Many reasons for low employee engagement and high employee turnover are given by companies, from unhappiness about having to accept lower pay during the downturn, to high career expectations. These may play a part, but often the perception of employees by management as being less important in creating a competitive advantage than product or service innovation and marketing strategy, is bound to send the wrong signals.

When management and senior leaders recognise that in today’s tough business environment, it is their people who have the potential to create that critical competitive edge that will see companies through this crisis, only then will they change their practices.  Changing practices means honouring the untapped potential in all your people, maintaining training and development initiatives, and creatively coming up with ideas on how to place employees at the centre of your strategic plan.

Only then will businesses find that the tough times can be managed and overcome.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

To support the business in changing and turbulent times, HR leaders are looking for ways to support their stakeholders and offer new ideas/programmes above and beyond the norm.

Why? Due to the pressure of the business. The pressure for profitability and the pressure to contribute more to the business.

How are the HR leaders looking to do this? The HR leaders are looking to supply the right tools, and some of the old tools may not work anymore. They also feel that they need to add more value to the business.

So what might work today?

We all know that HR needs to understand the business and needs to link learning and development to the business goals and strategies. That is a no brainer.

To date, HR leaders have exausted their efforts with the sales and sales management teams by providing sales training programmes that offer a scripted, burdensome process. These programmes have brought in results, but the HR Leaders should take it one step further- even as  the executives continue to look  for quick answers-and quick results.

Wait a minute. Quick answers and quick results? You have tried programmes that offer the quick answers and results already. Some work and some don’t. What to do next?

As an HR leader, shouldn’t you be in the position to advise the business? Shouldn’t that be your key role?

To provide value you should look to be a proactive advisor. And as an advisor, you can position business differentiators.

How to differentiate?

Soft skills.

Soft skills are truly in need today. And I don’t recommend that becuse Egyii’s business evolves around that. I (and others) believe  it.

Soft skills need to complement the current sales process and the product training.

Soft skills are the “glue” to keep it all together.

So why is it difficult to pitch to management? Is it because soft skills are difficult to measure? They don’t show “direct” results? If that is on the mind of your executive team, they need advice. Your advice.

Soft skills, such as relationship skills, are important as they complement the drive for immediate results.

They also build the pipeline.

…and they turn a prospect into a client and keep the client a client.

If you are focusing on programmes that bring immediate results, chances are you are losing the client, because they know when the sales pressure is on. Relationship building soft skills help relieve this pressure and give you the ability to sell immediately and medium/ long term…without losing the client.

Isn’t that what the business REALLY wants?

HR Leaders have the opportunity to be more active as advisors. Contribute more of your ideas to the business. Add more value by advising the business and offering new tools such as more targeted soft skills.

It may difficult to convince the stakeholders- give it a try.

For more, see:

Building and fostering client relationships.

Building and rebuilding trust.

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

The fundamental mistake that management in service organisations make is to assume that human interaction follows a set of fixed rules such that all staff should be able to provide outstanding service in exactly the same ways. This assumption leads to training programs which offer a ’scripted’ set of behaviours for all employees to follow in an attempt to create consistency of good customer relationships throughout a large organisation.

Let me summarise the story of Plowman’s State Bank, told in John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund’s book Human Sigma.

Ferdinand Gustafson founded Plowman’s State Bank in the early 20th century in a small town in the U.S. Gus and his employees created value by treating every customer interaction differently, so that each relationship with a customer was unique. The service provided to each customer was personal, individualized and, above all, authentic. As a result of this highly personal way of building customer relationships, the bank thrived and grew.

Of course, we all know that individualized, personal service is the key to creating value in the customer’s eyes. The challenge comes when we try to scale up this model across a large organisation.

As Plowman’s State Bank grew and opened more branches, it became less feasible for Gus and his small team to see everyone who did business with the bank. As he entrusted service delivery and relationship building to a growing number of selected associates, he noticed that in some branches service deteriorated while in others it remained of a high quality. As a result, customers could not be sure which version of Plowman’s State Bank they would encounter when they visited a particular branch – the poor service version or the excellent service version.

