It is no secret that field service technicians represent an excellent opportunity to increase revenues without adding to overheads.  They understand the technology, know their products and services and are familiar with the customers’ equipment and their goals.  And, of course, they have the ear of the customer.

Chances are you already have one or two techs who are great at developing new business and you recognize that, by getting all of your techs to act like them, you will experience tremendous growth.

If, despite your best efforts, your technicians are still not generating as much business as you think they are capable of, then perhaps you are the reason your technicians are not enthusiastically promoting your services.  Perhaps it is your perception that is standing in the way.

Review Our Perception

Ask yourself this question:  “Am I prepared to tell my customers what I have asked my technicians to do?”  If your answer is “no”, then it may be because your perception is that your field service technicians’ proactive promotion of services is “selling” and that you don’t see value in this from the customers’ perspective.  As a result, you are uncomfortable promoting this to them.  After all, how compelling is the following:  “We have trained our service technicians to sell so that we can get more business from you.”  Now, I am sure that you would not be as blunt as that, but clearly there is not a positive message here for the customer.

Change Our Perception from Selling to Serving

But if we change our perception to one that recognizes the tech’s proactive efforts as a serving activity rather than a selling activity, then we start to look at what they are doing through the lens of how it benefits the customer.  As a service, the technician is looking to uncover opportunities for products and/or services to help the customer achieve their goals.  The focus is on identifying and solving customer problems rather than on generating more revenue.  When this is the case, it makes good business sense to let the customer know what your technicians are doing.  In fact, their proactive efforts can become a significant differentiator.

If our perception changes from selling to serving, our conversation with the customer can communicate the value of the technicians’ actions from the customers’ perspective:  “We have encouraged our technicians to use their knowledge and expertise to identify steps that you can take to help you achieve your business goals.  Would you have any objection if, in the course of doing their service work, they identify a product or service that will help you to be better off that they bring their recommendation to your attention?”

Benefits of this Change in Perception

This change in perspective will positively affect a number of factors that will be critical for success and which I will cover in a future blog.  These include:

1. The technicians’ perception of their role.
2. The processes and systems that you create to support the techs.
3. How you talk about proactive recommendations.
4. The customers’ trust levels.
5. Sales of new contracts.
6. Our customers’ perception of us.

We offer tremendous value when our field service team takes proactive efforts to make recommendations to our customers that will help them to be better off.  If your attempts to engage them enthusiastically are falling short of your expectations, look closely on how you perceive what it is that you have asked them to do.  You may be the reason that your technicians are not enthusiastically promoting your services.

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

“If you want to make the world a better place,
take a look at yourself and make a change.”

– Michael Jackson

The post Are You the Reason Your Technicians Are Not Enthusiastically Promoting your Services? appeared first on jimbaston.com.

One of your technicians has just made a recommendation on a critical piece of equipment.  It is old, parts are hard to find and a failure will have catastrophic results. The customer hesitates and says something like, “Leave it with me and let me think about it.”  Underlying this statement could be an objection.  It is for times like these that it makes sense to help your technicians have the skills/tools ready to (or be prepared to) handle customer objections.

You might be wondering why I am using sales terminology when I insist that the technician’s act of making recommendations is not a sale but a service.  It is because in situations like these letting the matter go without investigating the customer’s reason for their hesitation does not fulfill our obligation to serve the customer in the best way possible.  Let’s examine why.

Why the customer may hesitate

The customer may hesitate for several reasons.  Perhaps they really do want to think about it, do the math and make a financial determination and that will take time.  Perhaps they need the approval of someone else or have another company that they would have do the work.  Maybe they are sceptical of the solution or don’t fully trust the technician. Or maybe they do not fully understand the risk of not taking action or the benefit of moving forward and therefore cannot make a fully informed decision.

Regardless, if the stakes are high, then the technician should be prepared to explore the cause of hesitation further and try to address their concerns if appropriate.  By not doing so, they are letting the customer make a choice that he/she may later regret and they certainly won’t thank us if they do.  And, it certainly won’t be helpful if we say something like, “You should have listened to me when I told you to …” when things do go as the technician predicted.

What we can do

1. Ensure your technicians are aware of and expect that the customer may have concerns about any recommendation.
2. Help your technicians be prepared to explore any concerns and have a plan to address them if they do arise.
3. Have a backup plan if the technician is unsuccessful.

