Category: Customer Expectations

October 6, 2017

The Aha Moment (Or the Simplest Business Success Formula Ever!)

I’ve been looking at different job titles and job descriptions lately. The two that seem to grab my attention the most are the Marketing & Advertising jobs and the Managing People jobs. At first glance I figured I was drawn to those because those were two of my favorite things to do at Toy House.

Another thought hit me this morning on my drive home from dropping my son off at school.

Those two different jobs are really the same thing. Stop and think about it.

Awesome Customer Service is about figuring out your customer’s expectations and then exceeding them with surprise and delight.
Top-Level Selling is about figuring out your customer’s needs and then fulfilling them better than she expected.
Powerful Advertising is about figuring out your customer’s desires and then offering a solution better than she expected.
Amazing Events are about figuring out what your customer likes and then offering her more than she expects when she attends.
Incredible Managing is about figuring out what tools your team needs to be successful and then giving them better tools that take them beyond what they thought was possible.

It’s all the same thing.

Figure out what she desires, needs, and expects.
Give her more than she desires, needs, and expects.

That is the formula for a successful retail business. That is the formula for a successful service company. That is the formula for successful manufacturer. That is the formula for a successful advertising campaign. That is the formula for successfully managing your team. That is the formula for being successful as an employee.

The first part requires research. The first part is about studying human nature, watching market trends, thinking like a customer. The first part is about asking questions, listening, and analyzing what you hear. The first part is about testing and clarifying and testing some more. You’ll get it right some times and you’ll get it wrong some times. The better you do your research, the more often you will get it right.

The second part is about having that character trait in you that wants to help others. When you hire and train your team, look specifically for that trait and you’ll find the second part of the formula becomes second nature to your company. Your team will already want to give. You just have to show them what to give.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS An employee that figures out exactly what the boss wants and then gives the boss more than she wants will always have a meaningful job. A manager that equips her team with tools to make them better than they thought possible will always find people wanting to work for her. A marketer that can figure out the true desires of the customer base and speak to those desires will always move the needle. A salesperson who can figure out the exact problem a customer is trying to solve and then offer a solution better than she envisioned will always make more sales. A manufacturer who anticipates the needs of both the end user and the middleman and sets up a business to exceed both their expectations will find growth.

PPS I answered my own question. My Core Values include Helping Others and Education. I already have that character trait of giving (that’s why I write this blog and publish all the Free Resources). The Education side of me wants to do the research to figure out what to give.

October 4, 2017

When You’re Good to Momma

On a trip to NYC for Toy Fair a few years ago I met a family that came to the city just to go to Broadway shows. That sounded like a dream trip to me. I love musical theater. I wish Netflix had more “live Broadway” shows than they currently do. In spite of what the critics say about them, I even love movies based on Broadway shows (yes, including Evita!) One of my favorites is Chicago. There are a few songs I could watch over and over.

One is Queen Latifah singing “When You’re Good to Momma” about the Law of Reciprocity.

Last night I had my own Law of Reciprocity moment. I received an act of great generosity from someone because of the generosity this person received many decades ago from my grandfather. I will have to pay it forward as she did.

That’s how it works. You do something good for me and I feel the urge to do something good for you. If I can’t do something good for you, I pay it forward.

Bob Negen gives the example of walking through a set of doors. If two guys approach at the same time and one offers to hold the door open for the other, at the next set of doors the the other guy will hold them open for the first. It is a social contract.

Liberty Mutual did a whole commercial campaign around the idea of paying it forward (here is the full video, grab your tissue.)

It also works in reverse. If you’re rude or disrespectful to me, I may fire back in kind. We’ve certainly seen a lot of that in the past several years.

As a business owner, however, you have one choice that works long term—Generosity.

Be generous in your offerings. Be generous in your kindness, your helpfulness, and your time. Be as generous for the customer spending $2.50 as you are for the customer spending $2,500. It pays in the long run.

Generosity helps your business in many ways.

