|
As an alternative, it is possible that you have one customer service person who is a bit different from the rest, whose personality leads you to believe that he/she might actually enjoy proactive calling. If that's the case, then consider creating a new job for this person and having him/her do all the proactive work for the department.
Now, it may be that the circumstances of your situation will not allow you to hire a new person and or create a new position for an existing employee. If that is the case, then you need to consider my second answer.
Second: How do you get inside sales to be proactive? If you must, then be guided by these guidelines:
Make the proactive task extremely specific. Your directions should not be, "Call ten people and see if they need anything." Instead, the task should be, "From 3 PM to 4 PM every Tuesday, call the ten people on the list I give you, and make this 50-word presentation which I have written out, word for word, for you."
The more specific the task is, the more likely it is to happen. The more general is your direction to them, the more likely that they will find it difficult to follow.
Train them in the task. Don't expect that they automatically know how to do what you want them to do. Hold a two-hour training session. Have everyone role-play the phone call several times. Identify all the possible responses. Create strategies for each. Get them to memorize the script.
By first doing this kind of training, you are accomplishing two things. First, you are improving their skills in the specific tasks you've assigned to them, making it more likely that they will accomplish it effectively. Second, and maybe even more importantly, you will have enhanced their confidence in their ability to do this, and altered their self-image in a positive way. If they see themselves as being competent at this, if they really believe that they can do this successfully, they will be much more likely to attempt it.
Measure and publish their progress. Keep track of how many calls each person makes, and how successful each call is. Share those numbers with everyone in the group. This adds to the perception that they can, indeed, do this thing that you want them to do, because they see that their colleagues are doing so successfully.
Reward all success. When someone has a successful call, praise that person in front of everyone. Lavishly reward them for doing what you asked them to do. Success begets success. Make a big deal of every person's success so that they all feel more capable of doing this part of their job.
Transforming essentially reactive customer service people into proactive sales people is a task that is harder than almost anyone anticipates, and is, in many cases, next to impossible. Typically, the managers who want to make this transformation are sales managers who have years of sales experience. To them, making some proactive phone calls is no big deal. Everyone can do it.
That may be true from their perspective, but it is not true from the point-of-view of the customer service representatives who may be asked to do something that is difficult and threatening for them.
-- By Dave Kahle, The Growth Coach®
Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He speaks from real world experience, having been the number one salesperson in the country for two companies in two distinct industries. Dave has trained thousands of salespeople to be more successful in the Information Age economy. He's the author of over 500 articles, a monthly ezine, and four books. His latest is 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople. He has a gift for creating powerful training events that get audiences thinking differently about sales.
Back
|
