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Transcript
Glenn Mattson
Welcome back to Building Blocks of Success. Glenn Mattson here, you know, in past sessions, we've talked about things that have to do with the attitude, mindset, and risk-taking, and we've also spent time talking about behaviors, which are your goals, your plans, your actions, consistency, dealing with things like vacations, etc. We've also spent a fair amount of time on technique. Well, as we start to look at building a practice, building a business, building a sales funnel and, or territory, one of the pieces that's really important is customer service.
Glenn Mattson
Now, when we're taking a look at customer service, there are lots of different variations to it. Some are complex, and some are relatively easy, but I want to start the big picture with you about really, what are customer service skills. A couple of steps that you can do to put in place right now, how you can do it, and ways and things to think about within your own practice. I'm pretty sure most of your team members that you have currently are not ideally situated to be customer service reps, but all of them must have the ability to provide quality customer service as part of their job. Does it make a difference if someone has a title of customer service or an account manager or person picking up the telephone? So, therefore, we need to help them develop the skills needed to practice good customer service, or we call it Customer Care.
Glenn Mattson
The first step is to make sure everyone on your team understands that providing customer service or customer care is part of their everyday aspect of work, and it may be very different than the other aspects, or the other responsibilities that they have. They have to make sure that as part of their work because it does spring from the attitude of willingness, courtesy, and awareness, that every employee, every person on your team, has customer service as part of their mind all the time. Yet, a lot of times when we have one of our team members is called upon to resolve a customer service issue and yeah, there's a very distinct way of making sure that the service is done in a way that gives the end user the feelings that they should get. You’ve got to realize that customer service, although maybe part of or be solely someone’s job, it needs to be part of everyone's job.
Glenn Mattson
Some people sell, some people do new business, some people do marketing, and some people do other jobs. But regardless of what role you're in, customer service isn't about selling, closing, or installing products. It's about the required skills and the dedication to make sure that the clients that you have on board are keeps, they are those that are going to stay with you. We can do the math on how much it costs to get a new client on board, but also what it costs to replace clients. So, let's take a look at some easy steps. There are going to be six of them I'm going to give you that we can take a look at as really starting to institute customer service into the culture of your office. Now these are in no specific order. Take what you want from it, add it to your team right now, and let me share some of the things that I've seen that really should be taken a look at. So again, there are six of them. Here. They are.
Glenn Mattson
The first one, now this is going to sound bizarre, but the first one is, make sure that your attention is to the customers. Those immediate needs are not necessarily a long term fix. Let me tell you what I mean. We have a product here that we had some issues with still under warranty. It's getting close to being out of warranty next month or two. It's just not working the way we wanted it to. So, when we call, we want to have really an understanding of why it's not working and what we have to do to get it fixed. That's it. I don't want to be on the telephone or hear from someone about the new version that they have coming out or the add-ons that we could be doing to help us do better than what we're doing. Now I'm not looking for that. What I'm looking for is my product is broken and I need to fix it, or it's not working. I need to fix it. I don't need to have a conversation about what you have as add-ons, or, you know, the 2.0 version.
Glenn Mattson
So, one of the things I want to make sure that you and this is so simple, but taking a look at, you’ve really got to understand what the real issue is of why they called, and then with that real issue is you have to address it and fix it. A lot of times when people start bringing up other solutions that don't have to do with the original question that we have that leaves your client thinking to themselves that you didn't hear me, you didn't get it, or you don't want to help me, or all you want to do is sell me again. This is a really easy one-liner, but you do need to spend time with your team, making sure that we are on the same page, and everyone understands what we're asking. So fostering attention to the customer's immediate needs. If they call up looking for X, there's no reason to bring up a or b, deal with what they're looking for, and then go back and deal with the stuff that you may want to talk about. So again, pretty easy, but missed a lot. Foster your attention to customer service on their immediate needs, especially when they call in number two, again, pretty easy.