First, it leads to more word-of-mouth. When your generosity is genuine, unexpected, and sincere, people talk about that to their friends.
Second, it leads to reciprocity. Generosity more often leads to trust, which leads to more sales. Yet even if your customers are not generous directly back to you, they may pay it forward, and that helps out everyone.
Third, you feel better. An eye-for-an-eye leaves the whole world blind.
Fourth, your customers are watching and judging you by your actions. In fact, unfair as it is, they are judging all small businesses by your actions.

The little things you do that you don’t have to do are big things in your customers’ eyes.

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” -James D. Miles

You have the choice of the reciprocity you wish to receive and the reciprocity you wish to foist upon the world. Generosity is the winning formula for small businesses.

Be good to Momma.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Calling another store to see if they have something you don’t carry is generous. Carrying heavy packages out to your customer’s car is generous. Offering free valet parking in a downtown setting is generous. Making the customer look like a hero to her family or friends is generous. Adding an unexpected gift-with-purchase is generous. Spending time to get to know the customer, talk to her kids, and be interested in her life is generous. Treating the customers “just looking” with kindness, respect, and helpfulness is generous. Ask your staff at your next meeting. I am sure they can come up with some more ideas of ways to be generous.

September 23, 2017

Could This Happen in Your Store?

You have some time to kill before your next appointment. You pull into the parking lot of one of your favorite stores at 9:17am. You know they don’t open until 9:30am. It says so right on the door. That’s okay. You’ll sit and wait.

You look up from your phone to see someone walking into the store. You check your phone. Nope, still only 9:20am. Maybe she is an employee.

You see another person walking out of the store with shopping bags in her arms. It’s only 9:21am. Three customers later, you’re wondering what is going on. Finally at 9:30am you walk in past the sign on the door that clearly says 9:30am to 9:00pm Monday through Saturday.

Once inside, you see plenty of customers already in the store shopping, but the two center rows of lights are off. Now you are really confused. You work your way toward the back of the store down one of the lit side aisles. You finally see a staff member near the back.

“I thought you opened at 9:30am”

“Not on Saturdays. We open at 10:30am on Saturdays. We never open at 9:30.”

“That’s not what your door says.”

“You need to read it again.”

“Then why are all these people in here already?”

“We’re having a special event.”

“Why are the lights off?”

“We aren’t open yet. I told you. We don’t open until 10:30am.”

You walk away from this employee with more questions than answers. A special event? Where are the signs? What kind of event? Why are the lights off? Why does the door say 9:30am? Why was she so rude?

You work your way carefully up one of the darkened aisles. You get to the front and walk to the door. It still says Monday through Saturday 9:30am to 9:00pm. No signs about special events anywhere.

You see another employee, a manager. You ask her the same questions. She confirms that the store normally opens at 9:30am. She confirms that they opened at 8:30am for a special event (even though you still haven’t seen any signs about it.) You ask her why the lights are off. She says, “Oh, I didn’t notice.”

Ten minutes later the lights come on. You look at your phone. 10:00am on the dot.

A few minutes later you walk out of the store empty handed, shaking your head, confused. One of your favorite stores has dropped a few notches on your list. You still don’t know what the special event was. You still don’t know how the manager couldn’t notice that half the aisles were too dark to shop. You still don’t know why the one employee was so adamant they don’t keep the hours they have posted on their front door.

About the only thing you can do is call your friend who writes a blog about retail. I took that call about 12:20pm today. I’m still not sure how to file this or even what lesson to learn from it.

Tom Clancy said, “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” This story makes no sense at all. That’s how you know it is true.

Is this about holding a special event and not making a big deal about it with signage, lights, and everyone on board?

Is this about an employee not knowing basics like the store hours and not knowing how to treat a customer with respect?

Is this about a manager not observant enough to know the lights aren’t on?

Or is this simply a cautionary tale that if you aren’t taking care of the details, you just might be turning off customers who otherwise liked you?

I’ll let you decide the lesson.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The unfortunate thing is that this is becoming the norm in retail. While that helps you differentiate yourself from your competitors, it also lowers the overall bar of expectation making it easier for your competitors to meet those lower expectations. It devalues customer service as a whole, and that is not good.

