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.

You believe that you can offer a better service by getting your field service team to make recommendations aimed at helping your customers to be better off.  You have taken steps to support your expectations of a more proactive approach by your techs, including providing training and putting in place a process to capture leads and communicate progress on all opportunities.  However, you are disappointed that more techs have not fully embraced this strategy and time is not a luxury you have to devote to this problem.

If this sounds like you, then here are five steps that you can take to changing to a proactive business development culture when time is a limiting factor.

Don’t Stop Talking

Take every opportunity to speak about the proactive business development by technicians’ initiative and how it benefits customers.  Start and end every meeting by mentioning the strategy and tying it back to the topic at hand.

Remind your technicians that you have taken this approach because, when they use their knowledge and expertise to make recommendations that will help their customers achieve their business goals, they are providing a higher level of service.  Use every interaction as an opportunity to reinforce the value that they bring by taking this initiative.  Don’t stop talking.

Watch Your Language

People take important clues from the words that we use so it is critical that we use language that focuses on the service we are providing through the proactive efforts of our techs.  Avoid words like selling or promoting and focus every conversation on the subject on how it helps the customer.

Remember that you are offering a service by engaging your technicians in business development efforts.  Your reward comes when the customer recognizes the value in the technicians’ recommendations and rewards you with more work and greater loyalty.   Use words that communicate service.  Watch your language.

Become a Super Model

Our employees look to our actions to determine if we really mean what we say.  For example, if you are encouraging everyone to pitch in and go the extra mile, but show up each morning after 10:00 AM and leave by 2:00 PM with your golf clubs clearly visible in the back of the car, your message will have little, if any, effect.

Show your techs that you’re serious.  Talk about how previous recommendations have helped customers.  Step in quickly when there is a failure in the process or someone else in the organization doesn’t do their part.  Go out and see customers and let them know what you have asked your techs to do and why.  Become a super model.

Blow Your Techs’ Horn

When a technician makes a recommendation that the customer acts on, let everybody on the team know.  Tell them what the tech recommended and why.  Discuss how this will directly benefit the customer.  Make sure that everyone knows how this recommendation directly contributed to your customer’s well-being.  Blow you techs’ horn.

Have a Back Up Plan

Not everyone on your team will feel comfortable – at least at first – in engaging the customer in conversations about recommendations to help them to be better off.  If you have members on your team who are uncomfortable engaging the customer in this way, have a back up plan so that they can still participate.

Ensure your process includes situations where opportunities can be identified and given to someone else in the organization to discuss with the customer.  That way, a hesitant technician can still benefit their customers even if they don’t speak to the customer directly about their recommendation.  Over time, you can focus on helping these reluctant techs to become more comfortable and enthusiastic about their proactive role in the strategy but in the meantime, have a back up plan.

Although time is not a luxury that service managers have, we can maintain focus and achieve the change to a more proactive business development culture by integrating our efforts into our daily routines.

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

“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself I could not change others.”

– Nelson Mandela

The post Developing a Proactive Business Development Culture for the Time Strapped Service Manager appeared first on jimbaston.com.

During our Proactive Service® workshops, we ask technicians if they have ever proposed an idea to a customer where the customer has never gotten back to them and where they do not know what the customer has decided to do.  Almost everyone’s hand goes up.  We then ask, “Why do you think that is the case?”  Responses range from, “They decided not to do it” to “They got someone else to do it.”  Occasionally someone will say something like, “Maybe they forgot about it” and if they don’t, then we suggest it.  We then relate the story that I told in my last blog about the technician that passed on a lead from the field that was never followed up by the salesperson.  In that situation, the recommended action was to prevent a failure and a few months later, the failure indeed occurred.  Of course, the customer was angry and the technician was put in an uncomfortable position because of inaction on the part of the salesperson, but the problem would have been avoided altogether if the technician just took a moment to inquire with the customer whether they had given any more thought to the matter.

Usually there are one or two techs in the room who share with the rest of the class that they make it a point to follow up.  When they volunteer this, I ask them “What does the customer say when you remind them of something important that they may have forgotten about?”.  “They thank me” is the usual reply.

If we truly want to deliver a more valuable (and valued) level of service, we must do more than simply bring opportunities to the customer.  We must inquire about them when the customer has not taken action to ensure that the customer does not lose sight of those important recommendations and save them grief and aggravation down the road.

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

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas A. Edison

The post Step 5 of a Proactive Service® Culture – Follow Up on Opportunities 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.

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

The post 1st Step in Creating Proactive Service® – Focus on Service, Not Selling appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Thank you for signing up.  I understand that your time is precious and that there are lots of blogs out there to choose from.  My goal, therefore, is to make this a valuable and entertaining resource that you will look forward to receiving and hopefully pass on to your friends and colleagues.  Your input will help me keep on track and relevant to the challenges that you are facing at the moment. You will find the signup for the blog in the side widget to the right. Please make sure you follow the instructions carefully to ensure you receive your posts in your inbox.

I hope you find this blog of value and I look forward to your comments. Don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one, via the commentluv feature you’ll find in the comment section.

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.