Glenn Mattson
Number two is actually teach customer service skills. You can't just tell someone to have customer service awareness. You have to teach them the particular skills involved in customer service work, and by no means is all-inclusive. But what are you doing to teach your people how to listen? What are you doing to teach your people how to solve problems, be decisive, clear thinking, when under pressure, what about their ability to follow up, and actively listen? So, there are skills that these individuals, negotiating, etc., that they need to have, and things that maybe you've learned through coaching or selling or training, etc., but you have to have the ability to point out what skills they need to have, and in addition to that what the behaviors that they should be doing or changing. For instance, if someone calls in and you're going to put them on hold to find out what's going on, tell them you're going to put them on hold. Tell them what I'm about to put you on hold. I just need about a minute to go find out what's happening, and I'll be right back.
Glenn Mattson
So just don't do things without being and telling the clients where you're going and what you're doing and why. So instead of just telling people, hey, I’ll get the answer. Quite honestly, you do need to have them understand. Once the client tells them what the problem is, they should turn around. Do active listening. I want to make sure I'm on the same page, so what I heard was… Now, if there are recommendations of what they should be doing or areas they need to ask questions about, they can say this. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions before I recommend what we can do to solve it, to make sure I'm on the same page about the cause? So, my solution will work for you, just making sure everyone's on the same page, so making sure that you teach them customer service skills, but then you also do a lot of role-playing with them, so they understand what the right behaviors are, what's the right flow chart, etc. So, teach them, and then role play with them until they actually learn how to use it.
Glenn Mattson
Here's number three, this is pretty easy again, but very overlooked in most firms I talk with when it comes to customer service, number three is to recognize superior skills on your team. Now you may choose to. To coach or train your people. You may have something at the agency or as an Alliance, an association that you want to take advantage of the training courses. Maybe you're coming to us for it, if one of your team members is particularly strong, aptitude-wise and delivery-wise with regards to customer service, actually ask them to coach another team member. Not only does it set a good example of giving that employee a little bit of recognition for their customer service work and the value you place on it, but it's also a great way to foster the attitude of customer service among team managers.
Glenn Mattson
So, with the Ming among your team members, if you have someone who's exceptionally good, and we do that here at our office, quite a bit, I know certain individuals in the team have exceptionally good service. So, I'll have my junior, newer to the company, newer to the firm, to us, I'll have them sit in meetings with the individuals that have superior customer service skills, so they start to get a flavor of how we operate here, the philosophies that we have, and I have two of my team members, our mentors, specifically around customer service, because that's what their forte is. A great way to recognize someone on your team is mentorship.
Glenn Mattson
Number four. Again, it's going to sound so easy, but man, there's so many, some so often, are people handcuffed because of lack of knowledge. Step four, distribute current information. To provide good customer service, you need to have good current information they need to know about what's happening, what's in the news, what's going on with policy changes, what's going on with product issues, availabilities, concerns, and why the concerns are happening. What are the outputs of the concerns? What are some of the issues about competition, maybe customer service, surveys, etc.? So, they're going to have to have information. They also need to have a clear understanding and honestly, a commitment to what the company's mission is.
Glenn Mattson
How often I actually ask firms, hey, just as a sidebar, what is the firm's mission? I tell you; half actually have one that they can remember. Most have to look it up. Of the half that remember, very few can put in one hand where, if I asked a founder what their mission is, again, 50% have to read it. But even those who say it, and they know it pretty well. If I asked their assistant or someone else on the team, especially if they're in an administrative or service side of the business, very few one hand, in one hand, I can tell you how many of those individuals actually know the mission and the vision of where they're going. If you don't understand what the mission is, are you going to do a good job of holding and helping people reach that through customer service? So just remember, as a team member, as a manager, and as a founder, you can increase your customer service and the development of your team by maintaining a good flow of information to all team members.
Glenn Mattson
I even had a few people tell me about that. They've had meetings where they've changed certain things within the process, but they never told anyone about it. So here you have a person doing great customer service. So, they think and what they're saying is going to happen next is not what the process is. It got changed. So, make sure that everyone's on the same page.