“Do you mind if I ask the reason for your hesitation?”

Let’s go back to the example of an imminent equipment failure.  The risk to the customer is high and yet they may say, “Leave it with me and let me think about it.”

Keeping in mind that the customer may genuinely wish to think about the issue, your technician can ask a simple question to help them get to the underlying concern.  “Do you mind if I ask the reason for your hesitation?” Chances are, the customer will answer this question with underlying cause for their hesitation.

By exploring the apparent concern of the customer, the technician will be in a better position to help the customer assess the recommendation and make a more informed decision.

Here are just a few examples of what to expect:

• Hesitation based on scepticism: “My last service company never mentioned this” (often happens when you win a contract from a competitor and the technician has not had time to build trust) or “You guys have been looking after my equipment for the past 10 years, how come you’re just bringing this up now?”

• Hesitation based on current buying habits: “I already have a company that can do that work for me.”

• Hesitation based on uncertainty: “I am not sure if it will …”

• Hesitation based on pricing and/or budgets: “We don’t have any reserve in the budget.”

With these examples in hand, you can help spend some time during your safety/service meetings with your technicians to help them develop a professional response to each of them if they do arise.  The customer may still say “no” despite your technician’s best efforts but at least the decision will be a better informed one.

Have a back up plan. 

What if the technician was unable to deal with the customer’s underlying concern and the matter is of some urgency?  An equipment failure for example could be catastrophic.  Should they push harder?  My answer is that they should not.

However, they should not drop the matter either.  I suggest that you have in place a process where in these circumstances, the technician can alert management so that a responsible follow-up with the customer can be taken by the manager or the sales team.

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

“He who hesitates is last.”

 – Mae West

The post Help Your Technicians Handle Customer Objections appeared first on jimbaston.com.

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.

The post Is it Time to Stop Paying Technicians for Leads? appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Nothing will stop a technician from making recommendations to a customer more quickly than poor or inconsistent follow-up by the rest of the company’s staff.  A technician that makes a recommendation that requires follow-up by others (salesperson or manager for example) and which is not followed up, is unlikely to continue to do so.  But worse than that, lack of follow-up can have serious consequences.

I worked with one service firm that did not have a formal process for handling opportunities from the field.  I interviewed one of their technicians and he related a story that highlights the problems that can occur.  The technician had found a problem with a key piece of equipment and recommended to the customer that it be replaced as soon as possible.  The customer asked the technician to have someone get in touch with him with pricing and installation information for the replacement.  The technician reported the opportunity on the work order along with the request for a follow-up call by the salesperson responsible for the account.  Unknown to the service tech, the information did not get to the salesperson and no one followed up.  About a month later, the customer called in a panic because the equipment failed, just as foretold.  Rather than praising the technician for his ability to predict the failure, the customer was furious that there was no follow-up on the part of the firm.  The service technician took the brunt of the customer’s anger and felt let down by his colleagues.  Needless to say, by the time we spoke to the technician, he was reluctant to identify opportunities in the future.

Even when a process for opportunity management is in place, it may not include an important step.  One of the most common complaints we hear from technicians is that, even when there is follow-up, the technician is not kept in the loop.  The lack of a communication loop to keep the technician informed causes more than hard feelings.  It also can cause a customer service failure.  Let’s assume that the technician has spoken to the customer and they are interested in pursuing an idea that she brought forward that may reduce energy consumption.  The salesperson or manager is duly informed and goes out to visit the customer.  If there is no communication back to the technician, the salesperson may develop a solution that is beyond what the technician had in mind and far exceeds the customer’s expectations.  A simple discussion with the technician would have prevented this from happening and the technician would have an opportunity to share her ideas with the salesperson that could be incorporated into the ultimate solution.  In addition, by keeping the technician in the loop, the technician will have an informed response if the customer asks about the progress on the opportunity development the next time she is in their facility.

A key step therefore, to ensure that you create a successful and lasting Proactive Service® culture is to ensure that you have a clear, concise and consistent process for identifying and following-up on recommendations from the field.  Not only will this improve your service delivery, but it will let your technicians (and customers) know that these recommendations are important and that they play a key role in your firm’s the overall service delivery.

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

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

– Peter Drucker

The post Step 4 of a Proactive Service® Culture – A Clear Opportunity Process appeared first on jimbaston.com.

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.

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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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.