Seek Out and Win Those Customer Moments of Truth
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Customer Service, Life and Business, Management Education, Performance, Sales, Your Professional Development "To Do" List, voice of the customer
It’s finally cycling season here in the Chicago area! After a long winter of not taking my road bike into the shop for a tune-up , I recently rolled it in on a busy Saturday, when the owner and crew were fully engaged at a break-neck pace selling bicycles and writing up repair tickets. Bad planning on my part, but I’ve not yet developed the habit of thinking about my bicycle in February, so here I was.
My need were simple. I plan on riding about 1,000 miles on the road bike this summer-a good target for me given my schedule and level of fitness, and I wanted the bike checked out for general mechanical integrity, wear and tear, the trip computer replaced and new pedals installed. The owner wrote up my ticket and promised that someone would call when it was ready.
About a week later, I received the call and drove over to pick up my favorite two-wheeled vehicle and was pleased to see it as the clerk rolled it towards the counter. My thoughts of jumping back in the saddle that night were quickly dashed however, as I looked over the bike and realized that the same pedal with the broken clip and the same intermittent trip computer were still present. The ticket was filled out…and signed, but not a thing had been done. I looked right and left and realized that the shop owner was not present.
The individual helping me happened to be the shop’s bike fitter and as it turned out a seriously sharp bicycle mechanic. She also understood to a “t” how to deal with what had quickly moved from a happy occasion to one filled with disappointment and annoyance.
Within seconds, she stepped in to defuse the situation. She admitted that she had no excuse for what had happened and she immediately grabbed another mechanic, put my bike on the rack, and for the next 30 minutes the two of them checked, tuned and tweaked and cleaned and lubed the bike from top to bottom. She showed me that my tires needed replacing…educated me on the different options and instantly installed the tires. She upgraded the trip computer at no additional charge..and suggested what I might want to do from a maintenance perspective after the riding season. Oh, and she pointed out the local riding group…got me to add my e-mail address and worked to convince me that I would not be the slowest rider of the group.
In a word, she was fantastic. Crisis abated, brand saved…and in fact strengthened. The bike performed great on my first ride, although I now know that I can use a bit of a tune-up.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The situation had the potential to go bad in a hurry. I’ve purchased at least 8 bicycles from this shop over the years. I buy all of my supplies and now that I’ve advanced into a new class of equipment, my annual purchases have increased. I’m in the market for a new car carrier, and I’m hopeful that one of my sons will pick up this hobby. This business is dependent upon a bunch of happy, life-time customers like me, and there’s no telling what damage a few dissatisfied ones might do to the shop’s top and bottom lines.
While it was obvious to me that there was just a mix-up, the way the situation was handled strengthened my relationship (yes, there is a relationship) with this shop.
Owners and managers, take heed and teach your people to seek out and seize upon moments of truth as golden opportunities to build loyalty and business. Celebrate these successes. Make them part of the legend and folklore of your business and hire and train people that get it and that want to contribute to this legend!
Sales & Strategy Playbook: Competitor Acquired? It May Be a Gold-Plated, Gift-Wrapped Opportunity
Filed under: Leadership, Leading Change, Management Education, Marketing, Organizational Transformation, Performance, Sales, Strategy, Talent Management, voice of the customer
While M+A activity has cycled along with the economy there are some signs that deal volume is picking up.
In talking with a CEO friend running a smaller tech firm, he indicated that there is increasing buzz about various potential combinations and roll-ups that will impact his specific sector. He said this with a smile, and an interesting observation that “when my competitors are acquired, our business spikes and new opportunities are uncovered.”
That’s an Interesting way to look at the situation. I know a lot of people who fear the outcome of Competitor X merging with Firm Y and respond by cowering behind corporate walls or flailing internally. Instead, my CEO friend advocates methodically seizing upon this as an opportunity.
