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A year ago I had someone I didn’t really know approach me and offer me advice I really didn’t want. To be respectful I agreed to a free consultation which I also didn’t want and certainly believed I didn’t need! I responded to her suggestions by giving her a list of those things I was not willing to do. Shall we say, I was difficult? And defensive. I wanted to control what was happening to me. She was patient and respected the boundaries I was setting. She negotiated with me and was able to get my commitment to add a few key things to what I was already doing that would give me results I didn’t even know I wanted. She knew the results of making a few changes would motivate me to look at those things on my “do not touch’ list in a different way. I can honestly say that the feedback she gave me has changed my life. So why was I so difficult at the start? I believed her feedback pointed out my failure.

Within your offices there are opportunities every day to receive feedback that can improve you as an individual person or the operation as a whole. Maybe the feedback comes in the form of a Tooty secret shopper evaluation, a co-worker pointing out a data entry error or a customer commenting on service. It is easy to feel that the feedback given is pointing out failure when it is really offering productive and constructive information to help you (and others) grow, recover, improve, prosper or excel.

Julie Staszak, Operations Manager at Tooty Inc. shares her recent experience receiving feedback. “I just started playing golf and today I did a horrible job on the first three holes. I got frustrated. I had someone I trusted give me feedback on how I was swinging the club. I listened, adjusted what I needed to fix and what do you know? I crushed the ball like I know I can! Criticism isn’t meant to put you down, point fingers at what you did wrong or blame you for a bad result. It makes us take a look at what we are doing so we can focus on the areas we need to improve and apply changes.”

How can you be more receptive to feedback and have better results using it to improve?
1) Ask others for feedback. Keep in mind that veteran workers, those who are less experienced and those in different job positions will have different input. Those differences can be valuable. Clarify the areas you want critiqued, too. Example: Mary would you please let me know if I sound tired? I am really trying to work on my voice. Or, I am trying to shorten my talk-time. Can you tell me if there is anything I need to eliminate or abbreviate?
2) Listen to the feedback and take notes. Voice tone and wording choice used by the one providing feedback may not be to your liking. Don’t react to the feedback or the person giving it. Thank the person and say that you would like some time to think about it. Then, review the feedback and see if there is a way you can use it to grow, recover, improve, prosper or excel.
3) Insist upon listening to your Tooty call and ask your manager if there is anything you can do in the future with that type of scenario to better serve the customer.
4) Use the feedback to add something to what you are already doing well. Focus on being better tomorrow than you were today.

My friend and the author of Sticking Points, Hayden Shaw, has done extensive research on the different generations and how they feel about feedback and training. He writes, “People want more feedback but aren’t getting it. Managers feel guilt rather than excitement, because they struggle to squeeze in time for feedback while they juggle the rest of their workloads.”

What

My first sales position involved me selling a hair loss product for men door to door. I would stop men in the elevator or at the mall and open with, “Excuse me sir, I noticed that you are thinning on top and I have a product that will help grow your hair back.” My boldness on a sensitive topic was effective. More often than not the prospective customer was quick to buy without caring about the price. Once the deal was done, quite honestly, I didn’t care to ever see the customer again. There were plenty of balding heads waiting for me. Many customer service and sales people fall into the same mindset. It’s about a quick sale or a short call versus a relationship. However, when it comes to selling an ongoing service the relationship can be as important as the price to the customer. But, starting a relationship with prospective customers can be awkward especially when they want to focus on price.
In order to better understand how you are doing when it comes to starting a relationship with prospective customers and how your team handles price objections you need to take a look at what prospective customers experience when they call you and your competition. The Tooty secret shopper program can help you gain valuable insight in order to change the approach your representatives are now taking. Would you be surprised if any of your representatives used the following responses to a customer who says, “I got a better price.”
• Can you tell me what you’re looking for in a price?
• We can match that.
• Okay- good-bye

