"The Navigator" News Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2016

How to Be Accountable

A few weeks ago, you read about my flight from hell with American Airlines (and if you didn’t, read it here).  To sum up, American either delayed me by hours or stranded me on every leg of a flight to and from New York, and I didn’t find ONE sympathetic or empathetic face, gesture, or word from any American Airlines employee.  No apologies, no acknowledgement that they had done anything wrong.

Last week, on a flight home from Atlantic City, Southwest (which had gotten me to my gate early on the previous legs of the flight) was delayed by about 30 minutes on the leg of the flight from St. Louis to Kansas City.  That’s not great, of course, but in the grand scheme of things it was minor.  But what struck me was that the Southwest captain and crew apologized not once, but FOUR TIMES during a one-hour flight (in addition to several from the people at the gate) for getting into Kansas City late.  This, plus a later discussion with someone, illuminates my thoughts on personal accountability and within there is a huge lesson for salespeople.

When I told the story of the American flight to a friend of mine, he asked, “Do you suppose they’ve been trained NOT to show empathy or say that they’re sorry?  I once worked for a company that forbade saying ‘I’m sorry’ to a customer.”  My first instinct was to say that, no, the people I encountered were obviously unhappy people who had probably banished the phrase, “I’m sorry” from their vocabulary a long time ago, but I have heard of training of this sort.

But why would any company train its employees not to say that very important phrase?  Simple.  They’re avoiding accountability.  Some companies approach customer interactions like they are testifying in Federal court, where the object is to admit nothing.  That’s probably a decent strategy for keeping your butt covered, but what effect does it have on the customer?

The answer to that is in the end of my article on the American flight.  Trust is broken and I spent money to buy a ticket on another airline even though my fare on American had already been paid.

You see, here’s what those types of trainers – and the American Airlines employees I encountered – don’t realize.  When you are standing in front of the customer, you don’t represent the company.  You are the company.  An upset customer at a desk at an airport doesn’t have immediate access to the CEO, the President, or even the corporate headquarters building.  Usually, teeth must be pulled to gain access to a supervisor of some sort.  Therefore, the customer doesn’t care about the pilot that showed up late, the mechanic that was too slow on his maintenance, etc.  They care that the company has inconvenienced them or not lived up to its promises, and YOU are the company.

Does this scenario sound familiar?  When we have a problem with a customer, it’s all too easy to blame “the supplier,” or “the production department,” “shipping,” “HR,” or whoever else.  That’s a great way to lose a customer.  Instead, get in front of the problem, take the bullet, and then work back-channel – out of the customer’s sight and hearing – with other departments to resolve the problem.

Good customer conflict resolution isn’t that tough.  It simply requires a few very human steps.

  1. Own the problem. We’ve already talked about this.  Don’t blame other departments and don’t transfer the person to someone else.  YOU be the person that makes the problem go away.
  2. Yes, that means saying that you’re sorry that this happened to the customer.  And don’t weasel out with one of those crappy non-apology apologies, such as “I’m sorry that you’re upset by that.”  What you’re really saying there is, “This happens a lot and our smart customers just deal with it.”  No, give a real apology and mean it.  Remember, YOU are the company.  Does the company regret the problem?  They’d better.
  3. Let them vent. If the customer needs to vent, let them do so and don’t interrupt unless they become abusive.  To me, ‘abusive’ means personal name-calling and so forth.  You don’t have to put up with that.  But let them vent and gain understanding of where they’re coming from.
  4. Engage them in the solution. If there are multiple possible solutions, engage the customer in deciding which one would best solve or address their concerns.  Making the customer a partner in the solution gives the customer back what they value the most and they feel they’ve lost – control.
  5. Offer a make good if possible. Sometimes, there is a small gesture or act that you can give your customer to attempt to make the problem right.  Maybe a shipping discount, maybe a token of appreciation, etc.  Just make sure that the make-good is in proportion to the inconvenience.
  6. Follow up on satisfaction. Finally, make sure that you got the problem fixed on the second try.

As I said, good customer service isn’t tough, but it can sometimes be very rare.  Do it right and you can keep customers while putting the problems behind them.

Are You Defining Success Correctly?