A quick sidebar: The external pundits and internal fear-mongers like to exploit M&A situations for personal visibility. It’s easy to sound like an expert and spread fear when no one can conclusively prove you wrong. In my opinion, if you were to provide the pundits and fear mongers with truth serum, they would be forced to admit that they have no more idea about the outcome of this merger than they do about the specific weather forecast for noon on a day far in the future.
While I would never counsel ignoring the potential disruptive or market-changing impact of a new combination, just like my CEO friend, I see ample opportunities to gain from an acquisition announcement for the smaller and more fleet-of-foot market participants.
Here’s why:
-Customers are immediately spooked. In the tech sector in particular, customer have been well-trained to react to an acquisition announcement of one of their suppliers with the knowledge that “this is going to hurt.” As a result, purchase decisions slow to a crawl, proof of concepts are derailed and risk-averse buyers begin looking for options that they can justify to their bosses.
You can professionally and ethically exploit this sales interruptus period. You don’t have to and shouldn’t engage in hearsay and spread rumors as some firms do, but you should absolutely engage prospects (including those that you believed were recently lost to your competitor) and make certain that they know that you are the safe, secure choice focused on serving them.
-The company being acquired is horribly distracted. The press announcement is the beginning of the internal churn at the company being acquired. Confusion reigns supreme. Long-term projects are suspended. It’s not clear who will survive and what products will make the cut, and no matter how much cheerleading goes on from executives silently wondering the same thing, the business goes into autopilot mode.
Customers sense when a firm goes into autopilot mode and this makes them very uncomfortable and risk averse. See the point above. It’s time to make hay.
-Consider cherry-picking talent. It’s a great time to approach the competitor’s top reps in particular.
There’s nothing an Alpha Rep hates more than having his/her potential sales glory impacted by extraordinary circumstances. Any threat to the success of the hunt and the opportunity for commission accelerators and another club trip is a chance for your firm to gain some top sales talent. Some will remain fiercely loyal, and others will seize the opportunity. Again, do this professionally and ethically and consult counsel on non-compete issues.
-Watch for markets being abandoned. As the post-merger integration activities proceed, the newly combined firm will de-emphasize certain market segments in favor of others. This momentary “white space” can be just the opportunity to fuel your growth.
Make certain that your firm is watching closely and keenly attuned to any overt or even silent decisions to de-emphasize. Listen carefully to your customers and prospects, they will sense this before anyone else. One firm’s unattractive market may be your treasure.
-Leverage the situation to build internal excitement and to fuel performance
There will never be a better time to get your teams fired up about serving new and long-standing customers and focused on identifying new products and services to exploit the changing market dynamics. Communicate and celebrate successes, encourage innovation and reward efforts that create value.
The Bottom Line for Now:
While the acquisition of key market competitors and participants can have profound long-term implications for your firm, there are often windows of opportunity created by these events that you can exploit to capture clients, strengthen market position and turbo-charge employee enthusiasm. Instead of fearing the worst, seize the opportunity to propel your business.
Want to Improve Sales? Leave Your Reps Alone!
Filed under: Current Affairs, Leadership, Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times, Performance, Sales
I long ago accepted the fact that I’m a slight freak of corporate nature when it comes to sales or marketing. Like my left-handed writing and right-sided everything else, I’m eminently comfortable in seeing the world through the eyes of sales or the eyes of marketing.
Most individuals in those respective professions aren’t as open-minded. It’s a lot like Cubs versus Sox or Bears versus Packers. There aren’t many that get away with cheering for both.
A neighbor was out walking the dog a few nights ago and stopped to chat, which offered a welcome break from trimming the hedges. Friendly conversation turned to business and he offered his own encouraging news about his recent sales results. It turns out that he had just completed his best month ever in an industry and an economy where those words are seldom heard.
When I asked what he attributed his “best month” to, he thought for a moment and said, “Quite honestly, I think it’s because corporate finally left us alone. I’ve spent so much time over the past year forecasting and updating my pipeline and then forecasting again, and writing reports on competitors and clients, that my selling time was severely impacted. I don’t know if everyone was out on vacation or they just got tired of hearing the same story, but they left us alone to sell and the entire team had a great month.”
