Anyone who's been in sales for any length of time, knows what it's like to have a dry spell - a slump. You find yourself pressing, begging, cajoling. Selling a piece of business is a lot like getting a girlfriend* or finding another job - if you've already got one, it's easier to get another one. If you don't have one, you come off as desperate. You're miserable.
As disturbing as it seems, sometimes you're (almost) as miserable if you ARE selling. That's because after you sell something, you have to implement it. Sometimes, the implementation all goes smoothly and your world is wonderful.
Sometimes - not.
You've all been there - there are product delays, IT disconnects, billing problems, slipping timelines and your job is to get it all fixed before your customer rethinks her decision and pulls the plug on the whole deal. Probably the only thing worse than not having a sale is having one and then losing it.
Implementations in my business generally take two or three months and when they're going sideways, you spend your days crisis to crisis, having to manage both your team and the customer in order to keep it together. It's two or three months of sleepless misery.
Sometimes it's enough to have you rethink your choice of career.
But that's why they pay us the big bucks, right?
Right.
* as far as girlfriends are concerned, apparently this has proved to be an instinctual directive. If a woman sees a man with another woman, evidently she assumes that he's been vetted and found desirable and is therefore more attractive. Go figure.
Showing posts with label customer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customer. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Advertising Fail
There are many types of advertising fail – confusion about what the product is or does, not knowing or addressing the target audience, offending potential customers, etc, but the topic today addresses a different type: assuming that your audience either doesn’t have a brain or at some point won’t engage it.
The first example is actually kind of funny; it’s for a Toyota dealership in Northern California. Here’s the tagline – “we’re moving around the corner and we’d rather sell them than move them.” Well, that makes sense – wait, these are cars, right? Mattresses, washing machines, dining room sets – sure, but cars? How hard can it be to move cars? Around the corner no less?
Although it isn’t done in jest, it’s just so stupid that it’s funny.
The next one bugs me a bit more, probably because it straight out insults your intelligence. I’m sure you’ve heard this one or one similar – “if we can’t beat their price, we’ll give you the ____”. The particular ad I’m talking about now is for mattresses but I’ve heard a similar ad for cars. “So let me see, I can either beat my competitor’s price by a dollar or I can give away a $500 mattress. Hmm, which one will I choose?”
Now, I get the point that this place will ensure that they have the best price and I guess the normal tack of “we’ll beat any competitor’s price by 5%” probably wasn’t good enough, so they came up with this.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Corporate Cluelessness – part 3000
I’ve written about Fidelity before, as they are the repository of my kids’ 529 plans (through no fault of my own).
Now the thing that used to set me off was the convoluted phone system that required me to eventually hit “0” and speak to a representative every time I wanted to withdraw money (about 8 times a year, with two kids in college). So I’d go through this procedure and they would transfer the money to my linked checking account about two days later, so I could pay the bills.
About a month ago I get an e-mail telling me they now have on-line withdrawal capabilities. Yippee – no more convoluted phone system!
Naturally the first two times I try to enroll – it won’t let me, but third time’s the charm. I enroll both accounts and make my first withdrawal. Wait, what’s this? You’re going to mail me a check and I’ll get it in about six days?
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the on-line experience supposed to be easier and faster? The frustrating part is that they already have my checking account info – they’ve been transferring money to it for two years. All they had to do was add a “transfer to checking account on file ending in xxxx?”
So my choices are these: use the frustrating phone system and get the money in two days or use the not-so-frustrating on-line system and get it in six? Or just move the 529 plans to a less clueless institution – yeah, that might be the way to go.
Now the thing that used to set me off was the convoluted phone system that required me to eventually hit “0” and speak to a representative every time I wanted to withdraw money (about 8 times a year, with two kids in college). So I’d go through this procedure and they would transfer the money to my linked checking account about two days later, so I could pay the bills.
About a month ago I get an e-mail telling me they now have on-line withdrawal capabilities. Yippee – no more convoluted phone system!
Naturally the first two times I try to enroll – it won’t let me, but third time’s the charm. I enroll both accounts and make my first withdrawal. Wait, what’s this? You’re going to mail me a check and I’ll get it in about six days?
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the on-line experience supposed to be easier and faster? The frustrating part is that they already have my checking account info – they’ve been transferring money to it for two years. All they had to do was add a “transfer to checking account on file ending in xxxx?”
So my choices are these: use the frustrating phone system and get the money in two days or use the not-so-frustrating on-line system and get it in six? Or just move the 529 plans to a less clueless institution – yeah, that might be the way to go.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Are Sales Leads worth anything anymore?
When corporate offices are trying to help salespeople sell, they give them lists of leads; companies have sprung up in all industries selling lists of leads. You can buy lead lists sliced and diced any number of ways – want to know the names of all the females living in Sandusky who have 2 kids and a household income between $36,700 and $63,700? We can get that.
But lead lists on their own aren’t worth anything. Sure they give you people to call and if you get paid by the call, I guess they’re worth something. But salespeople get paid to sell, not call and unless someone buys something the list is worthless.
So how can you tell if that housewife wants your widget?
Marketing departments often perceive their number one priority to be finding likely buyers. In other words, it’s all about the Who. It’s easy to get the Who (even if it’s not the right Who).
