Service Check Up... How Are We Doing?

Best Practice #1

“How are we doing?” needs to become the mantra of your culture. Express and demonstrate a high desire to know what the customer has to say about your business. Seek and create opportunities to ask that question. It’s the groundwork that must be laid to know where you need to improve, it's the lead up to asking for a referral, and it’s the very best way to remind a satisfied customer what they like about doing business with you.

Designate days at the company as “Gotta Know” days. There are two types of “Gotta Know” days – one will be when you collect feedback from customers calling or coming in; the other will be targeted outbound calls to select groups of customers. Circle three days of the month’s calendar that are designated as ask the customer coming in days and three others that are call the customer days.

Prepare a simple survey postcard for incoming customers to complete and mail back or drop in a box before they leave. When a customer calls in, you can ask if they’d be willing to answer a few questions about the quality of the call and complete the survey with the customer on the phone. When you acquire a new customer, let them know there is a strong possibility that they will be contacted or asked from time-to-time to offer feedback; explain the “How Are We Doing?” program.

All Customer Contact personnel including the Call Center employees need to be trained to follow guidelines when requesting feedback from the customer. Make it a priority that everyone understands the importance of not leading the customer to say what we want or expect them to say.

“How are we doing?” You must find your way of finding out the answer from your customers. One time I had a client tell me, “Not sure I want to know, we’re accustomed to believing our own story. That idea scares me!” I applauded his honesty and told him to get busy and adopt this discipline and he did. As it turned out, reality wasn’t nearly as bleak as he anticipated. He has had great success celebrating the positive feedback and has found out about disappointments and customer issues he knew nothing about. You can’t change anything you can’t see.

Next week I’ll talk about what to do with the feedback and more on customer service best practices.

Want a sample survey? Email me honey@interaction-training.com.

Had Your Bell Rung Lately?

"THESE PEOPLE DRIVE ME CRAZY!" How long has it been since you've said that? How long have you been the topic of someone else’s "Drives Me Crazy" list? We have all been there, that's for sure. When we find ourselves thinking or saying these people drive me crazy, there’s no doubt our bell has been rung!

This is a topic that is near and dear to me since I used to hang out in the driving me crazy lane a little too much. It's a stressful place if you're there very long. I am well acquainted with the bell ringing and so is everyone else who manage other people! Or works with the public! Or attempts to live with other people! Or drives in traffic!

So here's what I found out. Everything I do is motivated by my conscious or unconscious belief that it's in my best interest. The issue becomes – okay, just how do I learn what is and what isn't in my best interest? The key is gaining and maturing the knowledge I use to self-evaluate and self-correct.

I have learned a great deal about self-evaluation and self-correction techniques. I was taught by the masters - William Glasser, MD, and Bob Wubbolding, EdD - a process duped WDEP. The acronym stands for:

• Wanting - what do I want?
• Doing - what do I need to do to get it?
• Evaluating - is the want good for me? Is what I am doing helpful?
• Planning - what will be my plan to get what I want?

Both men are accomplished authors. Dr. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the author of Reality Therapy, a method of psychotherapy he created in 1965 and that is now taught all over the world. Dr. Wubbolding is the premier teacher and practioner of this theory. I completed the Glasser Institute's three-year program and obtained certification in Reality Therapy several years ago. I teach WDEP every opportunity that comes my way.

A big want we have is to build and sustain successful relationships with others. Most of us that manage others or who parent children or any one of us that wants to excel in key relationships are seeking tools and information that will help us succeed.

You can purchase my recorded workshop - approximately 2 hours in length for $195 - and add some power tools to your quest to master having successful relationships with others! For more information or to order:

honey@interaction-training.com

Hang up your bell!

Sales Success for Banks and Credit Unions

Sales Success…

Enormous Dependency on Training, Tracking and Leadership

Today's financial institutions want sales from the business development team. The frontline, branch managers, lenders and call center personnel all have sales responsibilities that you cannot afford to ignore. And, if your offer trust, treasury management, investments, insurance and mortgage, you have to obtain buy-in from all areas to funnel referrals to these income-producing areas.

You won't get what you want unless you first provide what is required!

What is the formula for sales success? It starts with planning and next moves to training. The frustration and disappointment will be huge if you don’t create plenty of both.

No one is comfortable doing something they don’t know how to do. Very few of us are comfortable doing something we rarely do. And, if we are expected to do something we aren’t well trained to do and that isn’t tracked, encouraged and celebrated, you can count on your sales team floundering.

Well-done training is a must. The training curriculum must include all aspects of key selling techniques. That includes the entire how to - from profiling who needs what to setting appointments. Without training and tracking, the sales team will overwhelm you with excuses and complaining. Excuses and complaining are popular deal killers when you try to implement a consistent, meaningful sales culture.

Everyone expected to contribute to business development must be well-trained and held accountable. Momentum and traction come with putting all the pieces together, and it starts with training.

Sales expertise must gain the same importance as compliance, accounting, deposit operations and loan processing. It’s a well known fact that compliance officers must have ongoing training, leadership and accountability! And, exam outcomes are tied to the compliance officer’s performance review. What would you say about a financial institution that didn’t track every aspect of the lending function and outcome? You’d say it is a reckless and poorly run company!

Any change, expectation or new technology that is to be implemented successfully will be seriously dependent on project management and training. The transition will be painful and morale will hit the ditch when planning and training are ignored or done poorly, no matter the circumstance.

All of the training on our magnificent planet is regrettably not going to improve your sales metrics if you don’t know what those metrics are, what they should be, and whether or not you’re moving in the right direction. You want to assess and measure before and after the training to gauge effectiveness.

Want more discussion on this topic? Tune into a free webinar on Tuesday, April 20 at 2 PM CST. Go to http://www.nsscorp.com/Performance%20Improvement%20Exchange.htm to sign up!

Don’t miss this FREE opportunity to explore training solutions that can boost sales at your organization.

honey@interaction-training.com