A few weeks ago, I was engaged in a debate with someone in one of my training classes. The salesman that engaged me was a good guy, well intentioned, but like a lot of salespeople, he’d been trained into some bad techniques. He asked me about a particular technique for voice mail that relies on deception (getting the contact to believe you are a customer, rather than a salesperson) to get the contact to call you back.

“It works,” he said. “I get a lot of calls back.” When I asked him how many of those call backs result in sales, the answer got a lot more vague – but I can’t blame him. It occurred to me that one of our problems, in building sales methodology, is that we (salespeople and trainers) many times define “success” incorrectly. We only look at the immediate step rather than the overall result. So how should we define success?

The ultimate success in selling is when you sell a customer, they’re enthusiastic about buying from you again, and they will evangelize for you by giving testimonials and referrals. That’s the ultimate success in selling. Too often, we settle for much less, and the reason is the way we sell to our customers. Let’s look at a sales process and see where we can go wrong – at EACH STEP – to prevent ourselves from doing that.

Initial contact: Typically this is a prospecting call but it can be a call from the customer to you. Our objective is to turn this initial contact into an opportunity to discover the customer’s needs and present solutions. Definition of success: The customer is interested enough to enter into a sales process with us. Failure point: Either we don’t give the customer a reason to be interested, or worse, we do or say something that creates a NEGATIVE impression so that the customer becomes biased against us. Deceptive tactics fall under this umbrella.

Discovery: Our purpose here is to work, in tandem with the customer, to discover their needs, define the successful result of a purchase, and create interest in a Presentation. Definition of success: You discover needs and the customer agrees that you have identified the correct needs, and the customer is enthusiastic about seeing a presentation. Failure Point: You skip or shortcut the needs, you don’t get the customer’s agreement that these are the needs, you move to Presentation before the customer is ready.

Presentation: Our purpose here is to show the customer how we can satisfy the needs and met the customer’s criteria for a successful result. Definition of success: The customer’s interest increases, the customer agrees that your solution would achieve their desired result, and the customer requests a proposal. Failure Point: You don’t show the customer how you can achieve their needs, you don’t confirm with the customer that you have achieved the needs, or worst – you do or say something that is perceived as deceptive. Rushing through the Presentation to get to the Proposal will create customer discomfort.

Proposal: We show the price and terms of our solution. Definition of success: The customer understands the price and terms clearly because we present in a simple fashion with no “fine print” involved. Failure Point: You quote a proposal that glosses over important details, leaving the customer to be surprised later by things like incidental and ancillary charges, etc. You use “sales words” that increase customer skepticism about your credibility.

Closing: We want to get the business in a customer-friendly fashion. Definition of success: Your customer agrees, enthusiastically, to buy. Failure Point: You ‘hard close’ the customer until they bleed from the ears. Maybe you even get the order but the experience is so unpleasant that they won’t repeat and won’t evangelize. When I first started in sales, selling cars, we had a sales manager that was nicknamed “The Hammer” because of his hard closing style. Many times he “hammered” a customer into buying a car – and most of the time, they wouldn’t ever return our calls again.

Post Sale: We want a customer that, as I said above, would happily buy from us again, would evangelize and refer us, and in general smiles when they think of us. Definition of success: Your customer recommends you, takes your calls, takes your meetings, and is open to buying more from you. Failure Point: Poor customer service, poor follow up, or any negative experience during the sales process.

Some tactics in selling are best thought of as “buy or die” tactics – in other words, if the customer doesn’t buy, we’re dead to them. In my experience, I’d rather lose the sale today and preserve a potential customer than go all-in on burning a customer with the hope of slapping one deal together. If you stay in your business and your job long enough, you’ll be surprised at how many of those customers come back to you later because you treated them with respect – and many times, the ultimate deal ends up being far more lucrative.

On the other hand, you can use tactics that deceive, manipulate, and use words to try to box your customer in to try to get them to buy once. And when you do, they’ll remember you, but not in a good way. The choice is yours.

Trust in Selling and Service

“Trust.” It’s a short word and perhaps the most important word in selling – but do you really know what it means or how it works? In my experiences, too many salespeople do not. Trust is the hardest won, yet most easily lost, characteristic in a customer interaction – and will cost you more sales than any other.

The dictionary defines “trust” as “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” A lot of times I’ll put a “sales definition” on top of the dictionary, but today I won’t. That definition works. I think most of us would agree – and yet, even salespeople who would readily agree that “customers have to trust me” still use sales tactics that destroy customer trust, even from the beginning. I’ve had two very diverse experiences of how customer trust can be forever destroyed in the last couple of weeks, and there are lessons in each.

