Written by Fran Berry
While conducting communication training for a client recently, one of the participants, right at the very beginning of my course, spoke up with great courageous honesty and said:
“It’s all fine and well to be teaching us to communicate better, but I’m really angry that the company is spending all this money on you (no offence or anything), when we have this system that we have to use that crashes every time I make a sale and results in the customer not getting the item they wanted to purchase. Three weeks or so later, the customer will call back and, not only have I lost the sale, I have to deal with a very angry person. What’s the point in getting better at communication and selling, when I can’t complete the sales? Now I’ll just have MORE angry customers to deal with. I simply don’t think they have their priorities right!”
I thanked her for her honesty and asked her to be just as honest with me at the end of the course and let me know if she still felt the same way.
There is a heavy focus on technology and internal systems these days.
Organisations are spending billions of dollars to have state of the art technology and CRM systems. They even spend heavily on training their people how to use them. Then the executives sit back and wait for the sales to roll in, or the customers to express their loyalty by bringing in their friends. The discouraging stories I hear about not getting the expected return on investment are in great multitude.
I always ask the same question: “If you are bringing in a new system, product, procedure or service, are you also teaching your front line staff how to effectively communicate about it to your customers?” I am generally met with blank stares. Sometimes I get the reply:
“Yes, we have trained our people – about 4 years ago we brought in a customer service course and it was great at the time – but it didn’t seem to stick. I don’t hear anyone talking about it anymore.”
When the processes of getting customers, keeping customers and / or increasing sales is considered at its most basic level, the exposed kernel of truth always remains the same. Unless your business is entirely automated and relies only on advertising text and a computer generated system to complete every transaction, then the critical moments that make or break your organisation ALWAYS occur at the same point in time – when your representative interacts with your customer.
If any portion of your organisation has people dealing with customers (be they in a service, sales, help-desk, face-to-face, road crew or contact centre environment) then the fine art of communication is now, and will always remain, the one most influential factor of success or failure.
Every time a representative has contact with one of your customers:
- An experience is created in the mind of the customer and the representative resulting in a memory.
- Habits are formed by the customer – will I come back here again, or try something different?
- Habits are formed by the representative – I didn’t get yelled at by anybody, so I must be doing okay – or vice versa.
- An internal culture is perpetuated for the representative – this job would be great if it weren’t for the stupid customers – or – I really enjoy working with my customers.
- Relationships are strengthened, weakened or broken – there is no such thing as not affected. Every human encounter has an affect.
A weak communicator, paired with a poor attitude, results in an individual who often feels vulnerable and a victim of the organisation, the systems, and the customers. This individual tends to operate re-actively. No matter the amount of systems, product & knowledge training – a great customer interaction is a matter of luck.
Conversely, a strong communicator, paired with a CAN-DO and success-oriented attitude, results in an individual who is able to do a great job, and handles customers with grace and confidence, no matter what is happening in the environment. This individual tends to operate pro-actively. Great customer interactions are a matter of habit.
At the end of the course, I asked my previously heated participant what she thought about being trained in effective communication. Her response, like many others, is what keeps me doing the work I do. She replied: “I’ve spent a lot of time blaming the management and the systems. While I still wish they (the systems) would work properly, I now understand that my relationship with my customers exists outside of any system or procedure. It will take me a while to change my habits, but the focus and work it will take to get there will make a huge difference for me at work – and in my personal life. In my opinion, the company has just made the best possible choice on how to spend their money.”
So, what comes first in your organisation. . .technology, or teaching your people how to communicate effectively no matter what systems you have?
