I don’t need to tell you that field service is a competitive business and getting more so with each passing day. Customers are more knowledgeable and demanding, competitors are innovative and tough, and the great things you do for your customers are often overlooked. It’s time to bring BYOB service to your customers and gain the competitive edge. BYOB stands for “Bring Your Own Brains” and the service company that offers this service encourages their technicians to bring their heads as well as their hands when providing a service for a customer.

In today’s competitive environment, the best way to stand out from the crowd and to take market share is to demonstrate to your customers that they are better off for having hired you. Not only is their equipment running in tip-top condition, which is what they would expect by engaging a professional and competent company like yours, but they can say that your efforts have made a contribution to their business that was beyond the scope of the work you were contracted to perform. Maybe because of their relationship with you they are operating more efficiently or safely. Perhaps your recommendations have helped them extend asset life or achieve some sort of important recognition or goal. Regardless, they can look to your relationship as bringing much more value than simply keeping the equipment running and they will reward you by renewing their contract and telling their friends and colleagues.

Of course, the only way to help your customers to be better off is to recognize what is important to them and identify and communicate those actions that the customer can take that will help them make improvements. Our field team plays a critical role here because they are the ones in the best position to gain an understanding of the customer’s challenges and goals and recognize steps that can be taken to address them.

This is where BYOB Service comes in. This helps technicians recognize that a critical part of the service that they provide is looking for ways they can help that customer achieve their goals and helping the customer recognize the value in taking action. BYOB Service providers show their field personnel that proactive conversations with their customers about their recommendations is not selling, but rather an integral part of the service that they provide. BYOB Service companies nourish and build upon the brains of their technicians through training, coaching and practice.

How about your service offering? Do you provide BYOB Service for your customers? Do your technicians recognize that their job is more than fixing things and keeping the equipment running efficiently? Do you and your management team nourish the proactive efforts of your technicians through ongoing training and constant coaching and support? Do your customers recognize your efforts and can they say they are measurably better off for having engaged you?

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. 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 Baston

“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.”

– Woodrow Wilson

The post BYOB Service – The Competitive Edge appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Like us, our customers are in competitive industries and are struggling for a business edge. They want more than just good customer service that makes them feel good. They want GREAT customer service that also helps them gain a competitive advantage. The tale of 2 auto mechanics below, is indicative of the choice we have as service providers. Which one would you prefer?

Our technicians play a major role here. Their value comes from going beyond doing great work. They must also understand the goals their customers have and the challenges that they face and make recommendations based on their knowledge and expertise that will help the customer succeed. Those companies that don’t engage their technicians in this way are at risk of losing business in the future.

Imagine two scenarios. In both scenarios your car needs an oil change and you also ask the mechanic to check a noise that you hear each time you depress the brakes. The mechanic in scenario A is friendly and competent. The waiting room is comfortable and has free coffee and WiFi so you decide to hang out there while the oil is changed and the inspection carried out. You’re delighted that the mechanic returns 30 minutes later to report that your car is ready. He assures you that the noise from the brakes was caused by normal corrosion and he cleaned things up and has eliminated the noise. He recommends that you get a full service on the brakes the next time they need changing. 40% wear remains. There is a small charge for the brake inspection that you gladly pay along with the fee for the oil change. As you leave, you think about why you patronize this garage. It is because of the fact that this mechanic is reasonable, thorough and friendly.

In scenario number two, the technician is also friendly and confident. He too invites you to use the waiting room, which has both free coffee and WiFi and is as comfortable as in the first scenario. Thirty minutes later, the mechanic returns and provides the same explanation for the noisy brakes and the same recommendations for the brake service for next time. Like the mechanic in the first scenario, he points out that there is 40% wear left on the pads. He then provides some additional information. He explains that there is a new brake pad available that is made up of a composite of materials. It offers the same braking performance as conventional pads. It costs about 20% more but wears much more slowly. In fact, studies have demonstrated between a 70% and 100% improvement in pad life. He leaves you with a brochure on the new product and suggests that you keep it in mind for when your brakes need replacing. You pay the bill – which is comparable to the bill in scenario one, and head out. As you leave, you think about why you patronize this garage. You recognize that not only is the mechanic reasonable, thorough and friendly, but he is very much in tune with what is going on in the industry and uses that knowledge to make recommendations to enhance your driving experience. He has often brought several new ideas to your attention – many of which you have taken advantage of.

Which of the two mechanics would you rather deal with? If you said scenario number 2, you would not be alone. Like most of our customers, you see value in the mechanic using their knowledge and expertise to bring to your attention information on products and services that might benefit you. You might even feel that, in the competitive world of car maintenance, the mechanic in the first scenario will have a difficult time differentiating his business and, in the long term, may lose business to the more proactively focused competitors.

To deliver GREAT service, our challenge as managers will be to create scenario number 2 – to enthusiastically engage our technicians in helping our customers to be better off by becoming trusted advisors. We must set an environment where this activity is encouraged and supported. We must ensure that every one of our technicians recognizes their proactive efforts as a critical component of the service that we provide. We must communicate this to our customers and use our approach to differentiate us from the rest of the pack.

How do your service techs stack up? To get greater insight into where you are strong and to identify possible opportunities for improvement, download our “How Proactive is Your Service Team” self evaluation worksheet. Any questions? Just contact me. I would be delighted to hear from you.

