Customer Service/Retention

These are difficult times we’re going through. As is true for all economic downturns, fear and uncertainty creep into our lives. In the time it took to write this article, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 100 points. What we’re experiencing today is not unprecedented. I went through Black Monday (October 19, 1987) as a stock broker. The DJIA fell 508 points. Stock markets around the world plummeted. It was a terrible bloodletting.

I had an experience last week that shines a bright light on inexperience. We all have to start someplace as sales people. Most often we start with minimal training, minimal product knowledge, a desk, and a telephone. It’s the ‘baptism by fire’ approach. We flounder until we gain enough experience to be reasonably successful. The quotas and expectations are high and the success rate is low. This is a pretty brutal but common path to sales proficiency. We get beat up, our confidence suffers, and not many of us make it. The first months or years are tough. If it is difficult on us personally, it is no less difficult for our prospects and customers. They get beat up as well while we flounder. Carnage is obvious on both sides of the relationship.

Referrals can be one of the easiest paths to more appointments and sales. ‘Can be’ is the pivotal term in this equation. For some of you, the ease with which you ask for and receive a referral depends on the relationship you have developed with your client or prospect. For the rest of you, asking for referrals is uncomfortable regardless of the relationship you have with the folks you talk to.

The following story comes by way of a telephone call I received a few days ago. As annoyed as I was with this inexperienced stockbroker, I was troubled as well by the ‘tools’ and training his company had given him to be successful. It was a sad comment about how so many of you are sent out into the sales world. These techniques and tactics only serve to perpetuate the ‘salesman’ legacy I spoke about in ‘Their Perception is Their Reality’. It is no wonder why this legacy continues and why it is so difficult to forge out a different approach.

Some of you have heard the following story before. It is an old story but a timeless one. It underscores the central theme of this web site. We’ve all been taught to judge people from the outside, from the cover of the book. From the perspective of this teaching, it makes sense to categorize people based on what we see on the surface.

 Today I’d like to focus on a different aspect of the objection. Day in and day out our customers and prospects present us with just about every kind of objection imaginable. They are an inevitable component of the sales call. We have all had some kind of training or coaching on either overcoming or working with objections. Although an objection seems harmless enough they have been and will continue to be the source of anxiety, fear, and confusion for sales people. In most cases the objection is an opportunity to learn more about a customer or prospect.

My training and coaching philosophy is based on a few foundational principles of which planning is fundamental. The road to more appointments, referrals, and sales is paved by effective and diligent planning. The confidence that we grow and maintain, that is so well received by our customers and prospects, comes in large part from being prepared.

My son Joshua has a 1974 bright orange VW bus. He was planning on traveling to Nashville to pursue his dream in music. I wanted to make sure everything was in working order for the trip. I was given a recommendation for a top-notch mechanic that works on classic VW’s. This guy was supposed to be one of the best in the city.

I went to an appointment the other day and was amazed at how I was greeted. As I walked through the front door the receptionist, Barbara Myles, stood up, greeted me with a warm smile and a handshake, and said, “You must be Steve Kloyda.

This segment is a story about a friend of mine who sought out the help of a financial advisor to set up and manage a retirement account. It is to some degree a story about how effective listening is in developing our relationships with current and prospective customers. As I think through my friend’s experience, I realize this has much more to do with acting on what we hear.