Your team may be doing some nice things in their efforts to win a new customer. However, a great CSR or sales rep can ask great questions and add in personable comments, but still not be effective in winning the customer. Have you ever considered asking a prospective customer, “What do I need to do to earn your business?” It will elicit a response and start a conversation with the customer. It is part of building a relationship. Without knowing what the customer is looking for, you may lose your target and may offer things unnecessarily. When we ask all the right questions and don’t know what to offer in response the opportunity is lost. To use a line from Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank, the prospect will say “You are dead to me!”
What can your organization do now to win the price shopping battle?1) Make sure every CSR and sales rep knows exactly what they are allowed to negotiate with prospective customers and new opportunities. CSRs work best with exact scripting versus a concept. Talking about margins and percentages is white noise so focus on exact offerings allowed in order of preference. (Tooty is happy to help you with this.)
2) Have your representatives document the responses they get from a customer when they ask, “What do I need to do to earn your business?” You will gain great insight into your market and the responses will allow you to craft a more effective negotiating strategy.
3) Role-play to work out the kinks and help your team gain confidence. Sales reps and CSRs need practice.

The very next phone call into your office may be from an existing or prospective customer who is price shopping. A small investment now in evaluating your current approach and then providing training will make a difference in the outcome of the call.

This year I found myself in the middle of a challenging situation that involved two people who were totally irrational. Their mean spirit, ruthless tactics and harsh words made me want to lash out. I began to plot their demise and calculate how I could triumph. I rehearsed clever zingers that would put them in their place and practiced my response to their eventual apologies. And then I woke up! I knew I had to be a calming influence in a tough situation even though every bone in my body wanted to react. Trying to endure verbal assaults without having your own emotions come through is as hard as it gets. Sometimes a difficult customer can get the best of us so understanding what is behind the negativity and having a strategy to deal with difficult people will allow you to stand strong, keeping your emotions intact.
During the month of July my team at Tooty posed as irritated and impatient customers as part of ongoing evaluation and training for our customers. CSRs do admit that the customer’s tone of voice and mean comments make them sweat. The goal of the calls and evaluations was to determine if a gruff voice, snarky comments or an uncomfortable service challenge deterred the CSRs from providing positive solutions. The Tooty call results showed that we are most likely to take a short cut on assessing the issue in order to get the customer off the phone and in our haste the solution given may not solve the issue.

In a recent survey of our customers, 85% of the customer service representatives and their managers stated they were more intimidated by tone of voice than the words a customer uses. They also shared that in some of the markets they serve over 50% of their customers use profanity in the conversations. The first few words from a customer often determines the direction the conversation will go. What can you and your CSRs do to handle difficult customers more positively?
1) Remember that your customer’s bark may be worse than his bite. Behind every gruff voice is a nice person waiting to come out! A kind word can cool a hot head.
2) The way you sound when you answer will either set off an already unhappy customer or bring calm.
3) Go the extra mile to address your customer by name and use please and thank you to be respectful. A little oil of courtesy will save a lot of friction.
4) Show empathy by using some comments such as; you understand their position, you can see how they’d feel the way they do, and they’ve got a great point.

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are not nice but because you are nice. You can’t change human nature, but perhaps you can improve it!

Does great customer service take too long? That may depend on your point of view. For any trucking operation,time is money when it comes to drivers and it is a valuable commodity in a customer service department, too. Some managers and CSRs have convinced themselves that using a script takes too long. Others have landed on a number for an appropriate length of a call such as 3 minutes or less in order to be productive and get the phones answered. It is unclear as to where the magic number of 3 minutes has come from, but it is a good starting point for you to use as you investigate whether that number is realistic or not for your hauling company. In order for you to effectively balance the quality of customer service and time, you need look at the current data regarding customer conversations. There are a variety of different customer calls that come into a customer service department. The short calls are more likely to be related to bill payment or reporting a missed service. The longer conversations revolve around selling and setting up a new service. Companies in competitive areas may find sales-based calls take even more time as they have to overcome a competitor’s price or service promises. To get a better understanding of what it takes to provide great service in the shortest amount of time you need to be able to evaluate your customer conversations. If you don’t currently record and monitor calls, Tooty Inc. can help you create and manage a dynamic program or set up a secret shopper campaign to test current customer conversations.

