Do You Fix A Problem Or Create A Solution?

This past week I attended the National Convention for Call Centers in Montreal. The name of the organization is CAMX. I have met over the years at these conventions some amazing people who have become very successful in our industry. My article this week is about a comment made by John Ratliff, the CEO of Appletree during a presentation he made to the convention attendees. John asked this question during his presentation. "Do you fix a problem or create a solution"?

To me the answer was easy however I also needed to ask the question why to fully appreciate its intention. It's understanding the question where the solution lies. There are loads of problem solvers out there who love to fix things. It's human nature. Very gratifying. To John's point though getting something fixed is not permanent. It can break or go wrong again tomorrow. Creating a solution to the problem brings you closer to making the problem go away indefinitely. Here in lies the game changer.

John really got my attention when he threw this out. What an interesting perspective. My interpretation from a success point of view is it brings us all closer to removing things that repeatedly get in the way of our personal success. At the most simple level when we fix a problem we are reacting to an event or thing that went wrong. When we create a solution we are both fixing the problem and insuring that the problem does not keep returning. Problem solvers are working in their business and solutions driven individuals are working on their business. Simply put. When you work in your business you are just a cog in the wheel. When you are working on your business you are the one who tunes the engine.

I my opinion the most difficult part of making the change to the solution approach is to schedule the time to fully understand why the problem occurred. We must also understand that creating a long-term solution takes planning. Once we find the solution we must prepare a policy or instruction manual on how do deal with the issue should it arise again. The purpose being that someone else can deal with the problem and not just one person. In business, if there is more than one person who can address the problem then we have removed the weakest link. Mr. Ratliff had insisted that one must ask the "why" question five times to really start to understand why this happened. Asking the question why is the first part to creating the solution.

When we create a solution to personal problems and issues we are better able to focus on things that will take us to greater heights. What we want in our pursuit of overall success is to remove the things that keep us in a state of limiting beliefs. Our lives can be easily controlled by reacting to obstacles. If we remove the reoccurring obstacles we have created a solution. This will allow us to spend more of our time doing proactive activities that will bring us success. Success lives in the activities we do toward making us grow.

Sell Like You Don't Need The Money

Selling is more than just an art. Selling is about listening. When we listen opportunities often present them selves. More importantly your potential customer knows when you are rushing to close the sale. They can sense when you need the commission. This is a terrible position to find yourself in because the transaction becomes about you and not them. Your deal is toast. When you sell like you don't need the money it becomes about the value in what you are proposing.

Why is it that some people are better sales people than others. Of course the reasons vary on this. Many books have been written on the subject and I expect many more will be written in the future. Once again there is no single solution that works for all. Companies Like Sandler, Xerox, Miller Heiman and Dale Carnegie all have succesful programs that will help you close a higher percentage of sales due to their proven sales formulas. If you have never taken a professional training session you should understand that two things are certain. You have to have a system and you have to present yourself as being credible.

I was a certified Miller Heiman sales trainer for a large corporation. It was not the full Miller program but adapted to their Conceptual Selling studies related to the Office Products Industry. I traveled the Eastern US and Canada presenting the Conceptual Selling system to the companies sales teams. What I saw in the field amazed me. So much of the training was about products and not about how to create loyalty and respect. I can tell you when it's about products the next place the customer goes is price. There is no loyalty in price, so get over that notion. Your only as good as you last quote when it's about price. Selling like you don't need the money makes it about them and helping them purchase the product adverse to you selling the product or service.

There is a sales tactic made by many sales people in the financial industry that sends me over the wall. They often open the appointment ask, stating they would like to get together and go over your financial needs and make an assessment of your current state of affairs. What I hear in this situation is this. Tell me everything about your finances and I will find something to sell you. Your prospect feels uncomfortable sensing you are trying to sell them something. You must find a way to be unique in your approach and make the ask related to a benefit for them that is not painful.

All the best closing techniques are useless if your prospect senses you need the money.

Selling like you don't need the money says several things.

• The customers best interest are at hand.
• That you are knowledgeable and confident your product or service fits the need.
• The process is a shared experience and no one is in complete control.
• The solution takes into account the long term benefits and not just the immediate requirement.
• You don't need this sale to make your car or mortgage payment.

Selling like you don't need the money has benefits for you to.

• Your creating life long customers.
• Business finds it's way toward you, I call it pulling business instead of pushing business.
• Your income will become more even.
• Your existing customers will provide you with referrals.
• You don't have to sell the product twice because it was sold(purchased) right the first time.

There is nothing like good old fashioned respect and self confidence as a good starting point. All the best sales people out there make it about the customer. It's your role to help your potential customers and prospects make an informed consenting purchase to their customers benefit.