What about the Why? Why do people buy? In individual settings, lots of studies have been done trying to ascertain consumer buying patterns and motivations but how much do you (or your salespeople) know about why corporate customers buy the particular type of widget you’re peddling? After all, in business settings, there are a lot of forces at work in making purchasing decisions – the customer’s need and budget, sure, but also historical vendor relationships, internal political struggles, the firm’s willingness (or resistance) and ability to change, and the overall corporate environment. Some of these things are easier to ascertain than others, either by doing research or asking pertinent questions but some, like the political and relationship questions are harder to ascertain.
And failing to get those details can, unfortunately, derail a potential sale at the 11th hour.
All of this theoretically falls under the heading of “qualifying the lead” and even lists of “qualified” leads aren’t typically going to get into that level of detail.
So what are you gonna do? Well if plain old lists of leads are worthless, lists of “qualified” leads are at least a starting place and to the extent that the marketing department can further drill down, at least on the need, budget and timing issues, the likelihood of converting that lead to a successful sale goes up exponentially.
The real work of getting to the Why (or Why Not) comes from relationship-building, usually on the part of the sales rep, which is how it should be.
After all, although it’d be great, it’s not marketing’s job to give us customers ready to sign on the dotted line – it to give us potential customers who are ready and willing to begin building a relationship with us. And if they can do that, it’s not worthless at all.
But lead lists on their own aren’t worth anything. Sure they give you people to call and if you get paid by the call, I guess they’re worth something. But salespeople get paid to sell, not call and unless someone buys something the list is worthless.
So how can you tell if that housewife wants your widget?
Marketing departments often perceive their number one priority to be finding likely buyers. In other words, it’s all about the Who. It’s easy to get the Who (even if it’s not the right Who).
What about the Why? Why do people buy? In individual settings, lots of studies have been done trying to ascertain consumer buying patterns and motivations but how much do you (or your salespeople) know about why corporate customers buy the particular type of widget you’re peddling? After all, in business settings, there are a lot of forces at work in making purchasing decisions – the customer’s need and budget, sure, but also historical vendor relationships, internal political struggles, the firm’s willingness (or resistance) and ability to change, and the overall corporate environment. Some of these things are easier to ascertain than others, either by doing research or asking pertinent questions but some, like the political and relationship questions are harder to ascertain.
And failing to get those details can, unfortunately, derail a potential sale at the 11th hour.
All of this theoretically falls under the heading of “qualifying the lead” and even lists of “qualified” leads aren’t typically going to get into that level of detail.
So what are you gonna do? Well if plain old lists of leads are worthless, lists of “qualified” leads are at least a starting place and to the extent that the marketing department can further drill down, at least on the need, budget and timing issues, the likelihood of converting that lead to a successful sale goes up exponentially.
The real work of getting to the Why (or Why Not) comes from relationship-building, usually on the part of the sales rep, which is how it should be.
After all, although it’d be great, it’s not marketing’s job to give us customers ready to sign on the dotted line – it to give us potential customers who are ready and willing to begin building a relationship with us. And if they can do that, it’s not worthless at all.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Share the Vision
As an executive you know how important it is to communicate the company’s mission to your employees, and we all know that that’s easier said than done. Talking about “the vision” at company meetings and having a Mission Statement on the website are not the same thing as having people understand it and believe it. The number one reason sales people don’t “Share the Vision” is that what they hear in speeches and read in letters from management often doesn’t align with what they see in action every day. Reps may not see, or may not think about, how their day-to-day activities fit with the company’s strategy, how their territories and their quotas align with the overall corporate goals. The major function of sharing the vision is to get the sales team to think about something other than their individual quotas. Reps can be very myopic when it comes to their little place in the corporate universe and occasionally need to be reminded of the “greater good” and how they can (and are expected to) serve it.
I cannot stress enough the value of senior management spending time with sales reps and giving them the insight to apply the company’s overall vision to their little slice of the world. Clarify and explain how sales objectives and territories are built and how what you have reps doing is an integral part of fulfilling specific milestones and meeting specific corporate targets, rather than just hitting sales goals.
Sales reps will be much more productive and happy if they understand your shared goals and can connect their activities with the activities of all the firm’s other employees. In the field they will be much more effective if they can trust that the corporate mission is more than words on paper; that it really is something you are all committed to.
I cannot stress enough the value of senior management spending time with sales reps and giving them the insight to apply the company’s overall vision to their little slice of the world. Clarify and explain how sales objectives and territories are built and how what you have reps doing is an integral part of fulfilling specific milestones and meeting specific corporate targets, rather than just hitting sales goals.
Sales reps will be much more productive and happy if they understand your shared goals and can connect their activities with the activities of all the firm’s other employees. In the field they will be much more effective if they can trust that the corporate mission is more than words on paper; that it really is something you are all committed to.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Why do companies hate their customers?
This is one of those “well, duh” issues, I guess, but the dichotomy between what companies say and what they do is simply astounding to me. Much like what the dichotomy between what politicians say and do. And we all hate politicians, but we can vote against companies (and their practices) with our dollars and yet, apparently, we don’t.
If you look at virtually any company’s website or annual report, you can find their mission statement and after you get done with the junk about “empowered employees saving the earth” you will find out that they really, really respect and cherish and love their customers. Turns out what they really, really respect and cherish and love is their customer’s money. And they will lie and cheat and deceive to get it.
