thousands of dollars hidden in a hotel room or jammed into your pocket. You also won’t want to worry about finding a bank every other day. So I have included an International Debit Card. You also mentioned you would be leaving in approximately 90 days. Because of your short lead-time I would not recommend investing any of your savings into bonds or CDs. I would suggest utilizing an account that will offer a small dividend though. In this case I have an account that will offer 2.2% APR. Lastly, because you are traveling with your daughter, I can also have a restricted debit card issued to her. This will allow her access to money in an emergency, however you can determine her daily or weekly spending allowance in advance.

This solution fits exactly the criteria you said you need and want. This account will ensure you have access to your money when you need it, and will ensure your money remains in your account and secure until you need it.”

How much would you like to transfer for your initial deposit?

It’s a long close, but it’s a personalized close that is focused on the questions and answers during the conversation (purchase triggers). It is also a close that shows an understanding of the customer needs and positions the product as a custom solution. When presented in this fashion it becomes very difficult for the customer to decline the purchase. At the very least the customer has now had a positive customer experience.

Summary:

So there it is (perhaps a bit long-winded). In the end, customer interactions have evolved. It’s no longer a shallow conversation with a nifty product feature presentation. In today’s world of customer contact you need to get to know your customers. You need to know their needs and desires and you need to properly position your offerings to meet and exceed their expectations. If you find your call center is stuck in the 1980s, I suggest developing a consultative sales/service program. Your customers will have more positive experiences and your profits will rise.

The Value of Questioning

Its no secret effective questioning is critical to both sales and service, yet agents skilled at questioning are rare. Questioning is an important part of strategic positioning. The fact of the matter is effectiveness of sales and service both are dependent upon your agents’ ability to ask effective questions.

The Questioning Strategy:

Your reps need to enter every call with full understanding of the desired outcome of each and every call. This specifically means the reps need to have a full understanding of their role within the organization. Many customer service reps think they are just supposed to help customers. Many sales reps think they are just supposed to sell as much as possible. They may be correct at a very basic level, but if their level of understanding of company KPIs is this shallow, their success will be limited. For example, do you tell your sales reps to “sell as much as possible”, or do you tell them to “find a way to sell item A on every call”? The difference between the two can be immense.

Create a Playbook:

Once the strategy is outlined its time to create an effective playbook. Let me be clear on this point. A playbook is not a script to be followed verbatim. A playbook is a guide to achieving optimal sales or service results. It provides the framework of discussions and includes key questions that can help the representative to obtain key information. The best playbooks are very focused yet flexible enough to allow representatives to leverage their personality and relationship-building skills. The days of scripted telemarketing are over. If your reps sound like a robot, you will not convert sales and you will drive customer loyalty into the ground.

Have a Back-up Plan:

There will be times where the rep is unable to convert a prospect. When this happens you better have an effective back-up plan in place for the reps to follow. Let’s say you are managing the sales center for an online outdoor retailer. For the month of April you may have a goal of selling 10,000 Penn Rod/Reel combinations in order to capitalize on the upcoming opening of trout season. Like it or not the majority of your customers will already have a rod and reel and will be searching for other items in order to prepare for the season.

If your playbook and strategy only goes into the sale of the rod/reel combinations your reps will then have to try to sell other products without the benefit of a strategic plan. In this case they usually take the “sell anything” mentality. It is highly likely they will sell whatever is “easiest” rather than what is most profitable for the company. Why not provide a list of secondary offers to be presented in the event of a failed conversion on your primary offer? By taking this extra step you not only help to maximize profitability but can create a additional sections of the playbook to ensure a more positive customer experience.

Summary:

Effective questioning can only be achieved when representatives are provided with the tools and focus to carry it out. Share your goals with them and provide them with a framework to achieve success. Never let an opportunity slip by without a plan for maximizing profitability. By preparing your representatives to deal with multiple customer situations you will not only increase your department’s effectiveness but will also increase your customer satisfaction.

5 Great Questions:

1. Can I ask what sparked your interest in this product? (great opening question to identify purchase trigger)
2. Have you ever purchased this product before? (used to gauge customer/brand loyalty)
3. What prompted you to consider our product over our competitors? (used if customer has used a competitor’s product. Also affords the opportunity to position your product’s strengths against the competitor’s weaknesses.)
4. What are your concerns about this product? (affords the rep the opportunity to hear objections and position himself as an expert)
5. What other information would you like about the product? (This is a masking question. It helps to mask the sales approach with a service question. It also serves to gain insight into possible upcoming objections during the close of the sale)