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Who Is Answering Your Phone? Don't Lose Potential Customers To Voicemail Article Source

I have this opinion that communicating with your customers is paramount to a successful business. We are taught from an early age that customer service is important. So, is customer service a cost of business or a cost of sales?The accountants would have us believe that it is a fixed cost to a business on the Profit and Loss Statement. The same can be said of the cost of a receptionist. All this of course is related to how many calls this individual handles in the run of a day. In many businesses the reception person is also a person Friday. Filing, stuffing envelopes and perhaps some book-keeping duties. All these functions are a cost of business.

Let's look at this from another angle for a moment. The receptionist is the first point of contact when a potential or existing customer calls your business. Now we are approaching the question. Is this person a cost of sales? My answer is you bet. Can this person help you convert a new phone call to a new customer. You bet.

What any good business needs to do is figure out what is costs to get a new customer. This is the amount you pay for advertising and marketing. Also add in salaries for outside and inside sales staff along the expenses such as travel related to those people. This starts to become a pretty big number. The next exercise to go through is how many prospects or potential customers do you or your staff need to communicate with to close a sale. You now have the cost per contact or interview of a potential customer. I expect this cost is in the hundreds of dollars per customer. I ask again. Why do so many businesses continue to use voicemail or an automated phone attendant knowing that 80 % of first time callers to their business hang up and move on to call your competitor.

There are several options depending on the size and the make up of your business. If your business is big enough to have a full time reception person go for it. Train that individual on how best to handle product inquires prior to patching the call to the appropriate individual. If your company is not big enough for a full time person there are a number of ways to go that may surprise you how cost effective they are. My suggestion if you are going to keep it internal is have the order desk or customer service department become your reception. If you're a small and growing business I expect that many of your calls are going to voicemail. You have no idea how many hang-ups you are getting. More than you would want to know. But should know.

The following is a suggestion that is extremely cost-effective and puts a human voice and face to the phone call. Yes, consider employing a call centre to do your phone reception. The buzz words are Remote Reception or Virtual Office Reception. The caller never knows. A point of caution is many call centers have different levels of technology when it comes to call handling. The level of detail stored on the server regarding your company is critical. The other important part when hiring a remote reception company is do they have enough phone horse power to handle multiple calls inbound and outbound. Keep in mind the call centre now becomes the phone switch. The operator may have hung up when the call was put through but the call is still running through the call centers phone system. Remote Reception is a fantastic idea for regional companies that may have three or four employees in each of multiple locations. Remote Reception can be the receptionist for all offices. Very Slick.

Essentially how remote reception works is that your main office line is forwarded to the remote reception centre. The telephone line is routed through a server which identifies who the call is for and that information pops on the operator/agents screen. The phone is answered as if they are sitting inside your front door. Beautiful. Now if your call centre supplier has provided you with good communication planning on your company details they should have the names telephone numbers(with local) and the department of all your employees in the system. The call centre reception agent just puts the call through once the person or department can be identified. No need to take messages as the individual will answer the phone or go to their voicemail. Now it should be said that people will leave a voice message if they know the individual they are calling as there is an expectation the call will be returned. The time to patch a call is between 16 and 20 seconds. That fast. Depending on the level of call screening a good call centre can also filter the call to be delivered to a correct department. Keep in mind call centers are about communicating with your customers. Not from over seas where an accent can be detected but home grown right here in the US or Canada.

So the benefits to employing a Call/Remote Reception Centre are numerous.

1. Calls are always answered by a human
2. All the calls are voice recorded in the event of a misunderstanding.
3. The call centre never calls in sick.
4. You do not have to pay benefits to the call centre.
5. You only have to pay the call centre when they actually do work for you.(now there is an idea)
6. You receive a call activity report of all inbound calls( identify where the calls are going)
7. Your front end staff gets to be productive in what they were hired to do instead of playing reception.
8. You will have the ability to handle increased call volume during busy periods.

If you have done the math and know the costs associated with capturing a new customer you will be surprised at the new business that comes your way once a human starts to answer the phone. The silver lining is that your existing customers will also be treated to a human on the line. You can also expect existing customers sales volume is likely to grow as well. We North Americans are so programmed to do the job as cheap as possible that we miss the fact our customers want to talk to a human. The benefits of such turns to increase revenues. How good is that.

Paul is the Director of Sales and Marketing for a Canadian Call Centre Based in Halifax Nova Scotia. Answer365 answers phones for customers throughout the United States and Canada. Answer365 is an award winning company earned by review of an independent panel. The criteria is based on their level of call accuracy and customer wow factor. You can learn more about Paul and Answer365 at their website http://www.answer365.ca

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