Tag Archives: Sales

Why What You Want Doesn’t Matter

Posted on 18 April 2011 by | Leave a comment

Ever get unsolicited calls from someone trying to sell you something?  I got one the other day and was reminded why they are generally unsuccessful.

The salesperson went through a brief introduction of himself and his company (they outsource technical support).  Then he mentioned some customer names to pique my interest.  (Perhaps he thought we wanted to emulate those companies?)  He left his contact information and followed up with an email to be sure I had his contact information.  All in all, it was standard fare for an outbound sales call.

Here’s why he didn’t/won’t receive a return call.

The call focused on what he wanted.  In a message that lasted sixty-two (62) seconds, he told me what I could do for him… four (4) times!  Not once did he appeal to my business needs.  Was I trying to:

  • Reduce costs?
  • Increase customer satisfaction?
  • Drive revenue higher?

I had zero incentive to pick up the phone to help because – what he wanted doesn’t matter.  To earn the return call he should have painted a clear picture of how his business, product, or service could solve my problem.

The pivot point is that we must ensure our phone calls and emails serve customers’ needs.  If our value-proposition solves our needs alone, customers have no reason to respond to our well-intentioned outreach.

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Posted in Best Practices, Customer Service, Influential Factors - Helpful, The Right Kind of Customer Service

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Customer Loyalty Bad? Never!

Posted on 26 April 2010 by | 1 Comment

I read a good Harvard Business Review blog post that discussed when customer loyalty can be a bad.  The article is worth perusing, even though the authors have missed the point of loyalty.  Customer loyalty is never bad.

The argument the authors ought to start with relates to unprofitable customers.   Mr. Keiningham and Ms. Aksoy write:

“If typically most loyal customers in a firm aren’t profitable, how exactly does a customer loyalty strategy ever generate a positive return on investment? Instead asking whether you have enough loyal customers in your customer base, you need to ask yourself three more complex questions: 1) which loyal customers are good for the business, 2) how do we hang onto them, and 3) how do we get more customers like them.”

Ah ha!  The important issue is customer profitability.

“Unprofitable loyal customers tend to be loyal for one of two reasons: 1) they are driven by unprofitable pricing or exchange policies, or 2) they demand an excessive amount of service that they are not willing to pay fairly to receive.”

If customer loyalty stems from #1, your company has a straightforward sales problem.  If loyalty comes from #2 then your company should stick to its guns and deliver a level of service that is profitable.  And if your company encounters #1 or #2 consistently you can be sure you have either an unviable business model or a management team that requires a wake-up call.

Mr. Keiningham and Ms. Aksoy definitely get one point right – some customers can damage your business. (In fairness, the reverse is also true well – some businesses damage customers!)

The pivot point:  don’t start by asking which loyal customers are profitable; start by understanding which customers are profitable.  Then either make profitable customers loyal or make loyal customers profitable.

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Posted in Customer Loyalty

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Using Your Superpower Responsibly – Common Sense

Posted on 1 February 2010 by | Leave a comment

Sometimes customer service can be very difficult to deliver.  However, more and more I am convinced that the problems originate from failure to observe the maxim: failure to plan is planning to fail.  When these cases arise, customer service problems stick out like sore thumbs.  To spot them, you only need the superpowers of common sense.  Here’s a recent illustration of an interaction my wife had with Shutterfly, Inc.

  • Upload photos.  Save draft project.
  • Receive email with $10 promotional coupon.

So far so good.  Shutterfly “knows” my wife is interested in their product and knows that she didn’t make a purchase on her first visit, so “interacts” with her via email to entice her to make the purchase.

  • Finish project.  Place order, attempt to redeem coupon.
  • Coupon redemption fails.
  • Shutterfly customer service doesn’t know which promotion my wife is referring to and asks her to send an email (no attachments please since Customer Service can’t view attachments) with details.
  • Details exchanged.
  • Company is sorry coupon doesn’t work.
  • Company’s verbatim response:  “I request you to get back to me once your ships and you have received the shipment confirmation email. I will insert a gift certificate worth of $10 to your account for $10 off.  Gift Certificates do not expire and it can be used to purchase any Shutterfly product from your account.”

Now, using your superpowers of common sense, what Customer Service sins has Shutterfly committed?

  1. Checkout step did not accept the promotional code.
  2. Customer Service Team unaware of current sales/marketing promotions.
  3. Customer Service Team has insufficient tools to interact with customers on their terms.
  4. Service response did not yield desired result on order ($10 discount).

This experience begs two questions.  Is the company inept?  Or do they value their customers so little that they don’t bother to create a working coupon redemption transaction?  Regardless of the answer, the problems my wife encountered, along with the poor way the problem was handled leave a bad impression.  (If you are a NetPromoter proponent you will recognize me as a “detractor”.)  The pivot point is that if your company fails to use its common sense superpower, your customers will find better alternatives – faster than a speeding bullet.  In the next post we’ll propose recommended recovery steps!

Any “promoters” out there to balance the view?

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Posted in Influential Factors - Harmful, Why Bother with Customer Service

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