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Customer experience is comprised of three things: the Technology, the Design and the Connect.

But why does “customer experience” seem only to be emphasized in the mass market such hotels, airlines, retail banks and stores and telephone companies?

Shouldn’t it apply to every business encounter or client facing scenario?

Of course.

Let’s look at  the area that is most overlooked-the “Connect,” which is the face to face encounter and where real relationship and business building opportunities exist.

When I personally operate, I look at every face to face encounter as an opportunity to connect and create a great personal experience for the person I am connecting with.

Think about it.

Whether I am calling on a CEO, a Managing Director, a Human Resource Leader or a Learning and Development Officer…..it doesn’t matter.

If you don’t create the right experience, you lose the opportunity. Period.

Let’s look at the reality of it all.  When you walk into a retail store do you like being harangued by the retail clerk? Followed after when you need no help at all. “This would look good on you.” Who asked for your comment?

Or in a restaurant where the waiter obnoxiously starts recommending dishes-without asking what you like or what you might prefer.

What is the difference between the retail and restaurant scenario and a larger, complex, more expensive business to business or business to client sales scenario where the product portfolio-bits/bytes, features/benefits-is the focus?

There often is no difference. In both instances the encounter lacks sensitivity.

Why does it lack sensitivity? Because the encounter is all about the company and/or the intent of the deliverer. It is all about YOU and not the client.

In both instances, if you add sensitivity, real client focus (and a little bit of empathy), you will see amazing results.

Focus on the client.

Put yourself into the client’s shoes.

You are the front to your company, your product, yourself.

Think GREAT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE!

Everytime.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, HOT HOT Singapore

No longer can global or major accounts programmes rely on decisions being made in mother countries. Decisions now need to be made on a local, Asia Pacific level, whether it is in Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai or Tokyo.

And no longer can account teams rely on relationships alone. They must also add value.

Adding value means understanding what is on the mind of the client and giving them the tools to meet their personal and business goals. It’s not all about bits and bytes, bandwidth or speed or bells and whistles. To meet the goals, it’s all about understanding their problems and where they are in the decision making cycle…and being sensitive to that.

Neil Rackham, of Huthwaite and SPIN, was not a salesperson, but a behavioural psychologist. He studied how buyers bought and did not focus on how sellers should sell. He built a simple yet powerful tool to understand the buying cycle, or decision making process. He added sensitivity to the buying cycle.

In the buying cycle, there are multiple stages..changes over time, recognition of needs, evaluation of options, resolution of concerns, decision, implementation. No matter where you enter the buying cycle, you need to work (by continually adding value) with your client until he enters the “recognition of needs” area. This is the crucial time to be side by side, collaborating with your client to build the solution. (Rackham  also recognises that all of this takes time, so focus on medium-long term, not short term).

Once you are at the recognition of needs phase, you should understand how the client makes the decision.

What motivates him to buy?

The client (or buyer) typically has four levels of questions when it comes to the question of motivation when buying:

1) The product and its characteristics/features

2) A solution to the problem

3) A good business partner

4) Someone we can trust

Buyers state that they want want the first or second and ocassionally the third. Most sales programmes/processes focus on levels two and three- focusing on identifying the buyers’ needs through consultative selling.

Levels one through three are rational and impersonal. The fourth level, a person we can trust, is far more powerful.

If you understand the buying cycle and ultimately what motivates your client when buying, you are one step ahead of your competitors.

There is a lot more to it than that for global/major accounts selling but understanding the crucial aspects of buying are vital.

*Derived from Trust-based Selling by Charles H. Green.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

(The author ran the Anixter Asia Pacific Global Accounts programme in the earlier part of this century. There are certainly a few things he did well but there are a lot of things he could have done better. He wishes he had known all of this then.)

Products aren’t the only things that need marketing. People do too. How do you build your presence for your clients- to market yourself and your company?

In a world where millions, if not billions, of people converge on a digital platform, communicate via mobile phones and meet face to face, to really establish a presence, a salesperson should create his own personal brand.

Twitter. Facebook. Linked In. Blogs. All free ways to create your extended presence.

Your extended presence  is a great way to add value to your current relationship. Post and share your content and others’. Build upon subject matter that is relevant to your clients’ needs. Base it on the last conversation you had with your client.

A few helpful hints…peruse the following; Dan Schawbel’s articles as he is the personal branding expert who pens Personal Branding Magazine and, of course,  the business guru Tom Peters, whose  article The Brand Called You was originally written in 1997.

After all, the client’s relationship and loyalty is with the salesperson, not with the company.

Heat up the branding iron.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

How do front-line sales professionals (Relationship Managers, face to face sales, client managers, Etc) effectively connect through high impact conversations?

Challenges to achieveing great sales conversations

There is no doubt that achieving sales targets, regardless of how they are achieved, has become the principle means of measuring success in many companies around the globe, regardless of what they all say they do for their customers.

That then becomes the root of the problem.