Now you’d think that all this lying, cheating and deceiving would be kind of a turn off for customers, not to mention kind of illegal. But no.
For instance, how are rebates not a “bait and switch”? Did we say that was $49.95? Well yeah, you pay us $150 today and if you complete these seven steps in the exact order we tell you and slice and dice the box it came in just so and send the whole mess in before midnight tonite to Young America, MN, we might send you a check for $100.05 in 4 to 6 weeks. So obviously the $49.95 is a lie. If the real cost, across the board was $49.95, that’s what you’d pay at the store and be done with it.
People don’t complain about this because they’re all sure that they’re gonna do the seven steps, etc. But we all know that the only reason companies do this is that some good portion of the populace won’t do the seven steps before midnight tonite, so the company gets to keep the $100 and 50 cents. If you really loved and cherished those folks would you be trying to hose them out of $100.50? You would not. Clearly your money is more important than you are.
My last point on rebates is this: it’s not like just one or two companies are doing them, there’s hundreds. And they ALL think you’re a schmuck. How does that make you feel? Cherished?
OK, rebates are an easy target, but there’s tons more proof that there are companies that hate you and will do virtually anything to get a few more bucks from you, while at the same time proclaiming their love for you.
OK, time to name names (but just for illustrative purposes):
Macy’s – my wife is a fine and long-term Macy’s customer and constantly gets 15% or $10 off coupons. Can she use them? Of course not, because the things she’d actually like to buy are excluded from the coupon’s discount. Would it kill Macy’s to give out a 15% off coupon with no limitations to its good customers? It would not. But why do that when you can lure them into your store and wring out a few more dollars?
Wireless Companies – I was gonna say AT&T, but they’re all the same. Is there a real problem with offering a plan with 1500 minutes for, say, $99,95 month, all in? Of course not. They advertise $99.95, but is the actual bill ever $99.95? It is not. If you respected your customers, you’d actually give them what you advertise. And make sure that you let them know before they ran up a bazillion dollars of overage charges. I’ve gotten text messages from AT&T advertising stuff but never to alert me that I’ve gone over my monthly allowance. Technologically impossible? I think not.
Credit card companies. You probably think I’m going to rail against 20% interest rates or the fact that years of loyal card-ownership go out the window if you’re three days late one month. Well there are those things, but frankly we all know those things going in so they don’t really fall into the “screwing your customers with malice aforethought” category. But this does: You know those checks you get, monthly, offering low, low interest rates if you use them to pay off other high-rate cards? Turns out that this is not the great deal you’d think – it’s a ploy to insulate, and increase, the debt you owe (at 20%) from ever getting paid off. How’s that work? Here’s the fine print - the debt you roll over at 2.99% gets paid off first, so that $500 you send in every month doesn’t reduce your high-interest debt at all. The highest rate debt gets paid off dead last. Nice.
Now believe me, I get the profit motive (business major!) and I also know that these companies have probably done cost-benefit analyses that support, on paper, screwing over your customer base to make a few bucks.
What I just really just don’t see is why companies feel they’ve got to lie to be profitable. And here’s my real problem – there are people (not companies) making these decisions. Do the people making these decisions know the people who write the mission statement? My fear is that they’re the same people.
It just goes to prove that Mencken’s phrase “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” is, sadly, still true and that, sadly, there are still people willing to exploit that fact.
If you look at virtually any company’s website or annual report, you can find their mission statement and after you get done with the junk about “empowered employees saving the earth” you will find out that they really, really respect and cherish and love their customers. Turns out what they really, really respect and cherish and love is their customer’s money. And they will lie and cheat and deceive to get it.
Now you’d think that all this lying, cheating and deceiving would be kind of a turn off for customers, not to mention kind of illegal. But no.
For instance, how are rebates not a “bait and switch”? Did we say that was $49.95? Well yeah, you pay us $150 today and if you complete these seven steps in the exact order we tell you and slice and dice the box it came in just so and send the whole mess in before midnight tonite to Young America, MN, we might send you a check for $100.05 in 4 to 6 weeks. So obviously the $49.95 is a lie. If the real cost, across the board was $49.95, that’s what you’d pay at the store and be done with it.
People don’t complain about this because they’re all sure that they’re gonna do the seven steps, etc. But we all know that the only reason companies do this is that some good portion of the populace won’t do the seven steps before midnight tonite, so the company gets to keep the $100 and 50 cents. If you really loved and cherished those folks would you be trying to hose them out of $100.50? You would not. Clearly your money is more important than you are.
My last point on rebates is this: it’s not like just one or two companies are doing them, there’s hundreds. And they ALL think you’re a schmuck. How does that make you feel? Cherished?
OK, rebates are an easy target, but there’s tons more proof that there are companies that hate you and will do virtually anything to get a few more bucks from you, while at the same time proclaiming their love for you.
OK, time to name names (but just for illustrative purposes):
Macy’s – my wife is a fine and long-term Macy’s customer and constantly gets 15% or $10 off coupons. Can she use them? Of course not, because the things she’d actually like to buy are excluded from the coupon’s discount. Would it kill Macy’s to give out a 15% off coupon with no limitations to its good customers? It would not. But why do that when you can lure them into your store and wring out a few more dollars?