While there may have been many contributing factors to my neighbor’s great month, his words should echo through the halls of corporations staffed by people trying to justify their existence by sucking the life and time out of the field in an attempt to accurately explain that times are tough!
“Let my people sell!” should be the rallying cry of sales managers everywhere, as they throw a protective cover around the precious days and hours of the people engaging with current and prospective clients.
In particular, my marketing and financial friends seem to like to suddenly get close to sales reps during tough times. And while I’m all for everyone having an accurate view on reality, the interactions should be done in such a manner as to minimize the demands on the sales representatives.
As for reporting, I’ll leave it to the sales manager to be bright enough and relentless in pursuit of understanding how his/her reps are doing and what they are doing. A good sales manager does this through interaction, not through pushing paper and e-mail. A good sales manager also keeps the other groups appropriately informed, and takes the brunt of the pain and time for explaining what is going on in the market.
The Bottom-Line on the Top Line:
A wise sales manager once taught me that the only thing that sales representatives have to manage is time, and how they spend it determines their results. Help your salespeople find more time and you might just find a surprise in your P+L at the end of the month.
Big Telco and the Art of the Apology-driven Sales Pitch
Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing, Sales, Social Commentary, Social Satire
Apologies are everywhere these days. I wrote a post on leaders and apologies last week, and this week, Letterman is in the news apologizing to Sarah Palin for a joke that went awry.
Yesterday, as I prepared to get even with my evil Telco provider by dropping them like a bad habit, I ran square into an onslaught of apologies followed by a brazen sales pitch. What follows is my own recollection of events during this phone call.
In a world where Dilbert meets Seinfeld…a funny, bizarre and slightly twisted place, I was exposed to the latest sales pitch of my phone/internet and wannabe television service provider. It went something like this:
Me: “I’m calling to drop my service. I’ve had enough. I’m going with cable for internet.”
Big Telco Rep: “I’m sorry for your troubles. Have you heard about our latest “universal” offering? It fixes all of those problems. Now about your package, we need to get you off of cable and on to our latest and greatest new service. How many TVs do you have?”
There it was. Without batting an eye over my threat to discontinue service, this rep offered a short and even genuine sounding apology for all the past misdeeds of service interruptions, nefarious contract commitments and endless conversations with Gertrude who sounded strangely like she was in a call center in some country that doesn’t speak English as a first language.
Coincidentally this new “universal” service eliminates your cable or satellite provider, takes over your phone service, and ensures that every single communicating device in your household is now dependent on the same company that can’t keep my DSL internet running much longer or faster than a man on horseback delivering mail for the pony express.
The apology was supposed to make things right for all of the wrongs. This rep was good. I mentioned a neighbor’s frustration with the new universal service and he apologized. “I’m sorry for that,” he stated.
I ratcheted up my rant with him on the internet. “Did you know that your DSL internet service stands for dog-slow and lame,” I added with satisfaction, knowing that he would have no retort to that playground taunt. (Sorry to owners of fast dogs!)
He chuckled and added, “I’m sorry. Now, do your children use a gaming system on the internet?”
This guy was really good.
Other than a few grumbles over past use of contract commitments…”We don’t use those anymore,” and my momentary, “Aha, I bet you jack up the rate after a year!” exclamation, which he assured me was not the case, I was out of ammo.
Me: “OK, we’ve got four televisions and you better be prepared to give me your best rate…”
I might just go with him. But first, I’ve got to call my cable provider and give them a piece of my mind. I better hear some darned good apologies! Maybe even real remorse and a few months of free service.
Sales and Marketing: Wake Up and Start Refining Your Leads
Filed under: Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times, Marketing, Performance, Sales
I was reminded yesterday of one of the fundamental failure points of many marketing and sales teams: lead management. This reminder was painful.
I was meeting with some savvy people who drive leads for B2B firms and the topic of lead management practices came up in discussion.