From that, we have observed that many conversations with customers are often driven by the sales person’s self interests on the basis of a product promotion, the profitability of a product, the amount of commission or incentive the sales person will receive or urgency to hit a specific target, a business need to increase market share etc. regardless of whether or not that is the right solution for the customer. 

Essentially there is rarely anybody taking a look at the overall picture for the customer, or even conversational guidelines to ensure that sales staff work together in the customer’s best interests.

So how do we  connect effectively and maxmise performance?

There are many well established approaches to selling; relationship selling, customer value selling, needs based selling etc. to suit different business needs and the current economic environment. Terms may change, tough times come and go, but the best practices of having a quality conversation that focuses on the clients best interests versus the sellers to maximize sales performance is still regarded as critical to success.

This would apply to anyone who manages a portfolio of customers on a relationship basis rather than a transactional one and seeks to enhance their ability, knowledge and behaviour to deliver a meaningful sales conversation that engages the client and deepens relationships with both new and existing prospects.

What will make this work?

In order to make programme that changes the focus from “us” to “them” successful, frontline sales professionals people need to be able to:

Assess their own communication strengths and weaknesses and the impact they have on others

Adapt and respond to the communication style, drivers of emotional needs and life stage of their clients

Develop compelling value positioning statements for opening conversations with prospects and existing clients over the telephone and in person

Ask for and gather information using bridging statements and reflective listening techniques to identify opportunities to create value for clients

Summarise and align solutions to the customers’ true needs to establish greater rapport with the client

Keep the client engaged in the conversation when handling client uncertainty or resistance to opportunity

Demonstrate conversational closing statements to confidently ask for the business

For related materials please see:

Maximising sales performance and skills.

Building and rebuilding trust.

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

“We need to constantly be adding value to our client base,”  a comment said recently by a business leader in the South Asia territory for a major US medical company.

Yes I agree wholeheartedly. But how do salespeople and support teams add value?

Value add can be defined in numerous ways, for example…

Offering the best solutions to a clients’ problems

Support throughout the whole sales cycle- pre, implementation, post.

Overall by positioning the product, the comapny and the salesperson himself

…and more

Value add as defined  by Tom Reilly, who wrote the book Value Added Selling ….”the only differentiation that may exist in this competitive comparison could rest with the salesperson.  Two Fortune-100 companies surveyed their customers to determine how much value their salespeople contributed to the sale; they discovered that 35-37% of the value that customers receive comes from the salespeople with whom they deal. Value added salespeople don’t make sales calls; they go on job interviews with customers. They ask customers to hire them to be their personal representative with the supplier’s company.”

So Tom’s definition of value add  is the salesperson as the company differentiator. I agree.

But, building trust through trustworthiness is also a value add. How? By putting the client first.

When you put the client first, the client sees that you care about him and his interests and not just about pushing a product or service.

And, as Charlie Green says in Trust-based Selling “It is possible for selling to be a genuinely value adding, beneficial process for the buyer AND seller alike.”

You just have to align trust properly. And if you align trust properly, it will be your value add and the differentiator.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

There are  two things that typically motivate a salesperson- money and personal success. (Personal success = achieving goals, positioning a product you admire in an industry you like, building personal and business relationships, Etc)

I will be touching on building successful relationships as the important aspect of personal success in this article.

Money

Most people assume that all salespeople are driven by money, and most salespeople say they are purely in it for the money (just to pound their chests and impress their boss).

Money is a big factor for sales, otherwise why would anyone put up with the daily grind of forecasting,  threats from management when the numbers are not met, getting down on your hands and knees begging for a deal, Etc.

Relationship Success

Many salespeople are in sales because they love the people aspect of it. They like to connect, build a relationship, add value and become a trusted advisor. They like to walk hand-in-hand with the client, bringing them the best advice and solutions available. Overall, they feel a great sense of accomplishment – it is a great feeling. There are great advantages to this as it builds loyalty and therefore better medium to long term business. And it builds friendship.

Money and Relationship Success

In many instances, salespeople are driven by both motivators. Is this the best of both worlds? Maybe.

In Conclusion

So, as much as many would like not to believe,  sales and salespeople are not all about money. And money may not be the best single factor for motivation because  there are alternative methods of obtaining money through commissions and bonuses without having to bury yourself with the company dogma and the personal quota pressure.

These alternative methods of obtaining money (and rewards) can be found through other personal drivers (or personal successes), which ultimately lead to sales and therefore commissions (=money).

But if it is all done right, then money can be one of  the many rewards.

Do you see or know of any other things that motivate salespeople?

Do you think it is best to be motivated by money or personal satisfaction or a combination of the two?

Please comment.

 (You may also be interested in Why Don’t Companies Focus More on Relationships?)

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Dealing with Damage Control

Salespeople often feel at a loss when faced with disappointed, upset or angry clients. As an example, a relationship manager in banking dealing with a client whose investments have “soured” in the current economic climate.

What happens?

As a result of these situations, salespeople in general tend to stiffen and panic either on the phone or face to face. This state effectively shuts down the thinking processes and they find themselves lost for words. Just when the client is looking for calm understanding and reassurance, salespeople send signals of discomfort.