Wireless Companies – I was gonna say AT&T, but they’re all the same. Is there a real problem with offering a plan with 1500 minutes for, say, $99,95 month, all in? Of course not. They advertise $99.95, but is the actual bill ever $99.95? It is not. If you respected your customers, you’d actually give them what you advertise. And make sure that you let them know before they ran up a bazillion dollars of overage charges. I’ve gotten text messages from AT&T advertising stuff but never to alert me that I’ve gone over my monthly allowance. Technologically impossible? I think not.
Credit card companies. You probably think I’m going to rail against 20% interest rates or the fact that years of loyal card-ownership go out the window if you’re three days late one month. Well there are those things, but frankly we all know those things going in so they don’t really fall into the “screwing your customers with malice aforethought” category. But this does: You know those checks you get, monthly, offering low, low interest rates if you use them to pay off other high-rate cards? Turns out that this is not the great deal you’d think – it’s a ploy to insulate, and increase, the debt you owe (at 20%) from ever getting paid off. How’s that work? Here’s the fine print - the debt you roll over at 2.99% gets paid off first, so that $500 you send in every month doesn’t reduce your high-interest debt at all. The highest rate debt gets paid off dead last. Nice.
Now believe me, I get the profit motive (business major!) and I also know that these companies have probably done cost-benefit analyses that support, on paper, screwing over your customer base to make a few bucks.
What I just really just don’t see is why companies feel they’ve got to lie to be profitable. And here’s my real problem – there are people (not companies) making these decisions. Do the people making these decisions know the people who write the mission statement? My fear is that they’re the same people.
It just goes to prove that Mencken’s phrase “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” is, sadly, still true and that, sadly, there are still people willing to exploit that fact.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Jeffrey Gitomer has it wrong
If you read any business blogs or papers, you’ve probably seen Jeffrey Gitomer, he’s all over the place giving his (pretty gruff) advice on sales and his big tag line is always: “People hate to be sold, but people love to buy”
People don’t love to buy. Well, OK, some people do – my wife loves to buy shoes, but even then she frequently has buyer’s remorse and even more frequently, returns them. From a salesperson’s point of view, not exactly a success story.
In the corporate world, people certainly don’t “love” to buy – they have to buy. They have to buy a new phone system, different software, a new health insurance plan. Are these things people love to buy? Not so much.
If they “loved to buy” why is so much time taken up presenting, convincing, cajoling and overcoming objections?
When you buy you have to deal with the cost of the new item/service, the pain of implementation and the possibility of failure. As a sales person, if you could offer something where you could say “Tomorrow we’re going to implement the new system which will add all the new features you want, take away all your pain points, do it for slightly cheaper than you’re paying now and we’re going to do it with the flip of a switch.”
Does this sound like something you sell? Anyone?
I will agree with the “hate to be sold” part so (obviously) you’ve got to address the prospect’s needs, wants and fears in the manner in which they want them addressed and make them feel as comfortable as possible with their decision. Make it as painless and as positive as possible.
So the line ought to be “People need to buy, but hate to be sold”.
You heard it here first.
People don’t love to buy. Well, OK, some people do – my wife loves to buy shoes, but even then she frequently has buyer’s remorse and even more frequently, returns them. From a salesperson’s point of view, not exactly a success story.
In the corporate world, people certainly don’t “love” to buy – they have to buy. They have to buy a new phone system, different software, a new health insurance plan. Are these things people love to buy? Not so much.
If they “loved to buy” why is so much time taken up presenting, convincing, cajoling and overcoming objections?
When you buy you have to deal with the cost of the new item/service, the pain of implementation and the possibility of failure. As a sales person, if you could offer something where you could say “Tomorrow we’re going to implement the new system which will add all the new features you want, take away all your pain points, do it for slightly cheaper than you’re paying now and we’re going to do it with the flip of a switch.”
Does this sound like something you sell? Anyone?
I will agree with the “hate to be sold” part so (obviously) you’ve got to address the prospect’s needs, wants and fears in the manner in which they want them addressed and make them feel as comfortable as possible with their decision. Make it as painless and as positive as possible.
So the line ought to be “People need to buy, but hate to be sold”.
You heard it here first.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sales vs. Ethics
I know this topic doesn’t really come as a surprise to most people (especially any non-sales people who may be reading) but seeing it firsthand kind of did shock me. In the field I work in, financial services, the by-word has always been Ethics and even more so since Mr. Spitzer came on the scene a few years ago. Every year each of us has to take a continuing ed course, three hours or so, on Ethics where we are presented with various scenarios regarding “questionable” ethics and the right actions to take in them. Like most continuing ed courses the general feeling most of us get is “this couldn’t be more lame” and/or “what kind of idiot doesn’t know this?”
Well I’ve seen the idiot and he is us.
Over the years I’ve seen many situations where, although there may not be any real malice involved, the thinking is “we can make the sale, so we should make the sale” with very little thought as to how the client is impacted. Does the sale always come first? Shouldn’t there be some tangible benefit to the customer? We all think our product and our service and our company are better than the competition, but unfortunately that isn’t always the case. Some customers have perfectly good deals with other perfectly good vendors and what do we make of those situations? Isn’t that what the Continuing Ed classes are really supposed to be teaching us?
I’ve got an ethical issue with selling a product just to generate new commissions but due to the pressures of the job (or whatever) I don’t think a lot of sales reps see it that way. In certain industries (like Life Insurance) there are specific regulations prohibiting replacing products in this manner. Many of us have to put up with onerous laws and regulations that, for the most part, we think are unnecessary, overdone and a hindrance to our selling ability. If we don’t start policing ourselves and actually think about what we’re doing, there will be more and more and more such regulations.