The short-story version is that in spite of tremendous advances in technology tools to analyze, monitor and manage sales leads in the three years since I’ve been charged with doing this, many (actually, the word used was “most”) firms are less than diligent in managing leads from the initial touch-point to final disposition.
“Sigh.”
This is not a new story, but it is a disappointing one, because it is so easily cured with the development of sound processes and of course with good collaboration on the part of sales and marketing executives and personnel.
While some touches don’t merit extensive processing, in my experience, if the right processes are in place, good decisions are made over time as to the handling, incubation (additional marketing) and conversion of a lead.
Unfortunately, as alluded to above, many organization drop the ball either at the initial touch-point or at some next step, when they disappear into some marketing, database or sales black hole.
Under the auspices of my original blog, Art Petty on Management, I wrote a post titled: “Sales and Marketing Managers: Use the Lead Refinery Approach to Improve Results.” I suggested that the concept of a refinery was a good metaphor for viewing the lead management process. Consider an oil refinery where crude comes in one end and through various stages and processes, different types and grades of oils, solvents and fuels emerge, and you get the concept.
In my opinion, this metaphor still holds and the inherent concepts of developing good, holistic lead management processes are more important than ever.
While I encourage you to look at my original post for the complete concept, here’s an excerpt:
The Concept of the Lead Refinery
“Leads are the raw materials that ultimately end up as closed sales. Both marketing and sales engage in a great number of activities that may start out as raw contacts and flow through a system of qualification and disposition. Trade shows bring badge scans, individuals register to download content at a web site, marketing campaigns result in inquiries and sales reps prospect in target accounts to identify projects and interest. All of these contacts enter the Refinery, although some enter at different points, depending upon their level of quality (qualification).
Some contacts remain in the Refinery to be processed (incubated) over time. Others are purged and some percentage of the contacts continues on their journey through a series of filtering steps into the selling process. Contacts are transformed to leads, qualified leads and ultimately closed or lost sales. While the labels differ from environment to environment, the process is fundamentally the same.”
Building and Tuning Your Lead Refinery:
As you might imagine from the description above, creating an effective lead refinery requires the creation of systems, processes and yes, positions that work to constantly assess what to do with a particular lead. Some suggestions:
-Define processes and terms. Sales and marketing must create agree upon and support a turnkey lead qualification process where there are common definitions of what constitutes and differentiates a touch from a contact from a lead from a highly qualified lead.
-Spend money to make money. Screw up the courage to dedicate resources to managing the lead flow and owning a good deal of lead incubation. I’ve used the concept of a “Qualifying Center” to employ talented, early career and often near future salespeople to own the leads and to work between marketing and sales to manage the flow.
The Qualifying Center reps want highly qualified leads to move to sales and they want to ensure that strategies are established to manage raw contacts that may evolve into future highly qualified leads. I have no qualms linking the variable compensation of these reps to the actual outcomes of the sales pros they are working with. In the case of a sub-$100 million dollar B2B software firm, the $300K that we spent on the Qualifying Center (full loaded) contributed mightily to supporting $30+ million in license sales. This was money well spent and it served as a critical training ground for sales as well as a great connection point between promotions and sales.
-Did I indicate that Sales and Marketing have to work together? While this is another rant for another day, there are no excuses for the CEO not ensuring that the sales and marketing executives have shared accountability for the lead and sales pipelines and the resultant flow-through. The lead refinery is not a closed loop…it must connect to the sales supply line.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Call me old-fashioned, but at the end of the day, I need to create customers and sell services and products. While many of the tools have changed and the methods that people use to interact with us, learn about our brands and gauge are worthiness as suppliers are constantly evolving, I’m still critically concerned about connecting my marketing and sales processes to create results.
Build a lead refinery, and you might just learn some remarkable things about your marketing effectiveness. Most of what you will learn will be how to improve and drive better results faster and cheaper.
Of course, this takes discipline, hard work and accountability. Hopefully, these qualities are not in short supply in your firm.
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