The obvious solution was to ensure consistency throughout the bank by applying the principles of quality control. Thus they tried to create hundreds of Gus clones by scripting service. They sent their staff on training programs which told them what to say and do through a set of specified scripts and steps. The result was that the steps to follow (how to interact with the customer) were emphasised over the desired outcome. As the authors of Human Sigma say, “Unfortunately, you can’t find the solution to building genuine customer connections in making the steps of service into a routine.”

In her book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, the late German social psychologist Fritz Heider described the concept of equifinality. To quote the authors of Human Sigma again, “In essence, equifinality describes that there are as many paths to achieving a desired outcome as there are people willing to try. No single path is appropriate for all individuals because the conditions required to reach the desired outcome are different for every individual. In other words, though the end remains constant, the means to achieve the end will inevitably vary from individual to individual.”

Needless to say, Plowman’s State Bank became just another bank indistinguishable from the rest. They lost their unique, key point of differentiation – their ability to create value in their customer’s eyes through the right kind of relationship management.

What can a service organisation do, then, to make sure they focus on a common outcome while allowing the journey to reach that outcome to vary from customer to customer and interaction to interaction? The solution is to free your people to express themselves in their own unique ways and tap into their individual talents and strenghts. And the way to do this is to provide them with powerful self-management and relationship-management tools which they can use as they see fit to create value for their organisation.

This is the new direction of people development today: a focus on the individual such that each staff member is motivated by being given the opportunity to fully express herself while building great, lasting customer relationships.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Press Release! Hot off the wires..

Singapore, May 25th, 2009

Egyii, the Singapore based learning and development consultancy, has announced its launch into the Consumer and Retail Banking space, leading with a new perspective on “customer experience.”

Egyii will continue to focus on its current agenda of Priority and Private Banking but will expand into Consumer and Retail Banking with more thought leadership, web based material and customized, in-house curriculums.

Trip Allen, Egyii’s Director of Sales and Marketing, says “The Consumer and Retail space is a logical choice for us. In fact, the banks have requested that we move into this space. And with customer experience initiatives in banking being a top priority, it makes sense that we link all the different banking programmes together.“

James Irvine, Egyii Director of Programme Development, says “Financial organizations are struggling and it is the customer who is suffering, causing a break of loyalty and trust and a loss of business.”

“Bankers can continue to focus on re-engineering products, systems and policies. Alternatively, they can break the mold and focus on the customer and the customer experience.”

For the “Improving the Customer Experience in Banking” white paper: White Paper

For our updated overview, please see:

Egyii Overview May 2009 

Thank you.

Trip & James, Team Egyii, Singapore

Part I: Going Out on Sales Calls after Sales Training

You have just finished sales “training.”

It could be:

SPIN Selling

Value Selling

PSS Professional Selling Skills

Etc….

(You name it – I have been through them all!)

…and now is your chance to utilise these skills you have learned.

So you line up a series of calls. Prior to the call, you need to do call preparation so you take out your planning sheets…you think about the anticipated  problems, your solutions, your products’ features/benefits, what ”open” and “closed” ended questions to ask, Etc.  

Your boss is “required” to go in tow to support the million dollar+  investment the company just made by ensuring that you are applying the skills.

You sit face to face with the client*. She is a wise an seasoned veteran. You start your process. “Blah, blah, blah…” She starts to smile (a cunning smile at that) and to grin cheek to cheek.

Why? She has seen all of this before. The last sales person came in and did a similar series of gestures. Not only that she felt like she was being “trapped.”

She knew what was going on..

The questions were not natural. The situation was not authentic. It was not from the gut.

It was phoney.

..and you were not listening to the client. Not focusing on her. You were focusing on the process, the script.

How did the client feel? How well did the call go? I will let you answer that.

Don’t get me wrong. Some people fare well in a pre-processed situation. I believe it works best to learn a few skills and build your own personal program; a  program that combines a sales process, product and technical training and program that builds a real relationship.

Carry on…

*This is a true story. It happened to me- and I was embarrassed as she asked me if I just finished sales training!