Well I’ve seen the idiot and he is us.
Over the years I’ve seen many situations where, although there may not be any real malice involved, the thinking is “we can make the sale, so we should make the sale” with very little thought as to how the client is impacted. Does the sale always come first? Shouldn’t there be some tangible benefit to the customer? We all think our product and our service and our company are better than the competition, but unfortunately that isn’t always the case. Some customers have perfectly good deals with other perfectly good vendors and what do we make of those situations? Isn’t that what the Continuing Ed classes are really supposed to be teaching us?
I’ve got an ethical issue with selling a product just to generate new commissions but due to the pressures of the job (or whatever) I don’t think a lot of sales reps see it that way. In certain industries (like Life Insurance) there are specific regulations prohibiting replacing products in this manner. Many of us have to put up with onerous laws and regulations that, for the most part, we think are unnecessary, overdone and a hindrance to our selling ability. If we don’t start policing ourselves and actually think about what we’re doing, there will be more and more and more such regulations.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Stupid customer service tricks
Lest you think all I do is snark about my employer (and I don't; I'm more than willing to snark about anyone's employer albeit sometimes with the snarkee being anonymous), allow me to opine on two separate customer service experiences I've had recently, both automated and both telephonic.
Now I'm not usually a huge fan of automated customer service, not because I'm a technophobe, but because they're so rarely done well. I particularly hate voice mail trees. Oh sure they're sold internally as a customer service, "so that consumers are directed to the correct department", but we all know that they are usually extremely frustrating. The thing that galls me the most is the widely held opinion inside firms that everybody else's voice mail tree is voice mail hell, but ours is OK. If you don't like them when you call your phone company, why do you inflict the same thing on your customers?
OK, scenario one - the good one (change of pace!!) is CIGNA's Tel-drug prescription ordering system. Obviously someone took the time to actually use this before installing because it has just the right little touches and ease-of-use to be really good. Everything is logically explained, prompts make sense and actions are acknowledged. Additionally they add touches like "if you want to order another refill, press 1, if not, press 9"; normally it'd be press 1 for yes or 2 for no, but asking you to press 9 prevents you from accidentally pressing the wrong key. I know you're thinking "big deal", but when it come to things like automated customer service if you want people to use it and not feel abused by it, you really have to pay attention to the details.
Which brings us to scenario two - the bad one. Here I'll name names, Fidelity Investments, because I didn't ask to open an account there, my kid's 529 plans were moved there by the State of California. Never having done business with Fidelity before, I had a pretty good impression of them. Now, not so much.
First, I have two separate accounts for two separate children. Fidelity makes me activate each account before I can do anything. OK. I go through the 5 pages of information for the first one and the system blows up. Fine, glitches happen. Do it again - same result. I wait until the next day to try again and this time it works. Probably overloaded from everyone whose plan moved. I'm ready to start using my accounts - wait what's this? Only one is activated? Hmm. OK, I'll go through the steps again because surely all the information I filled out before (address, employer, etc) will be pre-filled, right? Wrong. Look, if I wasn't the same person that filled out the info before, why is this my account?
And I haven't got the telephony part yet. The on-line system doesn't let me do something fairly minor but asks me to call their 800 customer service line. You know the drill - "Please say or enter your social security number", cool- voice recognition! so after the pause I start to speak. She's not done speaking yet: "If you are using a customer identification number instead, you can enter that". Naturally since she and I are speaking at the same time my SS# isn't recognized. Now who inserts a pause long enough between those two phrases that the listener is faked out? So I do it again, correctly, after the second pause and after going through the tree and deciding that none of those options will fix my issue, they finally connect me to a rep. Who asks my account number.
Oh, and just one more - this one is short (I know I said two, sue me). I have about three or four different Earthlink accounts for different websites and such. Every once in a while they send an e-mail telling me account # such and such has a credit card expiring, please log on and fix it. Here's the thing - when you log on to Earthlink's My Account page there's nowhere to enter the account number - it asks for your e-mail address. Well my e-mail address points to only one of the accounts and there's no way to change that. Why bother to tell you to fix this account number on-line if you can't access it by account number?
Yes, automated systems can save money, but if you want customers to actually use them, rather than automatically hitting "0", you have spend some time to make them user-friendly, a greatly overused phrase but greatly underutilized action.
Now I'm not usually a huge fan of automated customer service, not because I'm a technophobe, but because they're so rarely done well. I particularly hate voice mail trees. Oh sure they're sold internally as a customer service, "so that consumers are directed to the correct department", but we all know that they are usually extremely frustrating. The thing that galls me the most is the widely held opinion inside firms that everybody else's voice mail tree is voice mail hell, but ours is OK. If you don't like them when you call your phone company, why do you inflict the same thing on your customers?
OK, scenario one - the good one (change of pace!!) is CIGNA's Tel-drug prescription ordering system. Obviously someone took the time to actually use this before installing because it has just the right little touches and ease-of-use to be really good. Everything is logically explained, prompts make sense and actions are acknowledged. Additionally they add touches like "if you want to order another refill, press 1, if not, press 9"; normally it'd be press 1 for yes or 2 for no, but asking you to press 9 prevents you from accidentally pressing the wrong key. I know you're thinking "big deal", but when it come to things like automated customer service if you want people to use it and not feel abused by it, you really have to pay attention to the details.