In a recent training class, a young salesperson asked about the old cold-calling tactic where you call the President of a company, and upon getting his/her voice mail, you just leave a name and number. The way this tactic works is that you’re hoping that the President thinks that you’re a customer rather than a salesperson, and thinking so, calls you back when they wouldn’t readily call a salesperson back.

The problem with this tactic is that, as soon as the President realizes that you’re a salesperson and not a customer, they realize that they have been deceived. Do people place “a firm believe in the reliability or truth of someone” who has initiated their conversation with a deception? I’d venture to say that very few do – and while this tactic might result in more call-backs from phone calls, it results in fewer actual appointments, and a miniscule number of sales.

The sale goes for another old, hackneyed tactic, where the salesperson calls, leaves a name and number, and then starts into a message and pretends to get cut off right before you get to “the good stuff.” Again, the thrust of the message is pretending that you’re not a salesperson. And the result is the same.

But what about instances where you’re already doing business, the company already has your money, and destroys your trust? I had an instance like that a few weeks ago.

I was flying to Islip Airport on Long Island for a training session. My flight on the airline – let’s call them American Airlines, because that’s who it was – was to leave Kansas City for Philadelphia at 11 AM, where I would change planes, and fly into Islip at around 6 PM. My flight from Kansas City was delayed both due to maintenance issues and then to the weather, to the tune of three hours – just long enough so that I could see my connecting flight to Islip take off while I watched longingly.

No problem, I was assured. I would be rebooked on the 9 PM flight. That was fine with me, as I’d still be able to start my training program the next morning. After about an hour, I was notified that my 9 PM to Islip was canceled, but I could be rebooked on the 9 PM to LaGuardia. You guessed it. 30 minutes later this flight was canceled. The reason for the cancellation was given as “weather,” but I was watching other planes take off.

At the customer service counter, there were now about 20 people wondering how we would get to Islip. American “helpfully” offered to rebook us – on 9 PM flights THE NEXT DAY. You see, the earlier flights were all booked up. One man in the crowd made an incredibly logical suggestion. “Why don’t you just delay the 9 PM flight tonight to 7 AM tomorrow? That would get us into Islip by 8, and we could go about our day.” That would have worked for me, since I could have started my training class perhaps a half-hour late. No, they of course couldn’t do that, “Because we wouldn’t have time to sell seats for that flight.” The logic that they were flying people to whom they’d already sold seats cut no ice.

Long story short, I ended up renting a car from Budget and driving three hours to Islip, arriving at midnight. My training program was a great experience for myself and for the company, and I headed to Islip airport on Friday knowing that this flight would be better.

I was incorrect.

When I got to the ticketing desk, the man informed me that the flight was to be delayed about an hour and a half due to a “late arriving crew.” He then said that I’d be stranded overnight in Philadelphia (seems like I’ve heard this before), and offered me my choice of Saturday morning flights home, one at 8:15 and one at 9:15. He assured me that both flights were direct, take off in Philly and land in KC, no problem, so I selected the 8:15 flight.

Arriving in Philadelphia and picking up my hotel voucher I was informed differently – that the 8:15 flight first flew to Charlotte, where I’d sit in the airplane for an hour and a half, and then fly to Kansas City. Keep in mind that American had screwed up every leg of my trip so far. The next morning I went to the gate, explained that their person in Islip had made a mistake, and that I would like to switch to the 9:15 flight. I had already checked and there were seats.

The person at the counter informed me that this wasn’t possible – I could fly standby on the 9:15 but she couldn’t guarantee me a seat on it. Keep in mind, the only reason I was on the 8:15 was a mistake by THEIR employee. It didn’t matter. She rudely shoved the boarding pass back at me and said, “Be on the 8:15 or go standby on the 9:15. Those are your choices!”

I reflected on her, and on the fact that every American Airlines employee I had encountered was a stone-faced, sullen, unhappy, unsmiling person who made it very clear with every gesture and word that I was an intrusion and that they didn’t care whether or not I got where I was supposed to go when I was supposed to go there, and I realized something important.