Suggestions

You want to enable your salespeople to feel confident about dealing with disappointed clients so that their demeanour is appropriate for the situation.

You want to equip your salespeople with the skills to respond to challenging situations so that clients feel confident about continuing to do business with your company.

Both of these aims work together: by knowing how to respond appropriately to clients, your salespeople will feel more confident and present a calmer, more professional demeanour; and by feeling more confident, they will automatically send the right signals to clients thus reassuring them about your company.

How to Implement the Suggestions

In order to build the confidence, the salespeople need to:

Build confidence in themselves by managing beliefs about:

Themselves (the salespeople) – how they see themselves is critical in achieving confidence.

Their clients – how the RM’s perceive their clients, especially during a downturn when clients are feeling negative towards their suppliers or advisors, also affects their level of confidence.

How salspeople’s clients perceive them – the salespeople’s beliefs about how their clients perceive themselves determines how confident the salespeople feel.

Deal effectively with disappointed clients by:

Responding to negative emotions in a client through pacing and leading. Pacing is done by showing your client that you accept and validate their emotion by mirroring them. Leading is the practice of gradually changing one’s energy level and behaviour such as slowing speech, speaking more softly and changing posture and body language.

Listening for understanding followed by listening to decide if you want to do anything about what you’ve heard. If action is required, a series of questions will be necessary.

Taking responsibility and moving ahead to solve the client’s problem(s). This includes the necessary empowerment and confidence to make the client feel comfortable.

Overall Results

The results below will occur if you take the above actions.

Clients will experience being handled professionally and appropriately during challenging times

Clients will feel sincerely listened to, understood and their emotions and disappointments acknowledged and taken seriously by your company and the salespeople

Salespeople will have a greater sense of empowerment and will therefore gain satisfaction from increasing their capabilities in challenging situations

Your company or financial institution will retain more clients and will receive positive word-of-mouth

Your company or financial institution will stand out in the marketplace for having salespeople who are highly professional

For more information see building and fostering client relationships.

For more blogs on a similar subject matter see relationship management.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

“It’s all about long-term professional relation building. Leverage & greed were the cause of the financial crisis.” JP Cuoni, CEO EFG Bank

Jean Pierre Cuoni, Co-Founder & Chairman of Swiss based EFG bank, saw the light early on in the private banking industry.

Mr. Cuoni retired in 1994 from Coutts as the CEO, and held numerous senior positions at Handelsbank NatWest and Citibank.

In 1995 he and Mr. Lonnie Howell set up EFG bank.

Mr. Cuoni, in the business since 1960, realised that little had changed in private banking. He said (and still says) that banking is personal and all about relationships, relationships that lead to trust and confidence in the bank relationship manager and the bank itself.

However, in the 1990′s, he started to see things fall apart in the banks’ operations. The banks were changing the way they operated. “Hedge funds, structured products, funds of funds, alternative investments… All these are new products that only started in the 1990s.”

The business was becoming less personalized and was lacking the proper client focus.

So, in response to the shock of this, EFG was born.

EFG is very unique in the way it operates. EFG woos older, experienced bankers who are looking to be on their own, however, would like an infrastructure to support them. They use their skills to become “private bank entrepreneurs”- running their own business off of EFG’s physical platforms.

This, combined with a caring philosophy and approach to clients and relationships, has lead to a huge success. Although business is down, as we all expect, EFG continues to flourish ahead of many of the “fallen” banks who focused purely on the bank’s motives (vs the client’s motives).

On a local level, I have met Mr. Kees Stoute, Managing Director of EFG Singapore. Mr. Stoute worked his way up in the  banking business from roles in IT and as the COO and MD in other banks before joining EFG. Why did he make the change to EFG? He saw EFG was following  the core beliefs and principles that make a bank successful.

I had a conversation with Mr. Stoute on trust, an integral part of both his and EFG’s business philosophy. The following is an excerpt from that conversation:

“Trust is not a soft skill. It makes the difference in the business. Trust is the core of business,” said Mr. Stoute.

EFG is and should be the model bank of the future.

For more information on EFG Bank, click here. You will be greeted with the following important message:

“What is the essence of private banking?

Relationships, and the conditions for them to flourish. A nurturing environment, that enables our people to excel at crafting solutions for you.

To us, the fundamental building blocks are people.

Professionals of the highest calibre, free to act in their clients’ best interests. Who strive to eradicate life’s inconveniences; who simplify complexity.

Welcome to EFG Bank, truly a private bank unlike any other.”

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Welcome, Andrew, to Team Egyii.

In a nutshell, Andrew brings to clients years of hands on experience in the call centre space and in the learning and development arena, working with major banks, insurance and technology companies, to name a few.

Andrew helps clients with the effective sales conversation and the reinforcement behind it. His focus is on solutions for front line service, sales teams and management:

Frontline sales and acquisition

Frontline customer experience

Leadership and coaching development

For more on Andrew, see Andrew Sidwell and for more on the programmes he has delivered to banking, finance and the tech sector, see the following.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore