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Creativity Creates Profit By Ed Romson, CEO, Rocair Corporation In my article last month I proposed that company leaders empower their employees who work directly with customers. This will give the employees the flexibility to solve customer's problems and in the long run increase customer satisfaction. This month, I'd like to talk about another concept that goes along with this empowerment. Managers should encourage their employees, especially sales and support people, to be creative when dealing with customers. When employees are creative, they look for new ways to satisfy the customer and to increase revenue. This is often referred to "up-selling" or "cross-selling", but it can also be considered "solution selling". That is, finding the right solution for the customer that includes everything he needs rather than only what he asks for. It is very easy for both management and the employees if the boundaries are set and the process is rigidly established. The employee stays within the box and does not deviate. I hope I convinced you in my last article that this will lead to frustration on the part of customers and employees. By allowing the employees that can be trusted and can handle the responsibility to be creative, all parties are satisfied. I was thinking about this when I was dealing with a sales person on the phone the other day. I was changing my long-distance service from one office location to another. The agent was very helpful and the change when smoothly. She also suggested several additions to my telephone service that saved me a lot of money. She convinced me to add these new services and was creative in the way she put together a solution that met my needs. I call from the US to Argentina very often, when she found that out she proposed that we use a special plan that reduces my overall bill but guarantees the phone company a minimum income. That was good for me and good for the company. The agent I talked to knew what she was doing, she was trained on all the long-distance products that are available and she had the tools to be able to look up the information on the products very quickly. These are critical success factors when you are asking your employees to be creative with their work. This employee was trusted by her manager to work with customers to find the best solution for them. I am sure she earned that trust over time through training and by proving to her manager that she could handle the responsibility. Following a set path is easy to do. However, just like on a nature walk, if your trail is blocked by a puma, or by a customer who wants something special, it takes some special knowledge to know what to do. Your employees need to know how far they can go off the set path; they need boundaries. They must also know your products or services very well and be able to understand how those products can be used. Training is the key to this knowledge. It does not need to be formal classroom training, but it does need to be more than handing the person a product catalogue and asking him to read it and learn the products. While sitting next to Maria and listening to her as she speaks to customers might be good additional training, this kind of on the job training is not always effective. The new employee might pick up bad habits from the more experienced one. Some sort of structured training that allows the new person to study and absorb the information is critical. Training should not end with the initial time spent when the employee is new. Employees who deal with customers need to spend time away from the front line, learning about new products and about new ways to promote your products. A good time to do this is when you are about to start a new marketing campaign or introduce new services or products. Time spent in training is not wasted time; it is an investment in your employees that will be reward your company with greater productivity. Access to information about products and services is also an important tool for agents to have, if they are to be successful. This can be as simple as product brochures that are easily available and not somewhere across the room. It can also include a simple electronic filing system of the latest information that can be quickly accessed using the agent's computer. Even experienced employees need to refer to product information from time to time. There are electronic 'knowledge base' products that will assist in managing large amounts of product data and can even store frequently asked questions and results of past customer contacts. These historical files are a good source of information for agents. If they can look at what has been done in the past to resolve a problem, they will not have to reinvent an answer. With proper boundaries, proper training and proper tools your employees can work with customers to find the best solution for both the customer and the company. This leads to happy customers; which leads to greater profits for you.© Copyright Rocair Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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