For me, the end of December is a time for review of the year past and planning for the year ahead. The welcome change of pace I typically experience during the holidays naturally leads to this type of reflection. If it is the same for you, here are 7 indicators to help you take the pulse of the extent to which the Proactive Service® approach is embedded as part of your culture within your service team.

The Miriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary defines culture as, “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.”¹ It is the mindset of why we act the way we do. Instilling a Proactive Service culture has proven successful for service companies for this very reason. The culture underlying Proactive Service is based on using our proximity, knowledge and expertise to identify and recommend products and services that will ultimately help the customer to be better off. Although this approach results in more sales and other great benefits such as higher levels of customer trust, satisfaction and retention, the why we do it is because it allows us to enhance the level and quality of service that we provide.

So, how are you progressing at embedding a Proactive Service® culture within your team? Although financial results are an important indicator of success, here we want to consider how we act that contributes that success.

1. The Talk Around the Water Cooler. The words that your managers and technicians use about proactive business development are a big indicator of how people look upon the initiative. Does their language sound more like sales talk rather than service talk? Are solutions described in how they benefit the customer or how they benefit your company?

2. Observable Coaching and Support. Do your service/safety meetings include a coaching and development segment? Does management appear genuinely engaged in helping their team be better at some of the “softer” interpersonal skills and do they allow time for practice? Do their actions reinforce their words?

3. Ongoing Product and Service Knowledge. Does your field service team take pride in the overall extent of the services your company can provide? Do they recognize that their knowledge and understanding of your services and capabilities which are outside their areas of expertise allows them to add greater value to their relationships because they will be in a better position to recognize ways in which you can help? Does your management team update the technicians on new products and services and refresh them on existing ones? Do your technicians take the initiative to expand their product and service knowledge on their own?

4. Ownership of Processes and Systems. Do your processes and systems accurately capture and track opportunities from the field. Does your team take “ownership” of the process? If a “crack” in the process is discovered, does your team get concerned and are steps immediately taken to address and correct the problem?

5. Sales vs. Service. Is there a positive and respectful relationship between your sales and service teams? Do they speak positively of one another? Do both groups support the other when things don’t go as planned? Do they share common goals?

6. Proactive Service Promotion. Do you promote your Proactive Service® approach to your customers? Does your sales team use your approach to differentiate your company to win more service contracts?

7. Customer feedback. Do your customers share your enthusiasm for the benefits of the Proactive Service approach? Do they recognize they are better off? Are they telling others about the great work that you do for them?

All of these are indicators that point to the extent to which the Proactive Service® approach is becoming embedded in your service culture. We have also created a self-evaluation checklist that will allow you to evaluate your progress against Proactive Service® best practices. Please take a few moments to complete this form.

By taking the time during the holidays to reflect on these areas, you can identify opportunities for improvement and begin to plan the steps necessary to further encourage and enhance the enthusiasm of your team. By the first week of January you can be well on your way to making 2016 the best year yet.

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

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”

– Peter Drucker

¹http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture

The post Time to Reflect on your Proactive Service® Culture appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Do you:

1. Position business development as an important service activity to be performed by your service technicians? When technicians recognize the valuable service they perform when making recommendations that will help the customer, they will be more likely to engage them in conversation rather than thinking that it is the salesperson’s job.

2. Have a fail-safe mechanism for handling leads from the field? When our office team does not follow up opportunities, we are in effect telling the technicians that we were “only kidding” when we asked them to explore ways to help the customer.

3. Encourage your technicians to regularly follow up on recommendations they have made in the past? Our customers are busy and sometimes they forget. Our technicians provide a valuable service when they remind them.

4. Formally or informally meet with your key customers to review past performance (including recommendations) and help them use that information to plan/budget for the future? This is a great opportunity to enlighten your customers of the value of the service your techs are providing and engage them fully in the process.

5. Set aside time in your regular service meetings to discuss and practice customer service and business development skills? We wouldn’t dream of letting our customer’s equipment run without any maintenance. We should take the same approach to skills adoption. Regular maintenance will help maintain an exceptional level of customer service.

In our experience in working with service firms, many have found it helpful to use our ‘How Proactive is Your Service Team Checklist‘ to regularly analyze their performance against key measures. It helps them focus on what matters most in an industry that is easily distracted by the demands of the day-to-day realities of the business. The complete Checklist consists of 15 key questions.

We will look at some of these questions in more detail in subsequent blog posts.

In the meantime, I would like to offer all readers of this blog a complimentary copy of our ‘How Proactive is Your Service Team Checklist‘. If you are currently a subscriber to Baston’s Blog, you do not need to do a thing. I will send you a separate link to you to enable you to download a copy of the Checklist. Look for that shortly in your in-box. If you are not currently a subscriber to Baston’s Blog and would like a copy of the Checklist, simply click here to subscribe and upon verifying your subscription, you will receive a link to your complimentary copy. It is our stated goal to provide a regular blog that offers value to its readers. It is my hope that you will find Baston’s Blog helpful and worthwhile, but if you do not, please remember you can unsubscribe at any time.

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

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Stephen R. Covey

The post 5 Questions to Help you Evaluate How Proactive your Service Team Is appeared first on jimbaston.com.