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Solution Selling for Services, the Problem and the Solution
One It-related company I know of makes 2000 sales calls a year while their service guys makes 400,000! Which one has the greatest potential to create proactive sales cases?
Many companies have already discovered this potential and put their service guys on sales training; often with poor results. Why? Like an old friend of mine commented on the poor service of a sail maker: I guess he likes to make sails more than he likes talking to customers. The service guys are in service because they love service and and it-systems. Most of them cannot see themselves as a sales guy. So asking them to sell and pay commission will only encourage a few (the eagles) to over-perform and even over-sell.
The solution to the problem?
Take the customer perspective; as customers we are looking for the service guy to answer 2 questions:
The first question is the traffic light (red= problems, yellow=it’s smart to fix, green=Good). How many service reports have you seen where you know for sure what the color of your system is?
The second question ties in customer satisfaction index, a latent opportunity and the very essence of service - a recommendation for an improvement!
Here is the process: The service guys are measured on number of recommendations to the customer. They report them to the customer and his/her boss, the service manager. The service manager either picks up the phone and sells it to the customer’s power sponsor, or let’s the sales guy do it. Then they measure the hit rate and the volume.
With this approach everyone is happy, the service guy (still in service), the customer (green light and good advice) and finally the sales guy who gets a lead.
This approach is a good support to the service driven sales culture (as described in Sales Makeover). Since this market is growing with 5-20% a year everyone will make good money and have a happier life.
Written by and posted with the permission of:
Jens Edgren, Lindgren Partners Solution Selling
+ 46 8 651 25 00
www.lindgren-partners.se