5 Tips to Improve Sales, Service, and Reviews
Hi everybody – Kenny Chapman here, the Blue Collar Coach, your partner in profitability. I’ve got a cool surprise for you this week. I want to do something a little bit differently and I'm actually going to bring in a little third party verification, if you will – that's something that we use in sales.
But today, it's about you. Today is about tips to improve your sales, your customer service, and your reviews.
Does that sound like something you want to do? I would assume so, because right now, we're living in the transparent world of reviews. Reviews are probably more important than referrals right now because of what's going on and too many technicians are not taking the time to focus on it and ask about it. But we'll talk about that in a moment, because this is threefold. I want to improve sales, I want to improve customer service, and I want your people shouting from a mountaintop after you've given them the products, the goods, the services that they've decided to invest in.
1. Educate, Educate, Educate
So, let's talk about a few tips here. The first thing that I want to cover – and it might be a reminder to some of you, but the best way to improve sales, service, and reviews is educate, educate, educate.
Too often sales are based on transactions, sales are based on necessity versus desire. There are these things that happen in our world – most of us – we have a built in objection when we arrive at the client's home. We know that a lot of times, people aren't saving away and putting 10 percent of their money into a little piggy bank because eventually they're going to need some home service renovations and improvements done. Normally, it's a surprise to them so it catches them off guard.
So, we have all these objections built in prior to our arrival on the call. And the best way to begin overcoming those straight away – of course, we use our 12-step process throughout the entire call, but right out of the gate you want to go into “education mode” when it comes to sharing information with your clients.
So, first, we're in our discovery phase and we're digging, digging, digging – learning what we can about that. When I say “educate” I see that as a two way street, okay? So, I want you to educate them; I want them to educate you.
We've got to do that with quality questions. We've got to do that with paying attention to them. We've got to do that with being mindful. So, first thing we want to do is make sure that we're educating, okay?
2. Listen, Listen, Listen
The second thing that we've got to do is make sure that we listen, listen, listen.
Of course, there are different types of listening. Right now, what I really want you to focus on though, is active listening. How can you become a better active listener where you're fully engaged with that client? We've got all these things going on in our lives. We've got personal challenges.
We might have work challenges. We might have financial challenges. We might have different things going on. We've got family and health and all these different types of things that can come in with a clouded mind. And when it comes to educating effectively with a client, we've got to clear that stuff out.
I'm not saying it's not important, it doesn't exist, and it's not real, but I'm asking you to set it aside just so you can engage with your client, because we've got to pay attention. We've got to listen to them.
As much time as I spend on the road in trainings with technicians and then doing ride-alongs with technicians, I get to see firsthand. And I've said it before – I've got the easiest job in the world, because all I have to do is observe you and what you're doing so I can help you get better at the process and ultimately, get better results for you and your family. So, I look for low hanging fruit.
And one of the lowest hanging fruit that I see all the time is lack of listening skills when it comes to engaging with your client. Nothing ruins a relationship more than if you're having a good conversation, you're talking to the client through the home, you're experiencing everything, you're getting ready to craft your option sheet, and you say, “Now, I know you'd said you lived here 10 years right, Bob?” And he's like, “Um, no. I told you we moved in five years ago when the house was built.” Or, “You know, I know that you had mentioned that you've got three children, right?” “Well, no. We've got four but there are just three living at home now.”
Whatever the case might be, you might see it as it's not that big of a deal, but to a client, you know, even if it's an unconscious response, their response might be, “I wonder what else they're really not paying attention to.”
See, that's the thing. We get judged based on end result. Obviously, whatever we're repairing, replacing, or upgrading has to work and do what it's supposed to do but ultimately, we get judged based on how clean the work area was after the call, right? People don't know, technically, what we do.
I see guys that create straight up artwork and sometimes, it's almost even lost on a client because they don't get it, but it looks so good. But now, if the area is dirty, we get a bad mark on that.
So, you've got to be thorough throughout, but with listening you've got to be very thorough and you've got to be actively engaged. Questioning will lead you to your solutions, but listening will help you get the client invested in your solutions, okay? So, first we educate, and then we make sure we're listening.
3. Be On Your Customer’s Team
Then the third thing I want to talk about today is being on their team. We have this built in kind of intellectual resistance when it comes to sales and education process and customer service and these types of things. We have a tendency to feel that it has to be you against me and me against you and there are all these strategies and techniques in the sales world about, “He who talks last loses” and those kinds of ideas. It makes it a fight. I don't roll with that. I don't like that.
I want to help my clients.
I want to be on their team.
I want to become one with them and help them invest in a good decision for them.
Now, that sometimes is going to be the highest end product that I have and sometimes it's going to be not the highest end product that I have. But it needs to come from education from them.
I'm on their side. I'm helping them make a good decision no differently than if it was a family member that I want to help our or a closest friend. I want you to get that mindset.
The techs that I ride with and the top performing results that I witness from technicians that don't go into resistant mode, don't go into, “Okay, let's put up the dukes and we need to fight for a sale here.”