September 22, 2017

Where to Spend the First Million

Reports are that Toys R Us has secured $3.1 billion in financing to get them through the holiday season. Thanksgiving is only nine weeks away. I have a plan for the first million dollars they should spend that will change the culture in their stores immediately and just in time for the critical holiday season. It will take about seven weeks to fully implement. Have David Brandon call me ASAP.

There are 866 Toys R Us and Babies R Us locations in the United States. I would fly the 866 store managers in to headquarters for a full day of training. That training would include a morning segment and an afternoon segment.

The morning segment would be all about toys and play value including:

The Importance of Play Value on Child Development
The Elements of a Great Toy
The Different Ways Children Play
Smart Toy Shopping

The afternoon segment would be all about hiring and training a staff plus how to raise the bar of customer service and would include:

Determining the Character Traits for the different positions on the team
Interviewing Techniques
Developing a Training program for New Hires
Developing a Continual Training Program for current staff
Raising the Bar on Customer Service

The morning would be about changing the way the company as a whole looks at the products they sell and gets them to shift their mindset away from “selling toys” to “solving problems” or “helping children develop.” As I explained previously, this is the direction they should have taken back in 1998 when Walmart surpassed them in overall toy sales. This is where they should have gone to reclaim their throne as the “king of toys.”

The afternoon would focus on raising the bar for the staff by finding better people, training them better, and creating a lasting program to continually raise the bar on their servicing of their customers. Even a big chain like Toys R Us that doesn’t offer a lot of fancy services like free gift wrapping or year-round layaway can still find new and better ways to treat customers by meeting and exceeding their expectations.

The managers would end the day equipped with new skills for hiring, training, and managing their staff while also teaching their staff and their customer base about the importance of their products and why customers should be choosing to shop at Toys R Us for all their toy needs.

Not only would Toys R Us see a profound shift in customer satisfaction this holiday season, but with better hiring of the seasonal staff, the managers would have a better pool of employees to change the culture of their stores going forward. Better hiring skills have a cumulative effect year after year.

The cost to TRU breaks down like this …

866 managers flown in for training x $800 per person for flight and hotel = $692,000
Assorted costs for training room, lunches, and printed materials = $58,000
Fee for me to do 7 weeks of training (at 25 managers a day, it would take 35 days to see them all, or seven 5-day weeks) = $250,000

It would be the best million dollars they spend all year. But they better hurry. Thanksgiving is only nine weeks away.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you’re an independent retailer you’re hating this post. Everything I just explained that TRU should do is exactly what sets you apart from the category killer and big-box discounters you compete against. If you’re an indie retailer, though, you have secretly been scared that if the category killer in your industry ever “got it” and decided to do what I’ve outlined, it would make your job that much harder. Here’s the kicker. Do it first. Do it before they get smart.

PPS My rate may seem a little high, but that’s because I’m here to help my fellow indie retailers and small businesses succeed. If the chains want me, they’ll have to pay. You, however, can hire me to do all that for your business at fraction (very small fraction) of that cost. Get a couple of your fellow local retailers to join you and you can split it even further. Call me.

September 12, 2017

Measuring the Right Result

This is the year of confessions. I’ve told you I don’t like cleaning up and filing things away. I’ve admitted I only went to the University of Michigan to get football tickets. As much as it pains me to be one, I’ve even admitted I’m a Detroit Lions fan.

I have one more confession. I love musical theater. I get cranked up watching Broadway shows. I even get excited watching live Broadway-esque performances like the one Neil Patrick Harris did here.

Last night I watched Disney’s Newsies on Netflix. Not the 1992 movie starring Christian Bale but a filmed stage production. Loved it!

While reading more about the production on IMDb.com, I noticed it had a pretty high rating from the public. I started reading reviews and and they were mostly 10’s. The reviews that weren’t so stellar didn’t talk about the acting or singing or dancing or storyline. They talked about camera angles and editing of camera shots.

One person gave it a 4 solely because of the choppy editing of the dance sequences. Tough critic.

It got me thinking about how we measure success of our business and how our customers measure success of our business. The two criteria are completely different.

