Measure your sales reaction time; find out how much time your customers waste waiting to give you their business!
How long do customers wait on your sales people? If you do not know, find out. Ask your customers if they have problems getting through to talk to someone. Have your receptionist ask the customers on the telephone while they are waiting if someone got back with them or not. If not, have the receptionist apologize profusely, hold the call, page someone in sales and ensure the caller is transferred. “Do not lose a sales call,” should be the first thing your receptionist learns from you.
Suggestions to test your company's response:
Poll customers constantly: Ask select customers privately to note the amount of time it takes to reach a 'live person' the next time they call your firm. Ask them to report how long they had to wait, if they are willing. Give them a coupon for a discount on their next purchase or current outstanding balance for their troubles. You need answers and you will only get them running tests on your current system and how your people react to buyers.
Get 3rd party feedback: Ask business acquaintances to make a cold call to your firm and report to you how they were initially handled as a 'first time buyer' on the telephone. When the reaction was 'great', tell your employees this and state it very emphatically that they are doing the right thing. When the reaction was subpar, tell the employees they need improvement and provide training on the points they are repeatedly missing. This procedure should be in writing, step by step.
Test your inside sales function: When a business has sent back a rejected part, have someone outside the sales department or quality control call the buyer and independently ask if his or her need are being addressed, questions about product problems are being answered in a timely manner and if they have felt your company's reaction was appropriate or lackadaisical. How long did your quality control department take to call to discuss the rejected part? Did anyone call at all? If you do not have a written procedure, your company personnel will continually disappoint you and your customers because what you want is not necessarily what everyone else wants. Write the process down and what each party does to resolve customer problems. Define who is responsible for each step.
Train your receptionist to selectively ‘follow-up’: Ask your receptionist to follow-up when customers are transferred and do not reach their sales representatives. Teach this person, the first employee to speak to all of your customers, to ensure when the customers fail to connect with their desired party, they ultimately speak to a competent understanding person who will handle their request. Pay this position enough to make this happen. If you do not, your sales will suffer. Remember, you want a receptionist who recognizes when customers need attention and will give it to them.
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GPI-248
Never say "No"- raise prices and let the customers decide.
Do not say 'No' to your difficult or bottom-feeder customers; simply and politely raise prices. Do not tolerate negative return customers. You must get them off the bottom of your list but do not do it by firing them. Let them make the decision to either go elsewhere for goods or services or pay your increase. Put that difficult customer into the position of deciding; not you. Let them choose to stay with you (at higher prices) or not. Do not choose for them because you introduce other problems unassociated with price increases.
On rare occasion, you may have to say, “I cannot do that”, but rarely. There will be a few times that you must tell a customer you cannot help them, but that should be rare since you always have the option to farm out the work and bill it at a markup. Most of the time, your best option to deal finally with a losing account is to raise its prices.
Know which customers cost you money and act. If you are smart, you do everything you need to do to know which accounts are hemorrhaging. Once you know this, you can make informed decisions. You can immediately change your future; announce a price increase and regardless of the customer’s answer, you will begin making money today. When you know who the worst customers are, you can either change your cost structure to change losses to gains or you can raise prices. Whether the customer leaves or not, you are going to benefit from your decision. Make it and do not hesitate. This is one of the few times in your business career that announcing a price increase will make you money whether you get it or not.
GPI-447
Analyze a clerk’s job and discover what is wrong throughout the company. What delays are created by other departments, positions or just a lousy job description?
Every employee has problems in their job. These problems have ramifications throughout the firm if left unchecked and unresolved. Supervisors and managers need to probe the problem and correct the flaws in the organization chart that the clerk may not be able to do herself.
Some might incorrectly believe these employees are unqualified. This may be premature unless they are interviewed and questioned openly. Ask them to break down their tasks and explain what is keeping them from finishing specific tasks.
Here are examples of how document problems point to organization problems (Billings Clerk):
Document Problem #1 : Missing proof of delivery signed by customer, required to accompany the invoice
Organization Problem #1 : Company freight driver did not get the receiving clerk at the customer’s facility to sign the enclosed packing list. Hired freight company was not instructed that they would not be paid unless they secured a signed packing list by the customer’s receiving department.
Document Problem #2: Did not receive a packing list copy from shipping
Organization Problem #2: Shipping department is behind in getting paperwork distributed.
Document Problem #3: Missing purchase order from customer; order got shipped without requiring one upfront before shipment.
Organization Problem #3: Sales personnel neglected to get the purchase order from the customer when they had leverage prior to shipping the order.