Which brings us to scenario two - the bad one. Here I'll name names, Fidelity Investments, because I didn't ask to open an account there, my kid's 529 plans were moved there by the State of California. Never having done business with Fidelity before, I had a pretty good impression of them. Now, not so much.
First, I have two separate accounts for two separate children. Fidelity makes me activate each account before I can do anything. OK. I go through the 5 pages of information for the first one and the system blows up. Fine, glitches happen. Do it again - same result. I wait until the next day to try again and this time it works. Probably overloaded from everyone whose plan moved. I'm ready to start using my accounts - wait what's this? Only one is activated? Hmm. OK, I'll go through the steps again because surely all the information I filled out before (address, employer, etc) will be pre-filled, right? Wrong. Look, if I wasn't the same person that filled out the info before, why is this my account?
And I haven't got the telephony part yet. The on-line system doesn't let me do something fairly minor but asks me to call their 800 customer service line. You know the drill - "Please say or enter your social security number", cool- voice recognition! so after the pause I start to speak. She's not done speaking yet: "If you are using a customer identification number instead, you can enter that". Naturally since she and I are speaking at the same time my SS# isn't recognized. Now who inserts a pause long enough between those two phrases that the listener is faked out? So I do it again, correctly, after the second pause and after going through the tree and deciding that none of those options will fix my issue, they finally connect me to a rep. Who asks my account number.
Oh, and just one more - this one is short (I know I said two, sue me). I have about three or four different Earthlink accounts for different websites and such. Every once in a while they send an e-mail telling me account # such and such has a credit card expiring, please log on and fix it. Here's the thing - when you log on to Earthlink's My Account page there's nowhere to enter the account number - it asks for your e-mail address. Well my e-mail address points to only one of the accounts and there's no way to change that. Why bother to tell you to fix this account number on-line if you can't access it by account number?
Yes, automated systems can save money, but if you want customers to actually use them, rather than automatically hitting "0", you have spend some time to make them user-friendly, a greatly overused phrase but greatly underutilized action.
Monday, December 04, 2006
De-Motivating Sales Reps
I know you're thinking "Jeez, what a stupid title, who'd want to de-motivate a Sales Rep?" The original title was Why Salespeople Don't Sell but then I realized that there was a whole myriad of reasons that could be true (personal problems, looking for another position, just isn't good at her job, etc) so I decided to focus on the one area you, as a corporate executive, have some control over - keeping reps motivated, or rather not actively de-motivating them.
Now I know it'd be stupid to actively try to encourage a Sales Rep to not sell and of course most de-motivation is inadvertent. It's well known that professional Sales Reps can only be effective when they believe in what they're selling. The opposite of that is true, too: if I don't believe in what I'm selling, I'm either A.) not going to be very good at it or B) I won't sell it at all. So, as noted in the previous post, things happen that cause reps to believe that the things they're supposed to be selling are lies. I clearly won't be trying to get business from that client for a while, because they won't believe what I'm supposed to tell them and neither will I.
Am I going to cut out selling every time the billing goes sideways or some customer service reps have a bad day? Of course not. If that was the case no one would ever sell anything. Accidents happen. If, OTOH, the billing issues, service problems, product failures or brain-deadness of the organization is an on-going and constant thing, you can be damn sure that your reps will shut down (and look for a way out). Again, I'd hope that if these problems were that bad, they'd be apparent to you and you'd have them fixed, however knowing the speed with which a giant organizational ship can be turned, sometimes even knowing the problems isn't enough. And then there are those firms that refuse to address the problems. The situation noted in the prior post (and I would venture to say, most good large corporations) fall into the former category. We know we've got issues; it's just that addressing them takes time and resources. In the meantime, no sales, because the reps aren't willing to throw their reputations under the bus. And note: asking a salesperson to burn their reputation so that you can get some sales is a surefire way to lose reps rather than gain sales.
Back to the issue of those that refuse to address the problem, let me pass along an anecdote from an an anonymous correspondent. This woman works for a firm that produces tradeshow graphics and booths. Now in her business everything is time-sensitive (getting the booth the week after the show is kind of a non-starter), so her clients are very specific as to when and how the products are delivered. The problem is that the boss is very scattered, disorganized and consistently over-promises and under-delivers. So the rep will have an order due, say, December 6th at 5PM. On the morning of December 6th, the boss will clear all the scheduled jobs in order to rush through the one that either he A) promised and forgot about or B) thinks is more important. The rep's job is now late. As before, if this was a once-in-a-while problem, no big deal, but at her firm it happens so often (and no one dares confront the boss) that she can never be sure that the promises she makes can be kept. She can never be sure that the job will be done on time. How can someone sell in that situation?
The bottom line is that, as a rep with any sort of pride, we need to be able to deliver what we promise on a fairly regular basis. That's what our clients count on and that's what our reputations are built on. If we don't believe that our promises will be kept, we won't be able to make them, and that's really all sales is - making a promise we know will be kept. If you can't make that happen for us, we can't sell for you.