Your customer considers your business a success if she comes in, gets what she needs, and feels good about it. You consider your business a success if you can pay all your bills and make some money for yourself. Two completely different sets of measurements, yet when you stop and think about it, the more you take care of your customer, the more likely you’ll have enough business to pay all your bills and make some money for yourself.

You need to measure what is important to your customers as much as you measure what is important to you.

Notice that I didn’t say, “instead of.” I said, “as much as.” You need to measure both.

You need a method of keeping track of how many times you say, “No we don’t.” to a customer request. I have a friend who has a “No List” she keeps by the cash register just for that purpose. Every time a customer asks for something they don’t have, the staff has to write it down. She figures if a lot of customers come in believing she might have a certain item, then it would be in her best interest to look into carrying that item.

You need a method of tracking how many customers are repeat and referral customers. Only customers who get their needs met and feel good about it will come back and bring their friends. If those numbers are rising, your customer service is succeeding.

Inventory levels, cash flow, profit margin, and sales are all important and need to be tracked, but they are as much a result of the first two numbers as anything else. The more your customers think of your business as a success, the better those other numbers will be.

If you have a lot of items on your No List then you need to figure out why your customers have such a different view of your business than you do. If you have a lot of new customers not referred by a friend, then either you’re a tourist destination, your advertising is stellar, or you need to up your game on taking care of your customers.

When your customers come in, get what they need, and leave feeling good, that’s the singing, acting, and dancing that gets you the standing ovation.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Speaking of measuring the right things, here is the survey that the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA) uses for the presentations at their Academy.

Here are the averages of the survey responses from your presentation, “Cash is King & You are the Advisor:”

1—Unsatisfied 4—Completely Satisfied

Did the presentation meet your expectations based on the session description?	Were you satisfied with the speaker(s) level of knowledge on the topic?	Rate your overall satisfaction with this session:
3.9	4	3.9

Those of you who have followed this blog a long time know that the three things I stress the most about Customer Service are:

You have to meet your customer’s expectations. (Question #1)
You have to build trust. (Question #2)
You have to leave them feeling good about the transaction. (Question #3)

Did the audience come in, get what they needed, and feel good about it? Those results were my standing ovation.

September 1, 2017

A Fresh Set of Eyes Sees What You’re Missing

Get in a circle of store owners and say the words “Mystery Shopper” and watch the eyes begin to roll. We all hate them or, if that’s too strong a word, think quite low of them.

The problem? Mystery shoppers tend to only take a snapshot of a single moment in your store with no regards to what is going on around them. They evaluate your entire operation based on one interaction, one done-under-false-pretenses-just-to-see-how-you-react interaction at the most inopportune time with the least talented member of your team.

Not fair.

The biggest problem with the Mystery Shopper concept is that most business owners are quick to dismiss the findings as being only a snapshot in time and not a true reflection of your business.

Then again, a new customer walking through your doors will only get a snapshot of a single moment in your store with no regards to what is going on around them. The only difference is that this customer won’t offer you any feedback to help you improve.

You need a fresh set of eyes. You need someone else to help you see the flaws that have blended into the landscape. You need someone to:

Look at the appearance of the store from the front. Is it clean? Is it inviting?
Walk through the door and give you an honest first impression. Does it smell funny? Is it inviting?
Look at the little details like signage and order and cleanliness and lighting and decor. Does the store look or feel worn and dated? Does the store feel dark and dirty or bright and happy? Do the signs even apply anymore? Does the merchandising draw you in?
Get a first impression of the staff. Are they welcoming or huddled for safety and comfort?

A fresh set of eyes can identify the subtle turn-offs you stopped seeing years ago. A fresh set of eyes can show you what you look like at your worst, which is far more important than what you look like at your best.

Before listing my house I had a few fresh sets of eyes look it over. We found a door that needed painting. We found a roof area that needed cleaning. We found some rooms that needed re-decorating. We found an outlet cover that was broken. We found paint peeling on the outdoor furniture. We found a mess of cobwebs in the light at the end of the driveway. We found bushes and tree branches and vines that needed trimming. We found a tree that needed to be cut down. We found thirty two cans of paint that needed to be removed.

