August 15, 2010

 

 

• Increase the creativity and skill level of customer service representatives

• Demonstrate what excellent customer service is

• Provide insights and practice to improve customer service

• Develop your own organizations bank of customer service learning situations

 

Is your company slashing its marketing budget?  In tight economic times, organizations tend to take extreme measures.  So how do you get the most out of the money that your company IS spending? 

 

Start by getting back in touch with your old customers.  It’s easy to ignore those loyal, known and often predictable accounts, but they are often your most likely source for new business.  Give those loyal followers a call, send a note, or drop them an email. 

 

Let them know that they have not been forgotten, and use them as a resource for finding out how your company is doing in servicing them.  Do they have any needs that you haven’t met, regardless of whether your company currently offers what they need or not?  --Plenty of new product lines and services have been hatched through simply asking about what is needed versus spending months' worth of resources in costly brainstorming, development and market rollout efforts.

 

Next, offer a free sample.  Think of yourself as one of those friendly apron-wearers standing in the grocery aisle, offering shoppers a tantalizing morsel to try.  Approximately 5%-10% of shoppers will buy the product immediately, and more will file the flavor in their mind under "positive experience" and will choose to purchase the product at a later time. 

 

Allocate part of your marketing budget to these kinds of giveaways.  If you haven’t done this before, now is the time. Think of Google, which spent the thin profit years banking users, and was poised to make significant profits when its advertisement program (Google Ads) started. 

Finally, with every client interaction, ask yourself what the specific offer and call to action is.  Whether it is a friendly phone call, a printed ad, email contact, or other media, let your counterparts know what you want. Many people make a sales call and never quite get to stating what they want.  If you have always been squeamish about this process, now is the time to get comfortable with it.  This is the crux of why you have spent all the other marketing dollars!  Take your chance to make a sale when opportunity enters the room.

 

So here the economy is look up, but we're not out of the woods yet. The good news is that companies (probably including yours) have made it through slumps before, and are learning new ways to cope every day. 

 

The not so good news is that your organization probably needs to re-assess its sales tactics and focus on spreading new tactics throughout the sales system.

 

How do you ensure that room is created in your customer’s budget for your services?  It all starts with developing a provocative point of view on a critical issue, directly to a senior executive or the senior purchaser. 

 

 

What is the one issue or situation that keeps your customer up at night?  Is there an area that is being ignored or ineffectively addressed by the existing processes or systems?  Maybe you have found that sweet spot, but addressing that issue would require some retooling on the part of your company.  Now is the time to do it.  Who will survive and thrive in the current climate? Companies that are agile enough to change their products and offerings as needed, that’s who. 

 

Identifying a big problem that is a threat to the bottom line is what makes it worthwhile for an executive (or other decision maker) to meet with you. 

 

The Harvard Business Review gives a compelling argument for provocation-based selling over solution selling.  “…In a severe downturn, provocation-based selling may be the only way to move past the ‘buy nothing’ mantra emanating from customer organizations.  In sunnier economic times it can lend power and urgency to products or services that are non-disruptive or are relatively undifferentiated in their markets.”

 

Of course, solutions are still at the base of your company’s offerings within your market. However, there are distinct differences in these two tactics.  Let’s look at some examples of these differences:

 

 

Here is the bottom line: As the vendor, you must identify a process that is critical for customers in the current business environment, develop a compelling point of view on how it is currently broken and what that means in terms of cost. 

 

John is the CEO of a niche beverage company. Its juices and natural sodas have been delivered regionally to restaurants and supermarkets for the last eight years; recently the company has expanded its delivery to a five-state area.

 

John is thrilled about the growth, but in the midst of this expansion, Damon, his distribution manager, walked off the job. The assistant manager is eager to step up and fill Damon's shoes, but he lacks experience.

 

I look at it this way; how are you going to get the word out about your company?  People don’t use the phone book, TV or radio anymore as their first resource.  Everything is going online. Sure, companies have a website.  It used to be the way to be found, and then organizations started to utilize pay-per-click ads and search optimization experts.  These are both expensive undertakings.  That is where the power of social media comes in.  It is a way to connect with people and organizations, and engage them in an authentic way.

 

Sure.  The fact is that people spend about 25% of their computer time on social media sites.  Here is a telling trend:  On Christmas Day 2009, we visited Facebook more than Google.  In one week during March of this year, we did the same, making Facebook the most visited site on the web. 

 

We are not only communicating with people on these sites, but finding information.  That is where your target audience is spending time, so it is critical to make your organization’s group, page or blog a true resource for viewers.  They could be looking for a vendor or business partner.  Why wouldn’t they call the organization that they already go to for information and resources?

 

Remember, at the end of the day, it’s all about people.  Social media was not created for businesses, so businesses need to get used to that.  It’s important to get people to start talking about your product or service.  You are playing on consumers’ turf.  Still, it can have outstanding results, even for business to business partnerships, because companies are all made up of people who build connections to organizations that feed them the kinds of information they are looking for.  This is how it all happens-like this interview!

 

Yes, my motto is this: If you get it, share it.  Consumers of all kinds appreciate that concept these days, and repay you with their partnerships. 

 

This invaluable tool includes:

 

1) Activities that are sensitive to the new revolution taking place in customer service and meeting customer demands.

2.) Identification and creation of memorable experiences for your customer service representatives and their customers.

3.) A valuable treasure of resources whether you are a seasoned veteran, a trainer/facilitator with middle of the road years of experience, or a newcomer or occasional trainer.

4.) 50 high quality activities which may be easily aligned with the specific needs and identified competencies within your customer service area.

5.) User friendly activities which take you step by step through the training process, allowing you to easily deliver high impact training that makes a difference.

6.) Activities which are easily customized to your needs and include a number of variations and additional insights and ideas to make them the right fit for your programs...and much more!