A good doctor knows to treat the patient and not the ailment. Granted, this is an imperfect metaphor but it kind of explains why I have empowered my staff to speak to anyone who approaches them. I don’t want them to be constrained by our sales systems, funnels and customer qualification protocols and just help potential clients. This may seem counterintuitive because we’ve spent a lot of time building our sales funnel, providing multiple ways for clients to book online.
Procedures are very important in our business as they are in a doctor’s surgery, but sometimes strict adherence to procedures and trying to get people pushed into a sales funnel can interfere with providing effective help. This is why your staff always need to be empowered to ditch the process if they deem it necessary.
Ok, enough about doctors, procedures and other metaphors - when it comes to helping potential customers here is what I wrote - speaks for itself;
“Hey guys,
Just want you to know that - to a point that you’re comfortable and confident – please feel free to improvise to help potential clients without feeling that you’re constrained by some sort of process or sales funnel.
This might be someone that drops by one of our sites, phones, emails you or visits our office and even though we do have a sales process in place it’s important that you engage on the human level, take time to understand the person and what it is they need and how we might be able to help them?
The most important thing is to make them feel like we’re here and ready to help, give them some good information and advice and this might be all they need for now – again, only do this to a point that you’re comfortable and confident with and you if you don’t know the answer don’t make it up, tell them someone will get in touch – but don’t feel like you need to be constrained by protocols and systems.
I always apply the pub test - I treat clients and potential clients like I would one of my mates at the pub and offer good advice accordingly - or put them in touch with the right person that can help. When we’re focused on helping people we never have to be salespeople again.
Feel free if you deem it appropriate to organise a time to see the project, book me in to see them or give them my direct number, point them to the services on our website, etc – using your discretion – what I mean with discretion is like if they just want a gutter fixed put them in touch with our maintenance team.
If you book a site inspection and it turns out that it was a complete waste of time, I will never complain so don’t worry about sales funnels and qualifying the customer - just help people as best you can.
Just remember that even people who we think have completely wasted our time occasionally end up referring us to other genuine clients in the future so their experience needs to be good no matter who they are.”
Best wishes
Mat
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