Transforming Service Channels into Sales Channels

Your sales have been sluggish.  Optimistic targets you set at the beginning of the year are already looking out of range.  Sales staff have been returning from visits with long faces, and customers are still blaming the recent economic crisis.

Hopefully I’m not describing your situation.  But if this sounds familiar, or even remotely close, now is the time for you to start thinking about alternative channels for getting your products into your customers’ hands where they belong. 

You’ve heard the phrase, “Everybody sells”, and this should be true for your organization.  So let’s think for a moment.  Who else in your organization knows your customers as well as your sales people do?  How about customer service?  Are your customer service people taking an active part in growing revenues by upselling and cross-selling during customer interactions?

Transforming your service channels into sales channels is not an easy task, and can be quite sensitive – especially for service people who believe that they weren’t hired to sell.  However, with a few tactful adjustments, you can help your service people understand why “Everybody sells” is important to your organization.

One of the first issues you may need to address is changing the mindset of your service staff.  Service people thrive on resolving problems and making customers happy.  You can maximize this by helping them understand that upselling and cross-selling are also ways of providing solutions.  Their ability to get another product into your customers’ hands helps them achieve even higher levels of customer satisfaction.

As you develop your new cross-selling strategy, encourage service people to contribute ideas.  This is not just a sales or marketing initiative; it’s company-wide and service people have unique insight with customers, often being able to tell you what will work and what won’t.  Giving service their say will give them self-worth, incentive and, most importantly, ownership in your initiative. 

Selling may be new for many of your service staff, so provide them with the tools that they’ll need to be effective.  Product and skills training will be necessary.  Incentive programs will also be useful.

To ensure success, make your organization’s commitment to this initiative obvious.  An internal campaign elevating the program will make company goals clear to everyone.  Special recognition of outstanding service-turned-salespeople will demonstrate your backing.  The extent of your visible commitment will determine the initiative’s success.

Once your service people realize that they’re reaching out to your customer base in a personal, cost-effective way, you’ll see how “Everybody sells” can have a positive effect on your revenues.

Upselling & Cross-Selling for Everyone

Upselling and cross-selling are the most cost effective, customer friendly sales techniques that you can put to use – not just with your sales team, but with every employee in your organization.  In today’s business climate where every sale makes a difference, everybody sells. 

Put simply, upselling is a sales technique your people can use to lead your customers towards an upline product that will better meet their needs.  “Yes sir, we can certainly repair your home entertainment system, but for the cost involved and with the new technology available, can I show you the new models we just got in this week?”

Cross-selling is a sales technique your people can use to lead your customers towards additional purchases related to the one they’ve already made.  “This is an excellent hi-fi system and it should last you for years.  A little maintenance on your part, though, would make it last even longer.  Can I add on this cleaning kit?  I’ll show you how to use it.”

It’s easy to promote upselling and cross-selling throughout your organization, and it all begins with product knowledge.  If everyone in your organization knows your product line well, it will be easy for them to talk about it.  They need to know associations between your products as well, so that cross-selling is automatic.  Burgers with fries, printers with ink cartridges, business suits with ties, air tickets with hotel bookings.  The offer for an associated product should come without hesitation.

Drill your staff on your pricing structures and keep price lists close by them at all times.  Show them how to bundle products together so your customers get a complete package at a better price.  “The washer is RM1,299, but if you buy it with the dryer I can give you both for RM1,999.  That will save you RM300, and I’ll give you the drying rack for free.”  If your people can do this on their own, they won’t have to check with you for prices all the time.

Of course, your people will also need to know upselling and cross-selling techniques.  Get them some training if necessary.  You’ll see your products moving out your door and a return on your investment in no time.

Leadership and Credibility

To learn some fundamental truths about leadership communications, we need to go all the way back to about 350BCE and sit in on a lecture by a Greek philosopher named Aristotle.

According to Aristotle, you can present a persuasive appeal to an audience three different ways – through logic, through emotion and through credibility.  Credibility is based on your knowledge, confidence, integrity and believability.  Without this, logic or emotion alone have little persuasive force.

Credibility in your leadership communications is more than just ‘image’.  When we hear the word ‘image’, we often associate it with illusion.  ‘Image’, may be what we see projected, but reality may be something else entirely.  Credibility, on the other hand, ties more directly to your character.

‘Charisma’ is another term we often hear when describing influential leaders.  However, when we think of the most charismatic leaders, we can see how their appeal is more in emotion than in reason.  Credibility, on the other hand, is grounded in fact and objectivity.

‘Image’ and ‘charisma’ are good to hear when people describe your leadership style, but credibility ties more into the positive qualities that you as a leader must possess.  Projecting credibility defines the goal in mastering your leadership communications.

For your followers to see you as credible, they must see you as being knowledgeable, authoritative, confident, honest and trustworthy.  Some of this comes through hard work and position.  If, for example, you are asked to speak on the positive effects of constructing a new coal-fired power plant in Sabah, knowing the industry, the market and the facts will help you to appear knowledgeable.

Other aspects of credibility, however, can only be developed when you can see yourself as others see you.  You need to find someone who can give you open, honest feedback and for someone in your position, this may be hard to do.  You’ve heard the saying before, I’m sure, “It’s lonely at the top.”  Yet, seeking out honest feedback and using it for critical self-assessment will help create the self-awareness you need to judge yourself as a leader more accurately.

It’s not easy to develop and maintain credibility, particularly in today’s scandal-prone business world.  Establishing yourself as credible, however, is the only way to cultivate and maintain followers who are also believers.