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Is good customer service killing you?

10/26/2011

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Conway Daily Sun
Wed. Oct 26,2011
By Michael Kline

Customer service is too often measured in much the same way as humor or common sense is measured. Almost everyone thinks they, themselves are the very definition of common sense, and that they have the appropriate sense of humor.

Ironically, the person I know who complains most about other people not having any common sense, is himself, the person who in my opinion, has the least common sense of anyone I know.  I mean he doesn’t have the good sense to come in out of the rain. He’s the kind of person who would test the depth of the river with both feet.  Seriously, at work you probably know him (or maybe you are him); he laughs at constant stupid mistakes, as if a little laughter makes it go away (which it can if the mistakes aren’t costing the business money).  The point is this person likes to complain about everyone else in terms of their lack of common sense. It would be hysterical if it wasn’t so frustrating. So let me ask you - do you think that most people are the best judge of their own level of common sense?

Here’s the problem. When you look around your business, and you think you offer pretty good customer service, do you think you are the best and most accurate measure of the reality your customers actually experience?  Me either.

How do you measure customer service? It’s pretty easy, actually.  You create a system that produces results based on real customer information rather than your gut feeling. Depending on the business, it might make sense to survey customers online, in person or with comment cards. Some might need to mix deeper questions into their regular customer contact conversations.  The method can be whatever is appropriate for you, but you need do need to have some method. Then you simply record the responses.  Once you have this information, you can immediately learn about areas of improvement as well as new sales opportunities.  A number of other benefits can come out of this process, which will be valuable in strategic planning, but we’ll save that for another day. Once you have the data, you can watch for trends over time, between different locations, staff, during various promotions, etc.  Many variables may affect the customer experience without you knowing it unless you measure it. This works a lot like the way you measure your closing ratios (you do, don’t you?)  The story is usually told not by the responses, but by the change in responses.

So how is good customer service killing you?  No one complains about mediocre service. No one complains about general indifference.  If you’re not measuring it, you think a lack of complaints defines good service.  Meanwhile, your customer goes away thinking you really don’t appreciate them.  Indifference may not cause an immediate complaint, but it definitely does not build any sense of loyalty. It does not earn a referral or repeat visit. With only adequate customer service, even the slightest influence steers that customer to your competitors without thinking of you ever again.  It costs a lot of money to get the first- time customer. It costs nothing to keep them as a repeat customer. Some businesses spend so much money getting a customer in the door, it takes several purchases before they start to make a profit on that customer.  Does it make sense to measure the most important aspect of your operation that determines whether or not you keep them and ever make any money?

I am convinced that gross indifference – actively avoiding eye contact with a customer or pretending to be busy to avoid helping a customer is about the rudest behavior a retailer can have and it’s so common it practically epidemic.  I know you’re not okay with that. What are you going to do about it?

Perhaps even more telling, is that while larger companies hire me to teach customer service on site, I don’t even offer a public customer service seminar because so few people think they need it. Hmmmm.

Feel free to share your thoughts at facebook.com/klineseminars.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.
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Increase Sales from Inside your Business

2/2/2010

1 Comment

 
Increasing retail sales is often within the power of the retailer. Let’s simplify what contributes to total sales.  You have traffic, some of whom will buy and you have an average sale price.  Your traffic X the closing ratio X average sale = total sales.  So it’s simple – you only have three things to work on.

This article is not about how to get more traffic - let’s focus on what’s free, easy and immediate - selling more to the traffic you already have.  A certain percentage of your traffic will make a purchase – this is your “closing ratio”.  What do you consider an acceptable percentage?  What was your closing ratio when times were better?  What about on different days of the week or when different employees are working?  By the way, this is an interesting evaluation of employee productivity and sales skills. It’s been proven that just tracking your closing ratio will result in an increase in sales. When I was doing business to business sales, I used to track 100 calls to set 10 appointments and close one sale. Tracking allowed me to notice when something was going awry or if I discovered something that worked better. It later helped me manage my own sales staff and identify where they needed support.  Different businesses of course have very different standards.  Let’s talk about more ways to increase the closing ratio.

Are you using a greeting that represents the best first impression of your business?  “Can I help you?” is no longer acceptable.  Does your staff use what you established to be the most effective script for each type of customer (regular, first timer, just browsing)?  You want every customer to know you’re ready to serve, yet be comfortable.  Think like a food server who is attentive yet invisible.  The point is there is a best practices method of selling for every business.  If your business is lodging, you track your conversion rate and average room rate, but how do you increase the conversions, the average stay and revenue?  If you cold-call on businesses, what’s the difference between you and the stellar performer?  If you’re in retail products or services, some are consistently better than others – why is that?  How do you become the better one?

Have you and your staff received formal sales training recently?  Selling is not about slamming a sale; it’s about satisfying a customer with a solution.  You need to be proficient at interpreting the customers’ desires and hold a high level of expertise on your products.  Making a sale is the reward for being able to help the customer.  Formal sales training on a regular basis dramatically improves closing ratios.

Now that we’re helping more people buy, can we increase the average sale?  No, it’s still not about squeezing the customer for more money.  It’s about making sure the customer has the most thorough solution.  Hear this report from a major travel company - most people who book low-priced rooms on their Hawaiian vacation packages upgrade on arrival once they get jealous of the ocean front people.  The travel agent that sells the package only gets a commission on the low priced room.  What upgrades does your customer really want?  Not everyone wants to save money – in fact, it’s easily argued that people want more for their money and are spending money on better products having realized they no longer want to waste money on inferior items and experiences.  Offer accessories that improve the experience or solution you’re providing.

How do you get it all done?  Systems make everything run more smoothly.  Do you have a sales system? Perhaps your product is sold slowly through a series of appointments.  Perhaps your product simply requires time for a customer to make a choice.  How do you keep the interest alive during this time?  What follow-up steps do you take and what systems do you have in place to make sure no one falls through the cracks?  Think this isn’t a problem?  Just think about the last time you called an office for a quote and never heard back from them at all?!  It happens at great companies. It happens at mine and it happens at yours. 

All this tracking can make you crazy unless you have a system for every step of the sales/service process. That means a best-practices system for everything from greeting to needs analysis to presentations to closing and handling objections to follow-up after the sale.

Now do the math – if you increase your closing ratio and even had a modest average ticket gain, what would that amount to in dollars for you?  If you have room for improvement in your company – retail, wholesale, hospitality, travel, insurance, business to business, you could benefit greatly by reviewing or developing a sales system. 
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