Document Problem #4: Packing list says we shipped 100 pieces but the order is for 110
Organization Problem #4: Shipping personnel did not count the load before they left the dock so the actual number shipped is unknown.
Document Problem#5 : Invoice must be accompanied by certifications from outside vendor; not received.
Organization Problem #5: Quality control missed the outside certification requirement, shipment was made without it being done. Now shipment must return and go through process again.
Document Problem #6: Packing list says load went to City B but the purchase order states destination was to be City A.
Organization Problem #6: Shipping department assumed the wrong customer location and shipped to the wrong destination. Goods must be picked up and delivered to the correct customer facility, then billings can occur.
Document Document #7: Invoice mailed in without purchase order number, no buyer name.
Organization Problem #7: Purchasing got behind in orders, telephoned vendors for orders and did not follow up with purchase orders issued in the system.
Document Problem #8: Truck arrives in receiving dock but there is no purchase order on file to receive the goods. It is after five and vendor truck is sent home unloaded.
Organization Problem #8: Purchasing neglected to enter a purchase order yet did order the goods verbally on the telephone before leaving for the day.
Document Problem #9: Invoice has price of $110.00 each for 50 items and $325 of freight billed.
Organization Problem #9: Purchase order does not mention freight cost and the price was stipulated as $100.00 each.
Document Problem #10: Invoice has delivery date of 1/15 but there is no receiving report or internal signed packing list.
Organization Problem #10: Purchasing ordered goods, delivery was made but another plant forklift driver unloaded the truck and never completed a receiving report nor looked up the purchase order in the system.
Document Problem #11: Invoice received today with VERBAL written for purchase order.
Organization Problem #11: Purchasing personnel claim they never ordered this load, has not given instructions to this vendor our company procedure banning verbal purchase orders with no PO number assigned.
Document Problem #12: Purchase order copy received but no receiver or invoice ever received.
Organization Problem #12: Purchasing ordered item, vendor shipped the item, unloaded by driver who did not enter receiver, then vendor delayed billing/
Document Problem #13: Accounts payable clerk has invoice that refers to no purchase order and does not mention who bought this material or goods.
Organization Problem #13: Purchasing does not recognize purchase, receiving did not receive it, someone in the plant management office ordered it, charged it to the company and then went to the vendor directly and picked it up himself.
Document Problem #14: Accounts payable receives past due notice on invoice never received first time, no purchase order noted, requisitioner name no longer employed by the company.
Organization Problem #14: Purchasing department does not know who purchased the item, requests proof of delivery, signed by ex-employee just prior to his leaving, items unknown and not normal course of business.
GPI-109
Offer an inside complaint person assigned to your drivers - let them call in to yield market info.
If you ask your truck drivers to write anything the customers said, you will get virtually no comments. Why? You will not get written comments because few people want to write. They will take as long as you like to tell you verbally but forget the paper and pen.
Do not bother to ask for written comments; you won’t get them. For this simple reason, assign someone internal to write customer complaints. Getting the comments is more important than who wrote them down. Make it easy and simple to report customer comments. Assign an internal person who is easy to talk to, encouraging in nature and a person everyone likes. Have this person take the call and document the problem with the details and this in itself will invite a lot more suggestions and comments stemming from our employees who deal directly with customers.
Do not forget why you are asking. What is the most important thing to obtain? You want customer feedback and comments which are invaluable to any company that wants to understand its customers. For this, make it the easiest thing in the world to get comments. Forcing a person who normally does not write to document something is a very bad idea. You will know this as soon as you ask him and he does not reply.
Make reporting easy; assign it to someone that is easy to reach. Assign them to an internal person who is very easy to talk with, and ask that all issues from the customer be reported to this person who will take the facts and report them. The reporting employee is much more likely to call and report issues than to write them down, especially if they experience multiple events with customers.
Ask these questions of your assigned drivers:
If you relayed customer comments or complaints to your inside sales personnel, did you have a feeling that no one did anything about what you said? If so, did you at any time stop telling them your comments?
In the past, when you had problems getting someone to take your customer comments seriously, who was the person? If you do not want to identify the person, would you at least identify the department?
From now on, if we give you an alternative (second) person to follow up, would you let them know the comments also? Note: this person will be assigned to follow up and give you, the truck driver, some feedback and hopefully get the issues resolved for the customer.
Tell me what we can do to change the way the reporting system works now which would encourage you to relate comments every day? What do you want changed?
Do you think it would help if we gave you someone outside the sales department to report to in order to get customer comments addressed? Note: You do not care who records the feedback, just get it.