Most Sales Managers have learnt about field coverage; the sales funnel; the credit collections and sales team management But the really hardcore of success is the sales strategists mindset.
Our Multi Layered Module OPTIMUS at the higher level aims to groom sales managers into sales strategies
CUSTOMER XP is a company wide strategic initiative Performing all
these external and internal efforts proactively and intelligently will generate
and ensure long-term success for your business.
“PENNY- WISE & POUND-FOOLISH” APPROACH
The challenging economy is putting consumer companies such as airlines,
banks, and retailers in the difficult position of cutting back the service levels
that customers have come to expect in recent years. These companies are
closing retail locations, reducing hours of operation, and making do with less
staff in stores and call centers. Meanwhile, faced with rising costs, they are also increasing prices, either overtly or through fees. As a result, customer
experience research shows that satisfaction scores are reversing the upward trend of the past few years and actually dropping in a number of industries.
So it’s not surprising that most executives think compromising service levels is
a mistake.
How can consumer businesses make necessary
investments in service while
facing the pressure on revenues and costs? Our review of the companies with
the best customer service records in ten industries suggests that one key is to
minimize wasteful spending while learning to invest in the drivers of
satisfaction. Specifically, companies should challenge their beliefs about service
and test those beliefs analytically. Many will discover that long-held but
seldom-reviewed assertions about what customers really want are wrong.
Consider service levels, specifically average
time-to-answer, which is one of the most common metrics used in call centers. Service levels—often based on
regulation or historical precedent—are set by call-center managers and then
used to calculate staffing requirements. But service levels are challenging to
maintain and costly to improve: raising them by 10 percent requires much more than a 10 percent increase in staff.
You can see this happening today with cellular and
phone service providers. It seems that every week there is a new deal available
to people whom are willing to switch phone plans. Customer loyalty crumbles as
customers chase the next best deal. To counter a similar trend, one insurance
brokerage firm took bold action when they saw term life insurance rates
decrease significantly over recent years. They decided to contact every
customer who had a term policy with them and let those customers know that they
could obtain more dollar coverage or increased term length for the same monthly
investment. Customers were ecstatic. As a result, company insurance policy
sales went up because the goodwill that was demonstrated by the brokerage firm
generated more business for them from their current customer base.
HOW TO ENGINEER A SERVICE TURNAROUND
Why are service turnarounds so tough? One reason
may be that the front line at a service company is the product. A
manufacturer's customers can't usually tell when workers at its production
plant are unhappy. At a service company, on the other hand, any dip in morale
is painfully obvious.
Another reason is that frontline staff control
communication with customers. One of their jobs is to keep customers informed
when things go wrong. In the mid-1980s, when Indian Airlines was experiencing
service problems, one of us was told by a gate agent, "If you didn't want
your flight canceled, you should have picked another airline" — hardly an
inducement to repurchase. By contrast, manufacturing companies can manage
customer communication much more directly through their head office and
salesforce.
Since most management thinking about turnarounds
is based on manufacturing companies, the strategies usually advocated may be
counterproductive in a service context. Bring in a new management team? Better
make sure you can do so without wounding the confidence of frontline employees.
Reduce costs? You could, but you risk undermining morale, which will impair
product delivery and disappoint customers. Establish tight control over
day-to-day operations? Easier said than done when your key frontline employees
are remote from management.
To make matters worse, service company turnarounds
are far more likely than manufacturing turnarounds to become caught in a
vicious cycle of deteriorating performance. Faced with poor results, managers
cut costs, slashing headcount and trimming service. This damages the product
and disheartens frontline employees. Poor morale translates into poor service.
Customers lose confidence and defect to competitors, and the bottom line
suffers.
MAINTAINING CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Sometimes companies forget that, over time, their
existing customers become more knowledgeable about competitors' offerings.
Thus, buyers need to be continually resold on the company and the products and
services it offers. One lawn care company experienced a loss of customers to
its competitors due to what appeared to be lower competitor prices. However,
when they compared their pricing structure with the competition, they
discovered that their price was actually comparable. Their competitors had
unbundled the various components of the lawn care service, pricing some
components separately, thereby giving the appearance of a lower price.