As always I welcome your questions and your feedback. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. 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 Baston

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

– Albert Einstein

The post A Tale of 2 Auto Mechanics – Which One Would you Prefer? appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Maslow is attributed as saying, “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”  This sentiment applies to how we view the role of service technicians.  If we see the proactive efforts of technicians to identify and speak to the customer about our services as that of a “salesperson” then everything they do in this regard looks like “selling”.  Unfortunately, this viewpoint greatly limits our imagination to capture the real value in what our technicians are providing.  This constrains our ability to capitalize on these efforts as a valuable and differentiated service offering.

In my opinion, a technician who feels – based on their knowledge and experience – that the customer would benefit from a particular product or service in some way, and brings this to the attention of the customer is providing a service and is not selling.  It is part of their job – as important as their ability to fix or maintain the equipment itself.  In fact, I suggest that they have an obligation to the customer to discuss any action that would be of benefit to their operations.

Despite this, many service managers I speak to as well as several in the training and consulting community, talk about this activity as “selling” by technicians.  Here are the 4 reasons why this viewpoint will significantly limit our success.

1. Opportunistic/Short-term Focus. As I mentioned in my last blog, when the proactive recommendations by our technicians are seen as selling they become “add-on” activities and we tend to see them from an opportunistic perspective.  “While you’re there have a look for other things that we can sell to that customer.”  This misses the opportunity to imbed this activity into our overall service strategy.

2. Skills Development is Focused on Selling. When we view the activity by our technicians as selling in nature, then it is natural to look to sales training to upgrade the skills of our technicians to handle the new expectations.  Although these are important skills and can be helpful in many cases, they aren’t the only skills or even the most important.  The technicians’ ability to build trust and maintain credibility is more important.  Unfortunately, if we simply teach our technicians to sell, they may come across more like salespeople and actually diminish the amount of trust they have with their customers.

3. Measurement is Limited to Selling Activities. When we regard the technician’s role as selling, then we will tend to limit our measurement of the success of the initiative to factors such as overall revenues, small project work vs. contract base, number of proposals by technician, etc.  Although it is prudent to measure these things, this limited focus may cause us to miss key measures that will impact our long-term success.  It may also cause us to reward certain activities that may encourage unnecessary “selling” activities that may also erode trust.

4. Difficult to Promote as a Differentiating Service. Many service companies that view service technicians’ proactive efforts as “selling” fail to capture and communicate the value of this activity to their customers.  These firms typically don’t mention to their customers that they are encouraging their technicians to look for more opportunities.  After all, how do you communicate the value from the customers’ perspective of the fact that your technicians are actively looking for more ways to make more money from them?

Next time we will look at changing our perspective of the proactive activities of our technicians from that of selling to serving and how that simple change in mindset can have a enormous impact on our ability to deliver a differentiated (and valued) service experience.

I welcome your feedback. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. 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 only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

– Abraham Maslow

The post The Limiting Reality of Getting Technicians to “Sell” – 4 Reasons Why appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Whether we like it or not, what is written on the work order to describe the service that has been performed, is an important indicator to the customer of the quality of the work completed. This is because, under most circumstances, the customer cannot actually know the quality of the work itself. For example, how do they know if the hour it took the technician to troubleshoot the problem displayed brilliant detective work that would have taken any other person several hours to figure out, or if the hour demonstrated a poor grasp of the technology that another technician could have completed in only 5 minutes? The fact is the customer doesn’t know. They therefore look for evidence of the quality of the service and one of the most important factors that they rely on is how the work performed is described in the work order description.

Therefore, providing a clear and accurate account of the work completed is very important. There is also another and very practical reason for having a clear and accurate work order resolution description – productivity. Imagine the technician completes a complicated repair and describes the work completed simply as “Fixed unit” in the work order description. The invoice for the work is $1,000. The customer on site is delighted to have the problem fixed and gladly signs the work order.

Roughly 60 days later the customer on site gets a call from her Accounts Payable department. They are reviewing the invoices for payment and they want to know what the service company did to justify the $1,000 invoice. Confronted with the need to provide this information, what does the customer do? She goes to her copy of the work order to collect the needed clarification. Of course, the “fixed unit” description is not at all useful so she is forced to call the technician directly. The call unnecessarily interrupts the technician in his work and he struggles to remember exactly what he actually did on that day over two months ago. All this costs time and, of course, money and all because the work order resolution description was poorly written.

So, how does a busy service manager encourage and ensure that his/her team communicates the value of the actual work through the work order resolution description? They could coach their team to use CARE on every work order.

CARE is an easy to remember acronym that can be used as a reminder for the technician to include the critical information that best describes the repair or service in a professional manager and that reassures the customer of the value of the action taken.

C is for Condition: Record the condition on site prior to taking action.
A is for Action: Summarize the actions taken to resolve the issue.
R is for Results: Record the resulting condition on site after the action has been taken.
E is for Expected Next Steps: Identify expected next steps, if any, that need to be taken, including any recommended repairs.

In addition to describing the work performed using the CARE approach you may also wish to include other information such as identifying the equipment and its location, recording all the materials and consumables used in the repair and, of course, identifying other observations or recommendations that will help the customer. All of this can be reviewed with the customer at the completion of the call.

All of this information and much more can be found in our Pocketbook of Proactive Service®. I would be happy to provide you with a free copy of the Pocketbook. If you would like your complimentary copy, simply send me an email with “Pocketbook” in the subject line along with your company name and address and I will get one out to you right away.

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

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

Isaac Asimov

The post 4 Components of a Better Technician Work Order Resolution Description appeared first on jimbaston.com.