Without knowing the goals of the customer, how can our technicians make valuable recommendations?  A solution that works for one company might be contrary to the needs of another.  There is a wonderful story circulating around the Internet that illustrates the danger of solving problems without understanding the business goals.  Perhaps you have read it.  It goes something like this.

An employee of a large company was working late one evening.  She sees the CEO of the company standing in front of the shredding machine with a piece of paper in his hand.  He looks completely at a loss of what to do.  He asks the employee to help him make it work, explaining that his executive assistant has left for the day.  The employee is delighted to help and takes the paper, turns on the shredder and feeds the document into the machine.  As the paper disappears into the shredder, the CEO says “Thank you.  That is an extremely important document.  I only need one copy.”  Oops!!!

Understanding the customer’s business goals adds a critical piece of information to help the technician solve the puzzle of what they can do to help.  Knowing this will ensure the recommendations address the right problem, or as in the story above, prevent the creation of a new one.

How can a technician understand the business goals and challenges of the customer?  There are several ways, including doing Internet research, reading annual reports and catching up on the trade press for example.  But perhaps the best and easiest way is simply to ask.  This does not have to be a sophisticated discussion, but merely a conversation with the customer.  For example, the tech might ask about the most challenging aspects of building maintenance or what problems that, if eliminated, would make life much easier for the customer.  Or inquire about the most common complaints raised by tenants.  They may ask about their interest in LEED certification for existing buildings.  They may even ask about long-term plans for the building or process.  As managers, we can identify the best questions for our customer base and provide these for the technician.

An informed technician who can make recommendations that can directly contribute to their customer’s goals, is a valuable business partner.  They do more than fix things – they make things better.

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

Yogi Berra

The post Step 2 in Creating Proactive Service® – Knowing Customers’ Business Goals appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Almost every service company can point to one or more of their techs who are naturally gifted to promote their services. They are always making recommendations to customers and promoting new services – and their customers love them. In our experience, these technicians are successful because they don’t see their recommendations as selling, but rather as an enhancement of their service.  If you have one or two techs on your team that fit this description, then you know the potential of getting everyone on your team to act in the same way.

In this series of blogs we are going to examine six steps that you implement to create a Proactive Service® focus from all of your service team members.  This will greatly enhance your efforts of developing a distinctive and sustainable competitive advantage and result in higher revenues and delighted customers.  I also contend that it will make your business a more desirable place to work.

The six steps we will explore are:

1. Focus on the service, not the sale
2. Encourage your techs to get to know your customer’s business goals
3. Provide continuous educational opportunities on your products and services
4. Develop a clear opportunity response process with feedback loops to the technician
5. Create a follow up process for quoted work
6. Provide ongoing coaching and support

Next time we will consider how we position our efforts as a service to ensure we get engagement from our techs and our customers.

What kind of service culture does your organization have today? I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“Do today what others won’t, so tomorrow, you can do what others can’t.”

 – Unknown

The post Creating a Proactive Service Culture Throughout Your Service Team appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Engineers have just discovered that maintenance of mechanical and electrical equipment is not needed to keep equipment running at peak performance.  “You’ll get better performance by ignoring the equipment altogether.  The equipment will run better and you will save money on not having to pay those service bills!”  This is great news for building owners and process managers.  They can now take a hands-off approach and while getting excellent performance from their equipment.

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?  Who could possibly believe that the equipment that we lovingly maintain for our customers could possibly perform better if left un-serviced?  It’s almost like saying that the law of gravity no longer applies.  In real life, without maintenance, filters will clog, belts will break and electrical connections will overheat.  The cost of keeping things running, let alone performing at their peak will go up exponentially.  Ultimately, everything will grind to a halt.

And yet, as business owners and service managers, we sometimes have similarly unrealistic expectations when it comes to the performance of our service techs.  Not only do our service techs need to be technically excellent at their job but through their interpersonal skills, they play a major marketing role for our companies as well.  They represent our firms and define the customer’s service experience.  They are often the reason for retaining a customer or losing them.  In most cases, they actually ARE our companies.  Their interpersonal performance matters!

Yet, what are we doing for the technician to help them to “maintain” this high level of interpersonal performance?  What have we done to provide them with the critical people skills needed to excel?   What tools and techniques have we given them to interact well with our customers and to handle the challenges of interpersonal relationships while working under pressure – sometimes extreme?  What efforts have we made to eliminate processes and policies that detract them from providing exceptional customer service?

As business owners and managers, we have a choice.  We can leave it to chance and cross our fingers that the “law of gravity” does not apply to our technicians.  Or, we can take the initiative to define the service experience we want our customers to have and provide interpersonal skills training and support for technicians to make it a reality.  The choice is ours.

I’d love your feedback. Feel free to leave a link back to your own blog as well via the commentluv feature here on the site.

Jim Baston

“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”

– Wernher von Braun

The post Stop Maintaining Your Mechanical/Electrical Equipment appeared first on jimbaston.com.

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I hope you find this blog of value and I look forward to your comments. Don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one, via the commentluv feature you’ll find in the comment section.

Beyond GREAT SERVICE – The Technician’s Role in Proactive Business Growth

 “The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important – and then get out of their way while they do it.”

– Jack Welch

I wrote a book this year called Beyond GREAT SERVICE.  It is written as a fictional account about Charlie, a service manager, as he discovers the secret of successfully engaging technicians in conversations with their customers – a conversation that transforms the service experience and results in increased revenues and customer satisfaction.  Many people have asked me why I have written the book and, to answer that, I will need to take a small step back.

Technicians are arguably the most important assets you have employed in your service business.  They do the physical work necessary to keep your customers’ facilities and processes running smoothly and efficiently.  They do the intellectual work of finding and/or heading off serious problems that could bring your customers’ businesses to a halt.  They do the marketing work associated with representing you and your company.  In many cases, they are the key relationship your customer has with your firm.

Many firms have attempted to leverage those relationships as a source of new business.  The logic goes that “If only we can get our technicians to better promote our services, we could increase revenues and profitability without adding to overheads.”  The challenge is putting this strategy into action.

I have had the remarkable pleasure of spending my career closely aligned to the service business.  I have worked in the business selling and managing technical service businesses.  For the past 11 years or so, I have worked with thousands of technicians and their management as a consultant.  I have seen many companies that have tried to leverage their technician relationships to build more business and some have been successful, but many more have not – at least not as successful as was possible or as they would have like to have been.

Through this work, it became apparent that there are some fundamental issues that impede the success of most firms.  Unless these issues are addressed, management will always be disappointed with their efforts, regardless of the amount of time and other resources used, or the positive intentions of management.  I felt that the book would be a good way to highlight those issues and to provide some specific strategies on how to deal with them. 

I hope that you find Beyond GREAT SERVICE a useful resource as you engage your technicians more proactively in business development.  I personally think that it is a win/win/win situation.  Your company will be more profitable, your customers will be better served and your technicians will have a more rewarding and exciting place to work.

If you have any questions, please feel free to connect with me right here on my website, or contact me directly.

Jim Baston

The post Transforming Your Customer’s Service Experience appeared first on jimbaston.com.