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

The Current Scenario

Your private or priority banking team management or HR has built a sales process into the sales “routine.” This is typically driven top down. Your Relationship Managers now need to ask the right questions, follow a script, fill in forms and often utilise a time consuming, data capturing CRM system.

What does this do?  It allows consistency for all sales and management so that the actions and numbers can be tracked. From a management perspective, it is a lot easier.

The Dilemma

Does this work? Does a process work  for everyone? Does it make for a successful Relationship Manager? Most likely no.

Dealing with the Dilemma

In order to make the sales process successful, the Relationship Manager needs to feel very comfortable in his own zone. He needs to be be driven by his own conviction and passion..that could be money, success or bonding with his client. Quite often, he is too focused on what he “needs” to get done (the sales process-to keep his boss happy since so much was invested to make it successful) that he actually doesn’t get done what he really should get done. It is not suggested that the complete sales process be dropped by any means, but if the Relationship Manager focuses and uses his own intuition, mixed what he is comfortable with in the sales process, he will connect.

How does he connect? The client will see that the Relationship Manager is focused on his needs and not focused purely on immediate sales results.

Isn’t this what the client wants? An undistracted focus on him and his needs?

For related materials see What Makes a Great Salesperson.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Can you imagine a business without overstuffed egos? How much more do you think could be accomplished?

Most of the time the word ego has negative connotations but having an ego can be both positive and negative to business.

Steven Smith, author of  “What Makes Ego our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability)” writes “Ego is the invisible line on everybody’s profit and loss statement.”

Guy Kawaski of Garage Technology Ventures recently interviewed Steven and asked him “Why is it invisible?” Steven’s response was “Because it hasn’t been measured, and yet the people know the costs are there. Over half of all business people estimate ego costs their company six to fifteen percent annual revenue; many believe that estimate is too conservative. But even if ego were costing six percent of revenue, the annual cost of ego would be $1.1 billion USD to the Fortune 500 Company. ” (For more read the interview)

Ego? Affecting six to fifteen percent of revenue….WOW!

If the egos were recognised, and put under control, how much money would that save banks (and other institutions) today? Not only that, how many more of the staff would feel in control, and therefore more productive? And client relationships? They would be better for sure.

Take a peek at the tools and techniques in self management - this will be a good start to help unstuff egos.

Another 6-15% in the bucket is not so bad. Agree?

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

I am not sure how private and priority banks are addressing the investors’ search for alternatives, but when the press and the government are lashing out harshly against the institutions, and clients want to run from the banking institutions, what are they doing and where are they going?

Certainly this is not a secret but there are options and alternatives available – and clients are presenting very creative solutions.

We have spoken with many ’fat wallet” investors (ones with over $1 million to invest) and there are typically 2 responses we hear from them:

1) “I don’t want my brokers making any investment decisions. I want a purely transactional relationship. I am knowledgeable enough to make my own decision.”

2)  “Investing is all too complicated. I want someone who I can trust to make the right decisions.”

If clients don’t want “value added services” (item 1) and are shying away from people they don’t trust (item 2), where are they going? Here are some alternatives they are taking:

1) Online and discount brokerages. Low fees and some value add. If you feel you are as knowledgeable, the lure is to pay $12.99 per transaction. Online Brokerage’s Success

2) Pre-negotiated, set fees with banking institutions

3) Third party advisers (who are typically ex-bankers) such as AL Wealth in Singapore, who act as “middle men” between the investment institutions and the investors. These third party advisers charge an annual percentage and build their relationship by being neutral.

(One priority baking client has mentioned to me that he requested his relationship manager to put his commissions on the line. If he promises a ‘guaranteed” return, then his commissions will be paid and will be scalable. If the investment is in the red, then he loses his commissions and fees. For some strange reason, the relationship manager did not win this clients business.)

How to avoid this? Build the right skills and trust for your relationship managers with your Singapore and Asia Pacific banking clients, so that they don’t have to consider alternatives. For more information see Trust in Sales.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

www.egyii.com