I no longer trust American Airlines to transport me. Anywhere. At any time. I envisioned another bout of incompetence in Charlotte stranding me there (granted, I love Charlotte – but not on this particular weekend), and I made another choice. I walked to the Southwest desk and spent nearly another $500 because I trusted Southwest to get me home. And they did, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. The Southwest ticket desk employee was the first smiling person I’d seen at an airport in my journey.

So, what does all this mean? Am I just complaining about American Airlines? Well….to be honest, yes, a little. But more important than that is this: What broke my trust with American was not the flight logistics issues, even though those were awful. What broke my trust was the utter lack of empathy and caring shown by their employees, every one of whom acted like I was an imposition. Those people didn’t care one bit whether or not I got home. Had even a single AA employee shown real human empathy, I’d have stayed on them, and had I had a successful experience on the 8:15 flight I wouldn’t have written this article and I wouldn’t have sworn off flying that airline (and I will not, again, EVER). I should point out that the last three trips I’ve taken on AA they have stranded me on my way home, so this isn’t new.

Machines, computers, and processes may impact your customer experience. But to truly establish, or destroy, trust requires a human being. Think about that the next time you’re dealing with a customer who has had a bad experience, show empathy (and MEAN it), and you just might preserve a customer relationship.

The Social Media Door

When you think of a natural expert in social media, what picture do you get in your head? Is it a gray haired CEO, or might it be someone young? Perhaps someone who is, say, 25? A person who has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr? I bet we’re getting closer. Now, what if that person actually worked for a tech company – maybe a company like Yelp? I’m betting that you would say that this is a person who really knows how to maximize social media. I would, too.

And we’d be wrong. Because the prototype of the person we’re describing is a young woman named Talia Jane, a (former) employee of Yelp. Not too long ago, she posted an open letter to the CEO of her company that went viral. This letter decried her “poor pay” and “starvation living conditions.” She was – appropriately – fired. But not before she was thoroughly debunked using her own social media accounts. You see, what Talia failed to consider – and what too many salespeople fail to consider – is what I call the “open door” effect of social media. Within Talia’s story is a huge lesson for any salesperson who plans to make social media a part of their personal marketing and branding strategy.

As it turned out, many readers of her open letter didn’t simply take her claims of starvation (so bad, she said, that she had to drink a quart of water before bed every night to stave off midnight hunger pain) at face value. They looked at her other social media accounts, and found pictures of her using expensive beauty products, description after description of gourmet cooking of such items as proscuitto-and-brie meatballs (no, I didn’t get the recipe) and a story of her having expensive bourbon delivered right to her desk at work.

What Talia didn’t realize is that social media opens a door into your life. Granted, it typically only opens a door as far as you allow it to (every story above was posted by her, to her own accounts), but on the Internet, everyone can open that door as far as they would like to, and view your life as it really is. When they do, what will they find?

“But wait, Troy,” you say, “I have privacy settings on my accounts. Only my friends can view my pictures.” Yes, that’s a good idea. I have those settings too. But why would you expect that the world stops with your friends? Consider the case of a salesperson that I’ve known for years. I’m one of her Facebook friends.

For years, she had complained about her largest customer. They were a screwed-up company that didn’t communicate well, didn’t deal with vendors fairly, and were such a pain in the rear that she constantly wondered whether or not it was worth doing business with them. She was safe, of course, because none of the decision makers at that company were tied to her Facebook page. She could post whatever she wanted.

Except, that one of her Facebook friends was on a first date, and during the conversation, he mentioned that he worked for this company. The friend, having read for years about how awful the company was, said, “Wow, that must be a horrible place to work.” Asked why, the friend explained that she had been reading about how badly run the company was for years. Then – don’t get ahead of me – she showed her new prospective beau some of the posts. When the new beau got back to work the next day he asked a few questions, and you can guess the rest. Long story short, my friend has one less Facebook friend and one less large customer.

You can be nailed on social media without being the poster, too. During a recruiting search a few years ago, I did a Facebook search on a candidate. His own page was locked down tight – only accessible to his friends. However, his friends had tagged him in a number of pictures and videos that depicted him behaving in manners that were both illegal and showing very bad judgement. Out he went.

So what’s my point? My point is this. If you want to get heavily into social media, you have to carefully manage your own presence. Once you open that door, sometimes you can’t control how far it opens. Social media can be a good tool for building your own brand and your own business, but it has to be used correctly.