Now I know it'd be stupid to actively try to encourage a Sales Rep to not sell and of course most de-motivation is inadvertent. It's well known that professional Sales Reps can only be effective when they believe in what they're selling. The opposite of that is true, too: if I don't believe in what I'm selling, I'm either A.) not going to be very good at it or B) I won't sell it at all. So, as noted in the previous post, things happen that cause reps to believe that the things they're supposed to be selling are lies. I clearly won't be trying to get business from that client for a while, because they won't believe what I'm supposed to tell them and neither will I.
Am I going to cut out selling every time the billing goes sideways or some customer service reps have a bad day? Of course not. If that was the case no one would ever sell anything. Accidents happen. If, OTOH, the billing issues, service problems, product failures or brain-deadness of the organization is an on-going and constant thing, you can be damn sure that your reps will shut down (and look for a way out). Again, I'd hope that if these problems were that bad, they'd be apparent to you and you'd have them fixed, however knowing the speed with which a giant organizational ship can be turned, sometimes even knowing the problems isn't enough. And then there are those firms that refuse to address the problems. The situation noted in the prior post (and I would venture to say, most good large corporations) fall into the former category. We know we've got issues; it's just that addressing them takes time and resources. In the meantime, no sales, because the reps aren't willing to throw their reputations under the bus. And note: asking a salesperson to burn their reputation so that you can get some sales is a surefire way to lose reps rather than gain sales.
Back to the issue of those that refuse to address the problem, let me pass along an anecdote from an an anonymous correspondent. This woman works for a firm that produces tradeshow graphics and booths. Now in her business everything is time-sensitive (getting the booth the week after the show is kind of a non-starter), so her clients are very specific as to when and how the products are delivered. The problem is that the boss is very scattered, disorganized and consistently over-promises and under-delivers. So the rep will have an order due, say, December 6th at 5PM. On the morning of December 6th, the boss will clear all the scheduled jobs in order to rush through the one that either he A) promised and forgot about or B) thinks is more important. The rep's job is now late. As before, if this was a once-in-a-while problem, no big deal, but at her firm it happens so often (and no one dares confront the boss) that she can never be sure that the promises she makes can be kept. She can never be sure that the job will be done on time. How can someone sell in that situation?
The bottom line is that, as a rep with any sort of pride, we need to be able to deliver what we promise on a fairly regular basis. That's what our clients count on and that's what our reputations are built on. If we don't believe that our promises will be kept, we won't be able to make them, and that's really all sales is - making a promise we know will be kept. If you can't make that happen for us, we can't sell for you.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Lose the Attitude or Lose the Client
I want to share something that happens to Sales Reps waaaaay too often.
I have a client with a billing problem and she's been trying to work it out with the Home Office for 2 1/2 weeks. This is not a little billing problem, this is a really big billing problem and it's an important client. Here's my first concern - guess how I found out about this? That's right - the client emailed me. I should not be finding out about these things from my clients. Too much trouble for the HO to shoot me a note or call me to say "We've got a problem on XYZ Co., this what it is and we're working on it and will let you know if you need to do anything"? Now, I don't want to hear about every little problem but please use a little common sense to say "Rich needs a heads-up on this" for the big things. This lack of communication makes us both look like idiots.
But wait - there's more. We had a conference call, me, the client and four (count 'em) Home Office staff. Good thing I was there to referee, because the HO people were very defensive about how they'd done things. Apparently, it was the client's fault for not understanding how we were charging them. Notwithstanding the fact that a lot of the charges made no logical sense or that nowhere did we attempt to explain how we arrived at these odd numbers. Clearly, the client was wrong and they should just take our word for it that the charges were correct. Guess what didn't happen.
OK, let me make this perfectly clear: the client is not lucky that we let them do business with us, we are lucky that they have chosen to do business with us. I have seen this attitude for years, at many different companies, that somehow our clients should be thrilled that we allow them to buy our products. Where does that come from and how does it possibly make sense?
We shouldn't put people in a position that they need to change their procedures to match our internal processes. We should know what the clients need and expect. We should be accommodating to them, not the other way around.
There are very few companies in the world who make or do something so unique that a client can't go elsewhere, and get something just (or almost) as good without the condescending attitude. Everyone does it all the time - Bank of America treats you badly? Well, Washington Mutual is right down the street. Is Cingular constantly overcharging you? Switch to T-Mobile. The point is that if your employees are doing that to your clients, your clients will leave. And my reputation gets tarnished in the meantime and, really, that's all I have.
</rant>
I know I'm not saying anything new here. Everyone knows you're supposed to treat your clients well, right? Well, apparently everyone doesn't know this because this little scenario happened just this week and I'll bet it happened a thousand other times this week to other reps.
Think this doesn't happen in your company? It does. Call any one of your sales reps right now and ask. That's OK, I'll wait. Do do do doooo do. See, what did I tell you? Maybe it doesn't happen a lot, but it shouldn't happen at all. Make it stop!
I have a client with a billing problem and she's been trying to work it out with the Home Office for 2 1/2 weeks. This is not a little billing problem, this is a really big billing problem and it's an important client. Here's my first concern - guess how I found out about this? That's right - the client emailed me. I should not be finding out about these things from my clients. Too much trouble for the HO to shoot me a note or call me to say "We've got a problem on XYZ Co., this what it is and we're working on it and will let you know if you need to do anything"? Now, I don't want to hear about every little problem but please use a little common sense to say "Rich needs a heads-up on this" for the big things. This lack of communication makes us both look like idiots.