Individually those are all minor in the grand scheme of life. Collectively, however, they create a perception different from the one I want the people looking at my house to feel. It took more than one fresh set of eyes to find it all.

Get a few friends, preferably ones who do not regularly shop in your store (I know you have them—we all have them). Give them a list of things you want them to notice (the above list is a good start). Then invite them all over to your house for pizza and beer and sharing. You’ll be amazed at what they see, and if you’re honest enough to listen to them without getting defensive, you’ll make sure the “worst” experience anyone has in your store is better than the best at your competitors.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Don’t think you aren’t blind to seeing things right under your nose. We all are. When I closed Toy House, we found almost $10,000 worth of “missing” merchandise that had been written out of stock over the years. Most of it was in places we looked almost every day. We found signs that should have been taken down years ago. Get some fresh eyes in your store now before the holiday rush starts creeping up on you. That’s worth a few pizzas and beer, right?

August 22, 2017

The Sales Rep I Fired and the Sales Rep I Wanted

I used to be on the receiving end of sales calls and pitches. Now, as a business consultant (and also in my new role as a salesman selling logo merchandise and apparel*), I’m on the giving end. As you know, I like to look at every interaction from the other person’s point of view to make sure I meet, then exceed, their expectations. My experience on the receiving end of this role reversal will help me tremendously.

I’ve only ever asked one person to leave the Toy House in my twenty three years as a buyer. It was a sales rep. He sold a couple higher-end furniture and gear lines for the baby product industry that I was interested in bringing in. Here is the opening conversation …

Sales rep: Hey. Sorry I’m late. Had to make a phone call.

Me: Hey. You must be Tim. I’m Phil. Welcome to Toy House.

Sales rep: No wonder you don’t sell any gliders. Your department is a holy mess!

Me: We just had a customer in trying all the chairs and moving them around so that she could see different ones side-by-side.

Sales rep: Here. Let me show you the order I just wrote for (a competitor to the east). See how many chairs they ordered? Now that’s a baby store! You know, I used to call on your father years ago. He was a real asshole.

Me: I think we’re done here. You need to leave. Now. You’ve just insulted my store, my father, and my sensabilities. Thank you for stopping by but I will not be needing your services.

I’m pretty sure he walked away thinking “like-father-like-son.” I’m okay with that.

Here is what I liked in a salesperson:

Someone who called or emailed to make an appointment when he had something new to show or special terms to offer.
Someone who made it clear why the appointment was necessary, what we would discuss, and how long it would likely take so that I could plan accordingly.
Someone who showed up on time and was friendly and polite.
Someone who showed up completely prepared with catalogs, prices, order forms, a charged computer (if necessary), and answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Someone who followed through with the order giving me updates on the processing and shipping of the order.
Someone who called me after the order was shipped to make sure I got it and that everything came in properly without problems.

I didn’t always get that—especially those last two—but when I did, it was magical. Those are the sales reps I trusted. Those are the sales reps who got my business whenever possible. Those are the sales reps I most enjoyed seeing in my store. Those are the sales reps I think about when I’m making pitches.

Sure, building a relationship is an important part of selling, maybe even the most important part. I can promise you this, though. Those six bullet points above will help you build a relationship with your client that will be as rock solid as if you were high school besties.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I’m talking about sales reps to a bunch of retailers, here are four reasons:

I have plenty of sales reps who read this blog.
You have the chance to “train” your sales reps to do their job the way you want it done.
In many ways, this applies to your salespeople on your sales floor, too.
To show you one more example why you should always look at everything from your customer’s point of view. Then try to meet and exceed their expectations. Can’t hammer that point home hard enough.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I had several salespeople I truly liked. Yes, we had fun talking shop. Yes, we went out for lunch or got Hinkley’s doughnuts. Yes, we talked about family. But if they didn’t show up prepared, if they screwed up orders, or if they disappeared when there were problems, all that other stuff was for naught.

