My car is getting a bit long in the tooth.  It’s a 2008 and, with over 230,000 kilometers on the clock, it really is time to trade it in.  So it was a happy coincidence that I got a call from the salesperson at the dealership where I purchased this car to tell me about a great deal on the same model I currently own.  I knew that 2013 was the last model year this particular vehicle was made and I was delighted that there were still four available.  I took the car for a test drive while the dealership inspected my car.  When we returned, the salesperson offered me an opening price for the trade-in.  The price was very low and I explained that I just could not see my way to make a deal.  I thanked him for thinking of me and we shook hands.

I got a call on my cell about two minutes later from the salesperson.  “Good news!” he said.  It turns out that they could increase the offer by over 27%!  Over the next few days we negotiated a deal that would be “acceptable to the sales manager”.   We finally agreed on a number – about 43% more than the original offer for my trade-in.  The sales manager accepted it.  We had a deal – or so I thought.

In fact there was really no deal and that was where the problem lies.  “All you need to do now is come in and sign the papers and give us a deposit and the car is yours”, the salesperson said and I arranged to come up that morning.  “Everything will be ready.  We won’t keep you long.”  In fact, everything was not ready.  There was more to it than just signing the papers.  Before making good on their part of the agreement, the sales manager insisted on taking “one last look at my car”.  So the deal, unbeknownst to me, was conditional on a second inspection of my vehicle.

I am sure you can guess what happened next.  The sales manager inspected my car, returned to his office, and had a quick word with the salesperson, who, was sent out to tell me that they could not honour the offer that they had agreed to just 30 minutes before.  I wasn’t very happy and a little upset that I was not told that our agreement was conditional.  I felt that my time was wasted and I expressed my disappointment to the salesperson and that I thought they had acted very unprofessionally.  It occurred to me that this is the type of activity that gives car salespeople such a bad name.

In their zeal to make the sale, they lost sight of the customer – a customer who has been with this dealership since 2008.  They could (and should) have been honest with me during the negotiation. Had they been up front with me that the deal we negotiated was conditional on a second inspection, or had they made it clear that their original offer was the best that they would be able to do instead of putting me through a “mock” negotiation that they wouldn’t honour, then I would have little cause for complaint.  In either case, I may not have ultimately purchased this car, but they would have kept a customer.  Sadly, they have lost both.

This incident brought to focus the difference between losing a sale and losing a customer.  Sometimes we get so focused on the prize, that we will rationalize any means to get there.  Questionable tactics may win the sale on occasion, but the risks are high.  If caught we will not only lose the sale, but also the customer.  And that lost customer is bound to tell others about the experience.

Professional business people realize that it is better to be up-front with the customer even if it means that they are unable to come to an agreement.  When approached this way, the business person may not win the immediate sale, but their integrity will likely win their respect and retain the customer and the opportunity to serve them in the future.

I’d love your feedback on this. 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

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

– Groucho Marx

The post The Difference Between Losing a Sale and Losing a Customer appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Steve, who is a key part of a large, national service firm suggested, “Actually Jim, I agree with you but I think you need to be more specific.  When engaging our service technicians in speaking to customers about the other things we can do to assist them, we need to ensure that they use their hearts as well as their heads.”  Steve went on to relate a story that a service manager told him.  It seems that they had a technician on staff who took promoting services to a new high.  He would promote anything and everything to anybody that would listen.  As a result, this service manager was getting complaints from several customers.  They didn’t appreciate being “sold” when the technician was really there to service their equipment.  Steve went on, “This technician wasn’t really acting on behalf of the customer, he was acting for himself and the benefits that he would get if the customer bought the product or service he was offering.  His heart was not in the right place and the customers could spot it a mile away.”

Steve was right.  Technicians have to engage the customer in these kinds of discussions for the right reasons.  They have to believe that the customer will be better off by taking their recommendations.  If they don’t believe that the recommended action is in the interest of the customer, then they should not be suggesting the service at all.  That is one of the reasons I don’t think that “commissions” or “bonuses” should be paid for services sold by the technician.  It encourages the behaviour but for the wrong reasons.

I encourage you to look closely at your own programs for promoting services through your technicians.  Are your technicians empowered to give your customers their hearts as well as their hands?  Do your support systems (like bonuses or commissions) reinforce this approach or do they encourage them to leave their hearts in the truck?  Have you made it clear that you want them to use good judgement before making recommendations and be certain, in their own minds, that the recommendation is truly in the interests of the customer?

I’d love your feedback on this. 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

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

– Nelson Mandela

The post Proactive Service® – Giving Customers your Hearts & your Heads appeared first on jimbaston.com.

“Actually John”, I replied, “they pay you for both – fixing things and looking good.”  John was not convinced.

I asked John if he had been to a wedding recently and it turns out he was just the month before.

“What did you wear?” I asked.

“Sports Jacket and dress shirt – no tie.”

“What day of the week was it?”

“Saturday.  Why?”

“Is that what you usually wear on a Saturday?”

“You’re kidding, right?”  John responded.  “It’s usually torn jeans and a stained T-shirt”.  John smiled broadly and looked around the room at his peers.

“Really?” I asked in mock astonishment.  “Why didn’t you wear those to the wedding?”

“Because you just don’t that’s why.  You dress up for a wedding.  It shows respect.”

“But surely John, you weren’t invited to look good, you were invited to share the joy of the bride and groom’s big day.”  I stated, paraphrasing what he had said earlier.

“This is different!  I was talking about work and the need to get something fixed.  My customers wouldn’t care if I came in boxer shorts so long as I fixed the problem before I left!”

“Okay John.  How about this?  Have you seen your doctor in the last 12 months?”

“I just had my check up.  Why?

“What was he wearing?”

“Nice pants and a dress shirt – white I think.  He also had a phone on his belt and a stethoscope around his neck.”

“Any bloodstains on the shirt?”

“What????  No!!!”

“What if there were?  What if your doctor was wearing clothes with bloodstains and that looked like they had been slept in, wore a two-day beard and had unkempt hair?  How would you feel about that?”

I went on to explain to John that the service that our customers’ experience is derived from two distinct yet inseparable components.  One is the actual service performed – the troubleshooting and repair, the maintenance activities, the installation, etc.  This component is the service outcome.  It is the reason that the customer called us in the first place.  It was what John was thinking about when he spoke about the fact that customers don’t pay him to look good.

The second component that makes up our customers’ service experience is how the service is conducted – the smile on the tech’s face, the cleanliness of the work area, the quality of the repair description and even how the technicians chooses to present him or herself.  This is called the service delivery.

Because in most cases the customer can’t truly assess the quality of the actual service outcome, they look to how the service is delivered to determine the quality of the service provided.  In effect, they use the service delivery as the lens through which to view and assess the service outcome.  Both service delivery and service outcome are important and cannot be separated.  Together they add up to the total service experience.

Therefore, since customers are paying for the total service experience, it is fair to say that customers do pay us to look good AND fix things.  It is up to us as managers to ensure that they are getting what they are paying for when purchasing services from us.

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

“Your appearance, attitude, and confidence define you as a person.  A professional, well-dressed golfer, like a businessperson, gives the impression that he thinks that the golf course and/or workplace and the people there are important.”

– Lorii Myers, Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace

The post “They Don’t Pay Me to Look Good” in Service Delivery appeared first on jimbaston.com.