But wait - there's more. We had a conference call, me, the client and four (count 'em) Home Office staff. Good thing I was there to referee, because the HO people were very defensive about how they'd done things. Apparently, it was the client's fault for not understanding how we were charging them. Notwithstanding the fact that a lot of the charges made no logical sense or that nowhere did we attempt to explain how we arrived at these odd numbers. Clearly, the client was wrong and they should just take our word for it that the charges were correct. Guess what didn't happen.
OK, let me make this perfectly clear: the client is not lucky that we let them do business with us, we are lucky that they have chosen to do business with us. I have seen this attitude for years, at many different companies, that somehow our clients should be thrilled that we allow them to buy our products. Where does that come from and how does it possibly make sense?
We shouldn't put people in a position that they need to change their procedures to match our internal processes. We should know what the clients need and expect. We should be accommodating to them, not the other way around.
There are very few companies in the world who make or do something so unique that a client can't go elsewhere, and get something just (or almost) as good without the condescending attitude. Everyone does it all the time - Bank of America treats you badly? Well, Washington Mutual is right down the street. Is Cingular constantly overcharging you? Switch to T-Mobile. The point is that if your employees are doing that to your clients, your clients will leave. And my reputation gets tarnished in the meantime and, really, that's all I have.
</rant>
I know I'm not saying anything new here. Everyone knows you're supposed to treat your clients well, right? Well, apparently everyone doesn't know this because this little scenario happened just this week and I'll bet it happened a thousand other times this week to other reps.
Think this doesn't happen in your company? It does. Call any one of your sales reps right now and ask. That's OK, I'll wait. Do do do doooo do. See, what did I tell you? Maybe it doesn't happen a lot, but it shouldn't happen at all. Make it stop!
Monday, October 30, 2006
The Rep is Your Company
To the outside world we not only work for you, we are you.
It’s extremely important that you and everyone else in your organization remember that, to customers, your salesperson is your company. Yes, this is a cliché and everyone knows it, but on a day-to-day basis this fact is overlooked all the time. In the real world of professional sales where your representatives (note the word) are calling on and selling to other professionals, we are Sony, we are Blue Cross, we are Conde Nast, we are Stanley Tools and how the client’s experience goes with us, the sale and it’s implementation, goes their experience with Sony, Blue Cross, Conde Nast, etc.
Now that you’ve got that message, what does this mean on a practical level? What it means is that you may have thousands of employees, a well-known brand and spend millions on advertising but, on an individual customer basis, none of that matters if we can’t deliver what we promise.
So there are two lessons here: 1. your company should be organized around delivering what your sales reps promise and 2. you’d better have sales reps you trust enough that delivering on our promises doesn’t become a problem. If you can’t trust us to make realistic, reasonable and, ultimately, profitable promises, you shouldn’t have us.
The inability to follow through on a promise, ugly or confusing marketing pieces, bad customer service, mistakes and delays in the delivered order – all these things reflect badly on your person in the field and, therefore, the company. It’s the sales rep’s inability to control, manage and foresee these glitches that is the most frustrating aspect of a rep’s life. Yes, we’ll bitch and moan when something goes sideways, but you’ve got to let us know as soon as humanly possible that something we’ve promised is delayed or sidetracked.
It’s fairly common practice for Home Office folks to assume that the sales rep can, and should, just go back and change something previously promised. This is not easy and can damage the long-term credibility of the rep and, really, that’s all we’ve got.
Your brand, your products and your service can go a long way to having your client be committed to your organization, but in the end it’s the rep whose relationships can make or break the client’s bond with you.
It’s extremely important that you and everyone else in your organization remember that, to customers, your salesperson is your company. Yes, this is a cliché and everyone knows it, but on a day-to-day basis this fact is overlooked all the time. In the real world of professional sales where your representatives (note the word) are calling on and selling to other professionals, we are Sony, we are Blue Cross, we are Conde Nast, we are Stanley Tools and how the client’s experience goes with us, the sale and it’s implementation, goes their experience with Sony, Blue Cross, Conde Nast, etc.
Now that you’ve got that message, what does this mean on a practical level? What it means is that you may have thousands of employees, a well-known brand and spend millions on advertising but, on an individual customer basis, none of that matters if we can’t deliver what we promise.
So there are two lessons here: 1. your company should be organized around delivering what your sales reps promise and 2. you’d better have sales reps you trust enough that delivering on our promises doesn’t become a problem. If you can’t trust us to make realistic, reasonable and, ultimately, profitable promises, you shouldn’t have us.
The inability to follow through on a promise, ugly or confusing marketing pieces, bad customer service, mistakes and delays in the delivered order – all these things reflect badly on your person in the field and, therefore, the company. It’s the sales rep’s inability to control, manage and foresee these glitches that is the most frustrating aspect of a rep’s life. Yes, we’ll bitch and moan when something goes sideways, but you’ve got to let us know as soon as humanly possible that something we’ve promised is delayed or sidetracked.
It’s fairly common practice for Home Office folks to assume that the sales rep can, and should, just go back and change something previously promised. This is not easy and can damage the long-term credibility of the rep and, really, that’s all we’ve got.
Your brand, your products and your service can go a long way to having your client be committed to your organization, but in the end it’s the rep whose relationships can make or break the client’s bond with you.
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