*If you want your logo imprinted on pens, notepads, water bottles, mugs, blankets, shirts, caps, even pizza cutters, shoot me an email before you order. At the very least, I’ll make sure you’re getting a good deal wherever you might be buying your stuff. If you order through me, you know I’ll follow through to the end to make sure you’re satisfied because I know that’s what you want.

August 21, 2017

What to Do the First Time It Happens

Every July for our Summer Fun Sale we would mark down thousands of old, slow-selling, discontinued merchandise to ridiculously low prices to move out that merchandise, generate some cash, and get ready for the upcoming holiday season. With close to a million dollars in inventory, the process was quite tedious and time consuming. Every single sale price had to be manually entered into our Point-Of-Sale system.

Sometimes we missed one (or three).

The staff was instructed to carefully watch prices as they scanned items at checkout to make sure they were coming up at the sale price, and to make changes immediately whenever a mistake was found. If it didn’t ring up right the first time, it was quickly corrected and the customer sent on her happy way.

$Image result for bad retail sale signs$ Yet every single one of us can recall a time in our own lives as customers when something didn’t ring up right and you didn’t go on your happy way.

You get to the register expecting a certain price and it rings up higher. You say something to the cashier. His first response is to tell you that he doesn’t know about the sale or that he can only go by what the computer tells him. His second response is to look you straight in the eye and tell you he doesn’t trust you by phoning for someone else to go check the display. His third response is to tell you that “they” didn’t put the right signs on the display and that the item you had didn’t qualify for that discount/coupon/special deal. Yes, blame it on the faceless “they.” His fourth response is to get a manager who goes through the first three responses all over again before deciding to either give you the discount the signs says you should get or hide behind corporate speak to not give you the discount.

Either way you walk out of the store feeling like a loser.

Do you want your customers walking out of the store feeling like a loser? Of course not. Chicken dinners for everyone!!

Here’s how you do it when you have a pricing mistake.

“Oh my gosh! I am so sorry. Let me go verify what the price is supposed to be.”

Say all that. Apologize. Go check the price (the above is a safe statement that doesn’t accuse them of lying). Then, regardless of the outcome, give that person the price they expected with another round of apologies for the confusion.

It doesn’t matter if someone did the signage wrong and that item is not supposed to be on sale. It doesn’t matter if the customer was confused because the signage wasn’t clear enough. It doesn’t matter if the customer interpreted the sign to mean something you didn’t intend it to mean. The first time a customer perceives something different than what you intended, you give them what they thought they were going to get. Then you go fix the signs and displays and prices so that there won’t be any more confusion.

Always give the first customer the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t cost you that much in the long run because you keep the customer happy. Plus, you learn quickly how others might perceive your sales or signs, and you fix the problem before anyone else gets upset.

“I’m really sorry about this. Those weren’t supposed to be included in the 25% off sale, but that’s our fault for not putting the signs up correctly. I’ll give you the 25% off on this item. Will that be okay?”

You’re going to make mistakes. Own up to them. Pay for them. Make the customer happy. Then go correct the mistake. That’s the key to winning customers’ hearts.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Even when the customer interpreted the sign wrong, you should still take some of the blame. Make sure your signs, sales, specials are bullet-proof by making them as clear and detailed as possible so that there is little chance of confusion.

PPS Every now and then you get the customer trying to cheat the system. They find an error like improper signage and load up their cart with everything on the shelf. That’s the exception to the above rule. You just better hope it was honest confusion about the sign, otherwise they might have a leg to stand on.

PPPS When you pay for your mistakes, not only do you make the customers happy, you build a level of trust. Your customers will be more likely to take you at your word when you take financial responsibility for your errors.

August 16, 2017

Two Ears and One Mouth

George Whalin was the last guy you wanted sitting next to you on an airplane. George was a retail consultant and public speaker (and one of my inspirations). George loved retail. A vacation to him meant a trip to The Grand Bazaar in Turkey followed by a trip to their local mall to contrast the old with the new.

When George sat next to you on an airplane, he peppered you with questions. “What’s your favorite place to shop and why?”