It should be: “I'm your savior. I'm here to help you. Let's uncover everything together. Let's see what all is going on all throughout this entire home, in your entire situation, what can happen in the next 1 to 5 to 15 years.” (Or whatever the case is, based on how long they're going to be there.) “Now, let's find a solution together.” That's what it's really about, my friends.
Obviously, we've got to be very focused on these things, okay?
4. Focus On The Benefits
So, now, when I'm talking about focus, the fourth thing I want you to think about this week is being relentlessly benefits focused and benefits minded. This is not “Oh, well, you know, I've got this thing that we call it the flex capacitor and it's 18 amps and it's this and it's...” It's like, “Wait a minute. What are you talking about?” That doesn't mean anything to the client.
What's it going to do? If it's a light switch, when I flip the light, I want the light to come on. What type of light do I want? That has to come from the education process, from learning these types of things. We need to get more benefit focused.
Too many of the conversations that I see – even when technicians are educating clients – are that it's more about the thing and the what. The client doesn't care how it works. Yeah, you might have some engineers that you might run across here and there, but that's not most of our situations and most of our calls. Most of our clients just want to be benefit focused and they want to know what it does.
Features are how it works and benefits are what it does. That's how it's going to benefit the client. Hang out there. Focus on those things. Talk to your managers.
Talk to your other team members there. Take a water heater for example. What are the benefit statements that your company can put behind it? What's your warranty like? How are you differentiating from other water heaters in the market or the big boxes and different things like that?
You should have those built in and then be able to just roll them off comfortably to a client based on their specific needs. Be relentlessly benefit focused.
5. Focus on Follow-Through
Last and certainly not least – we've got to focus on follow-through. Number five. We don't follow through enough as an industry.
I see it with companies. I see it with technicians. Clients are, a lot of times, looking at big investments or they're caught off guard by the necessity of a repair or a replacement or an upgrade that's taken place.
Sometimes, they really do need a little time to process, or maybe speak to a spouse. We talk about objections and smoking out real objections, and I want to smoke it out all the way. I want to make sure that if that the only objection is speaking to a spouse, and if we can't do it, then I'm setting a follow-up.
Set a time when you can follow-up. If your office can't help you with that, keep a journal. All top performers keep journals anyway. Keep a journal of the clients that you need to follow-up with in the next three to five days or whatever the numbers are. It's just a quick, simple phone call.
If you work on any sort of incentive-based pay, I don't see why more technicians don't take responsibility for this to try to keep these things going.
So, focus on these things, okay? When we look at these five tips, we're educating, we're listening, we become one with them on their team, relentlessly focused on benefits and follow up when necessary. Now, I want to move back to the education piece here though.
A Great Example of Educating Your Customers and Building Scarcity
Recently, we were in a local restaurant here in my hometown – Grand Junction, Colorado. It's a Spanish tapas restaurant, kind of a bar. They have small plates and they specialize in specialty cocktails and different things like that.
We had this same server a couple of times. His name's Hunter Overstreet. He’s a great kid. He’s really invested in learning his menu, knowing his product, and different things like that.
Sometimes I like to share with you different areas and industries.
We're all consumers.
We all like to buy.
We all hate to be sold.
And Hunter has a very good way of educating a client.
Now, I'm going to have him explain a couple of cocktails real quick to you here. I don't care if you don't drink. That's not what this is about whatsoever. This is about paying attention to how he might describe something.
I really want you to catch the waiter when he gets into talking about the Vodka and see how this differentiates from other types. So, I'll allow Hunter to take it away for just a moment here.
[Start of Video Segment]
Kenny Chapman: What about when it comes to all these things on the menu? Here we are in this tapas place – how do you chose the difference? Let me turn it over to Hunter to just share a little something about what they've got going on here and how he educates his clients for them to make the best choice. This isn't about pushy sales. This isn't saying, “I've got a $14.00 cocktail on the menu that I want you to buy.”
This is about, “Hey, this is exclusivity. This is something different. This is something that I'll let him explain, because I've already talked enough. Let me turn it over to Hunter just for a moment here.
Hunter: Hi. How you doing? Right here, we have our signature Mescal. It's called Signal. The difference between a Mescal like this, for instance, and a Tequila like this that you can find everywhere else is that a Tequila's made out of blue agave and it's from a specific region of Mexico.
That specific region of Mexico is just right in the middle – kind of like how you have champagne in a specific area of France. It's all regional. This is a Mescal. Every Tequila's a Mescal, but not every Mescal is a Tequila. A Mescal – for instance, this one is from the south of Mexico.
This guy right here is completely different from the other Mescal out there. Every Mescal’s usually slow smoked, and that gives you a big, smoky, in-your-face delivery. This one right here – this one is aged in certain barrels. They forego that smoky side of things. What they do with a slow, ageing process is they bring out many flavors.
They bring out caramels. They bring out vanillas. It's amazing. I wish you could smell it. This is the best part of the job. But – how's that?
Kenny Chapman: Trust me.
Hunter: It's beautiful.
Kenny Chapman: Totally different than anything you've had.
Hunter: There's nothing like this. This is the smoothest liquor I've ever had next to this vodka right here, which I'll get into in just a second. This stuff is beautiful. We are one of three places in the United States that carries it.