I recently read Daniel Pink’s book, Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, and found that the conclusions from the book are directly relevant for those managers who are looking for ways to encourage their technicians to proactively promote their products and services.  These conclusions made me question, “Is it time to stop paying technicians for leads?”

Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Rewards

In Drive, Pink presents compelling evidence that extrinsic rewards for completing certain tasks – for example, external rewards such as commissions, lump sum payments, etc. – do not always work and can even cause harm.  According to Pink, this is particularly true where the task is not routine and when it entails thinking and creativity.

The evidence suggests that creative tasks, such as evaluating and presenting the best solution for addressing a particular need, provide their own rewards in the doing.  These are called intrinsic rewards because the reward comes from performing the task rather than from an external source.  In situations like these, it is the reward of actually completing the task itself that largely motivates the employee to continue.

This last point is consistent with what I have experienced in my work with technicians.  There are many field service professionals who naturally bring ideas to the customer without any prompting or incentives.  They do this because they see it as part of the service they provide.  They get satisfaction and take pride from the fact that they are truly helping the customer.  They don’t need extrinsic rewards to get them to act; their reward comes from the act itself.

The Problem with Extrinsic Rewards

The problem with extrinsic rewards is that they can diminish intrinsic motivation for doing a task and turn that task from an interesting part of the job, into a menial chore.  But that is not all that Pink found to be problematic about extrinsic rewards.  Diminishing intrinsic motivation is just the first of the “Seven Deadly Flaws”[1] as described by the author.  The other six flaws of extrinsic rewards are:

2. They can diminish performance.
3. They can crush creativity.
4. They can crowd out good behaviour.
5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behaviour.
6. They can become addictive.
7. They can foster short-term thinking.

What Can Be Done?

So, what can we do if we want to encourage this proactive behaviour on the part of our technicians?  Here are some ideas:

• Ensure that the baseline compensation is fair and adequate.
• Constantly reinforce the fact that the act of identifying opportunities to help and speaking to the customer about them is an integral part of the service provided. As part of this, showcase examples of where technicians have acted in this way and how it specifically has helped the customer.
• Openly praise and provide feedback to reinforce desired behaviours.
• Offer rewards that are not contingent on the individual act of promoting services, but which recognize group-wide achievement. Pink calls these types of rewards “now that” rewards – as in, “now that you have achieved this, here is a reward to recognize that achievement.”  These are rewards that are not typically communicated in advance.  Pink cautions that this approach can lose its effectiveness if the “now that” rewards become expected (or contingent) rewards.

In the end, I think it all comes down to how we think about the task of making recommendations to customers.  If we see this task as part of the service, then we should treat and support it like we do all other services.  If we don’t provide extrinsic rewards for completing routine repairs for example, does it really make sense to do so for making recommendations?  The evidence suggests that offering extrinsic rewards may have the opposite effect to what we intend.

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

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what
you want them to do because they want to do it.”

 – Dwight D. Eisenhower

[1] Daniel H. Pink, Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York:  Riverhead Books, 2009), p. 59.

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Technicians who seem naturally gifted at selling their company’s products or services do not see their efforts as selling at all – they recognize their recommendations as the valuable service that they are.  To them it is a service activity.

Many service managers, however, treat business development efforts as a selling activity and this subtly undermines their efforts in three ways.

1. It puts the focus on what more the service company can “get” out of their customers.  We may look at the opportunity in terms of “… let’s leverage our customer relationships to win more business.”  There is nothing inherently wrong with this and of course, it is the objective of every business development activity.  However, this is a short term, tactical approach, which can obscure the much larger opportunities to build a differentiated service offering.
2. It positions the technician as a salesperson.  I don’t know about you, but I have not met many service technicians who appreciate being called a salesperson.  In fact, most are insulted by the title.  To be successful we need our technicians engaged and enthusiastic and this is pretty hard to do when the technician doesn’t see it as his or her job and is insulted by the expectation.
3. It adversely impacts the relationship with the customer.  If the technicians do take the “selling” role to heart, we risk alienating our customers.  The harder the technician tries to sell to the customer, the less effective they will be in building new business.  The reason is that, the moment the service tech starts to “sell”, he/she transcends that bond of trust that has been forged with the customer.  Regardless of how genuine the service technician is, the very reason the customer trusted the tech in the first place – the fact that they aren’t out to sell them anything – is suddenly no longer the basis of the relationship.

The preferred approach is to treat business development as a service.  Like the technicians on our team who seem to create an endless stream of opportunities, we need to get all of our technicians to recognize that identifying ways for the customer to run their facilities more effectively is a critical and valued service and not a sale.  There is a subtle difference here, but an important one.  When the technician understands that using their heads as well as their hands to help the customer is a service, they will approach the role with more enthusiasm and focus.  And customers, when they see that the technician is providing valuable suggestions aimed at helping them operate more effectively, will recognize and welcome this as the valuable service it is.  Certainly some technicians will be uncomfortable in engaging the customer in conversation so may have some difficulty in executing the plan as effectively as we might like, but that can be overcome by skills development like our Proactive Service® workshops, mentoring and support systems.

Maintain focus on this approach to business development by using every opportunity to repeat the mantra to the techs that identifying opportunities and bringing them to the attention of the customer is a valuable service.  Let them know that if they don’t think it is “right” for the customer, then they should not have the conversation.  Make it clear that you are not interested in sales for sales sake but simply want to ensure that each customer receives the benefit of having someone of their caliber in their facility.  Take this approach and the sales will take care of themselves.

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

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

– Muhammad Ali

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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

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