That was the question he asked every flight into Michigan that got Bronner’s and Toy House included in his book Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America. When he heard the same answers over and over he knew those places must be special.

“The questions you ask are more important than the things you could ever say.” -Tom Freese

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” -Naguib Mahfouz

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” -Anthony Robbins

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” -Stephen R. Covey

One of the most important lessons George taught me was that every customer has a different need to fill. Every customer comes through the door for a reason uniquely their own. Our job as salespeople is simply to find out that reason. You don’t do that by talking. You do that by listening.

“No man ever listened himself out of a job.” -Calvin Coolidge

“Most people think ‘selling’ is the same as ‘talking.’ But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of your job.” -Roy Bartell

George got to the top of his craft not because of what he said, but because of what he learned and the relationships he made. He knew how to ask the right questions and listen to the answers. He was fascinated by you. If you ever did sit next to George on an airplane, you probably still would consider him a friend.

“You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them than you can in two years by making them interested in you.” -Dale Carnegie

Ask and listen. Your customers want to tell you why they are here.

-Phil Wrzesinski
wwwPhilsForum.com

PS I got all of the quotes for today’s post from a new book called Fired Up! Selling. It is the best quote book I have ever seen. (Disclaimer, I was one of over 1000 judges that got to help select the quotes for the book so I might be biased, but with that many business people choosing the quotes, you know the quotes are going to resonate. No, that is not an affiliate link. Just me telling you this book is cool and will make a great gift for someone you know. Shop local.)

August 15, 2017

Breaking Down Our Phone Greeting

“Thank you for calling the Toy House. How can I help you?”

That was the greeting I trained my staff to use every time they answered the phone. Twelve words in a specific order for specific reasons. Let’s break it down …

“Thank you for calling …”

We were a toy store. Imagine who might be calling a toy store. A mom? Sure. A mom with kids running around playing at her feet? Likely. A mom trying to juggle two or three things at once? Ding, ding, ding. Half of her focus is on something other than the phone.

By using an opening phrase like, “Thank you for calling …” before saying the words “Toy House”, we give her a chance to regain her focus. In that split second she recognizes that someone has answered, that someone is a male voice, that someone is speaking English. By the time we get to the words she most needs to hear to know she called the right place—“Toy House”—she has dialed her focus into our voice.

Have you ever called someplace and they said the store name so fast you weren’t sure you called the right place? That doesn’t happen with this script. You give your customer time to focus on the call so that she hears the name of the store clearly.

The other thing this phrase corrects is the employee so in a hurry to answer the phone that he is saying the store name before the receiver even gets to his mouth.

Also, we begin with the words “Thank you.” There is no better greeting for a retailer. They didn’t have to call you. They could go online. They could go elsewhere. They called you. Be grateful. Say thanks.

“How can I help you?”

This is a question that indicates you are ready for the customer to begin talking and you are ready to listen. I have called stores where they simply say the store name and then shut up. There is usually an awkward silence at that point. Not only is this question polite, but it makes the conversation go much more smoothly. Plus, it reinforces in your own staff the importance of listening.

Notice that I don’t instruct my staff to give out their name at this point. There is a reason behind that. The initial person answering the phone is rarely the person answering the question. As you remember from the previous post, the four questions most commonly asked are:

Can I speak to (a person or the manager)?
Can I speak to (a department)?
Do you have (a product)?
How late are you open?

The customer is likely to remember only one name and usually it is the first name they hear. If the customer asks for a department or has a specific question, the person that greets them at that time is instructed to give out his or her name. “You have reached the baby department. This is Phil. How can I help you?”

This way the customer is only given one name to remember, the name of the person who gave her the greatest help and the name she would need to remember if she called back.

At the end of the day, a customer calling your store wants three things.

To know that she called the right store
To be treated with respect
To get the information she needs

When you train your staff on these little details, your chances for meeting the customer’s expectations go up exponentially.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You don’t have to use the same script I used. The most important thing is that you have a script and train the little details like answering the phone with whatever greeting makes most sense for you. Just don’t leave it to chance or happenstance. When you don’t train your staff on these little details your chances for failing your customers go up exponentially, too.