Consequently, this lawn care company went back not only to its lost customers,
but also to all its existing customers with a new pricing structure that gave
all customers more choice as to the service package and pricing level that
would best fit their needs.
Companies that want to maintain customer loyalty
for the long haul need to effectively gather relevant customer information
through their sales and service force, or through outside customer data
gathering firms. Customer information is vital in figuring out what products
and services your current customers value, and how you subsequently need to
update or evolve your product or service's positioning and packaging. This information
can give you a significant edge over your competitors. For example, that same
lawn company surveyed a subset of its customers and discovered various customer
profiles. Some customers wanted to interact with and learn from the lawn
service person, while others just wanted the work done without seeing the
service person at all. Armed with this and other learning from its customer
data-gathering, the company trained their sales and service personnel to
position and package their company's offerings to any current customer
situation. As a result, they improved their customer retention rate.
11 STEPS TO IMPROVE
YOUR COMPANY'S CUSTOMER SERVICE
CAPABILITY
After considering the what to improve within your
business, here are ways on how to move those efforts forward.
1. Decide which types of
customers (and which product/market areas) to focus on initially. Do not take
on more areas than your organization can realistically handle at once.
2. Assess and analyze your
organization's current internal capabilities with regard to the six supports.
Start meeting with executives/managers, then appropriately involve customers,
suppliers, and employees in assessing what's working and what needs improvement
within your organization.
3. Get the right
high-leverage people in the room to come to a reasonable consensus on analyses
and plans. This works to build employee commitment to your improvement efforts.
Keep minutes of all meetings to log and keep track of efforts and commitments
(stuff written on paper gets more attention than stuff said into the air).
4. Fully understand what
currently makes your company's customer service strong. Reinforcing and
building on these positive capabilities generates positive motivation.
5. Prioritize areas for
improvement, i.e., where the greatest needs are for improved customer service.
If appropriate, simply take an executive or manager vote on necessary
short-term and long-term initiatives.
6. Solicit improvement
ideas from all appropriate staff. They can be a wealth of ideas.
7. Implement easiest
improvements first. Focus on areas where smallest time, money and energy
investment will achieve the greatest customer and company returns. Don't bite
off more than your company can chew at once. Build your muscles for the more
strenuous efforts.
8. Eventually involve all
staff in improvement efforts, and teach them skills in data gathering/analysis,
problem solving and solution implementation. Educate and help your employees to
help your organization.
9. Measure the results of
the changes being instituted in terms of internal productivity/efficiency, and
external quality/service to customers. Tracking results help you learn about
your business, and lets you know if your efforts are making a difference.
10.Shift focus as priorities change. Keeping your
focus on what are the next things to do keeps
the long customer service improvement voyage
more manageable and endurable.
11.If you need help, get it. Look to business
colleagues, advisors, books or competent consultants to help you along the way.
SUMMARY
Improving your company's customer service is a
two-pronged approach. Externally, a company needs to decide which customers it
needs to initially and subsequently focus on. The business needs to examine
what it is doing to generate new customers and what it needs to do to maintain,
or effectively prune, existing customers.
Internally, a company needs to figure out what's
working and what needs improvement with respect to its key internal supports.
Committed leadership is required to keep efforts going despite inevitable pain
and adversity, especially in a highly competitive business. Initial efforts
need to be targeted, starting small and building momentum. Employees and
suppliers need to be involved in analyses and actions in order to generate
uniform commitment and ensure that improvements stick. Employee competence and
confidence needs to be built to sustain your company's advantage over the long
haul.
Performing all these external and internal efforts
proactively and intelligently will generate and ensure long-term success for
your business.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
"... SALES XL© was a real eye opener to the blind-spots in our sales
strategy and processes. We were immediately able to work on critical issues in
the first year to yield a marked improvement in both sales and profitability.
The stepped approach for the year-on-year improvement has made us a formidable
player in our competitive market..."