Glenn Mattson
Step five, or task five, you're going to hear me say this a lot about a lot of different areas. One of the biggest blind spots of an entrepreneur is learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when reverse delegation happens. So, Step five is delegating authority for them to make decisions. Think about it. You have to give the team the ability to make decisions when they're in the middle of the battle. Once you've built the skills and your team members have all the information that they need, you have to give the team members the authority to make the necessary decisions and take corrective action. If they have to get your approval every time they want to implement a solution for a customer, not only is going to make it bogged down, but you're just going to get the customer more irritated or frustrated. Reduce the layers between the customer and the decision-makers. Say it again, you have to reduce the layers between the customer and the decision maker. You have to have clear guidelines so that when they make the decisions, they know what the limits are of their authority, what the swim lane is, but give them the permission, give them the decision, give them the ability to make decisions.
Glenn Mattson
Step six, you gotta hold everyone accountable. So, task six is to hold your team members accountable to maintain a high level of customer service, you have to hold your salespeople accountable for the services they deliver and hold them accountable for what they're promising is going to happen. Some of our clients you'll have, especially in certain types of markets, salespeople will sell something, and then what they're really doing is pushing the problem of what they sold to the next person. So, make sure that you hold your salespeople accountable for what they're promising when they make the sale to encourage the appropriate behavior that you're going to need to make sure that you include customer service goals when your performance standards and your report cards are out.
Glenn Mattson
For instance, what's the turnaround time for the customer complaint? How many of us have dealt with customers or customer service is part of their compensation? How many of us have it that if you hit a level of service of this and above, they get a bonus? So sometimes having compensation dependent upon or part of resolving issues and or present preventing issues is huge. Again, I have a client that if you do over promise to get the sale, you get a reduction in your commissions, the more accurate you are and what they bought, what the next steps are, etc., is how you get the sales commission.
Glenn Mattson
Now, one of the things that these six, again, just taking a look at the list is really, you’ve got to make sure that you understand what the immediate needs are and fix it. That's what they called in for. That's what's going to make them happy. Don't try to solve problems. They don't ask you to help with it. Make sure you teach people what customer service means, and you've got to demonstrate how actually those skills are utilized. You’ve got to recognize those in your team that have superior skills, and if they are make sure that you can create a mentorship program. Is very powerful.
Glenn Mattson
The other is number four, make sure that any information updates, changes to policy, process, philosophies, or tactics, are all just really distributed throughout the entire team, so everyone's on the same page. Number five is Monster. You just have to allow your people to make decisions. Now, if you're uncomfortable with that, that's something that you don't want to have. You give them the ability to really have the authority to make certain types of decisions. It's going to give them a lot more juice, going to give them a lot more feelings of confidence. But it's also going to put the customer or the client at ease, because when they call, they can actually accomplish things, versus to get back to you, I have to get back to you and then not a follow up afterward. Oh, awful. The last one is, you got to hold them accountable, right, inspect what you expect.
Glenn Mattson
One of the things you can do, as I got it the other day, is, well, how do you monitor this? I tell you, one of the easiest ways to monitor it is doing what's called a QBR, a quarterly business review. A quarterly business review is nothing more than a scorecard. Between you and your client on what they expected and what you expected. On a different podcast, we'll talk about how to do the expectation talk at the end of a sales call. The expectation talk is a home run to ensure that you're always on the same page with your clients once they become a client. So, as you start to take a look at customer service and where you are within the model, remember customer service skills is not for one person. Potentially, customer service is really something that everyone has to do, everyone from the person who picks up the telephone and answers the call to the person who schedules the person who does follow-up and paperwork, etc., implementation, all customer service.
Glenn Mattson
We know how much and how hard it is to find someone new, referrals, cross-selling, and alliances, but once you keep them, once you have them, you have to make sure that you keep them. Some of you listening in, run your business based on referrals. You want a litmus test on how good your customer service is and how good your relationships are, how often do you have to ask? The more times you have to ask, typically, it will tell me, the less customer service you have. You surely didn't do an expectation talk. Moving forward, customer service is a critical aspect of a very successful business and practice, especially for those who want to repeat based on referrals. So hopefully this has given you some good tips and how you're going to start customer service. A lot more to go when we start to talk more in the future about customer service, but I wanted to give you a quick tip based on some of the things I heard this week, I hope it really helps. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
Glenn Mattson
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
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