I recently reviewed the conversations of some of the best performing CSRs for one of my customers to see what their performances could tell us about talk time. These conversations were all from a prospective customer interested in starting service. The average talk time was 5:38. The longest call took 10:36 compared to the shortest call which was 3:09. What took an extra 6:30 in the longest conversation? The CSR added 6 minutes of detailed information about the services, rules and restrictions. TMI, too much information, burns out your customer and can confuse the sales process. It also adds unnecessary time to calls. Your customer service team should have a template or a script for describing service in a concise way. It should balance the information given by the CSR with an effective sales process. That means that rules of service such as restrictions or time to put the trash to the curb are reserved for set-ups only. A script should have basic details that need to be be covered in the conversation. The process for describing services and asking for the sale can be under two minutes when the CSR knows how to take control of the call and use a script effectively.

For comparison I also review conversations for the lowest performing CSRs when it came to handling a new customer opportunity. The average talk time for those calls was 3:40. The longest call was 6:56 compared to the shortest call which lasted only 2:00. The short calls were missing a sales process and seemed to be focused on giving a quick answer and ending the call. This was demonstrated in the shortest call where the CSR provided the rate and pick-up day, but ended without an attempt to set up the service. This broken sales process can be detrimental to a non-franchised hauling company. During the longest call, timed at 6:56, the CSR didn’t seem to know what aspects of the script applied to a set-up and where to stop when the customer says no. The CSR asked for the sale but, when the customer said she wasn’t ready the call dragged on for another 3 minutes. Someone who hasn’t bought from you yet does not care to hear about your rules of service, billing or restrictions. A script should direct for these details to be covered as a part of a new start set-up.

How can you determine the amount of time it really takes to provide quality customer service? Start timing your calls. Sit with each CSR and time them as they take calls. Most CSRs are unaware of where they are wasting time or how to be more efficient. This process will also allow you to do some quality coaching. Break down your data by call type such as bill payment, service issue or new start. Use the best times as your standard for each CSR and create an award for the most efficient CSR each month.

I recently hopped in the car for what I thought would be a quick 10 minute drive, but because of new road construction it took an additional 20 minutes to get to my destination. I needed to look for an alternate route to go around the construction on my return trip in hopes of making up lost time. Guess what? That alternate route had heavy traffic because everyone had the same idea! 45 minutes was added to a 10 minute trip which meant I was going to be behind by an hour for the rest of the day. Now I had to figure out what task could be pushed back or pushed out to the following day. Apply this same scenario to your drivers and you will understand why traffic delays are increasing the cost to provide service. Time is money.

In competitive markets, rolling out a price increase to customers has become a regular occurrence. A constant drain on profitability means that everyone is examining and reexamining the cost to deliver service. Are you and your team prepared to address your customers’ questions and attitudes this time around? Here are a few tips to help you have a positive approach and outcome with your P.I.
Starting the conversation
Often times the way your customer shares a question or concern during a P.I. may be clouded in emotion or veiled with a question such as, “When does my agreement expire”. In customer service, our job is to listen and acknowledge the customer in a positive way. The way you respond to the customer is what we call a welcoming comment.
Welcoming comment suggestions during a price increase:
 I can help you!
 I want you to know that I am here to help you.
 I’d be glad to take a look at your account with you.

Common mistakes to avoid during your P.I. roll-out
Mistake # 1– Immediately rolling back the rate to what the customer had before without understanding the real reason behind the customer’s call. Did you know that some of your customers are calling for an explanation and not for a change to the new rate?Mistake #2- The sales manager did not clearly communicate to sales and customer service representatives what the negotiating strategy is or what they are empowered to do. The common goal is to maintain as much of the price increase as possible. That requires we have a clear strategy for both sales and customer service on how to handle these customer conversations.
Mistake #3– People on your team are making up their own version of the reason for the price increase. This is not a time when you want your team to ad-lib their way through the customer conversation. The explanation from one person to the next should be consistent and clear. Example: Mr. /Ms ____, I appreciate your question and the price increase is due to an increase in our costs to haul the trash. Traffic delays have increased the amount of time it takes to complete service.
Remember, your driver’s time is a commodity. If we don’t use our working time to make money, we are in effect losing money.

I have the pleasure of coaching CSRs over the phone. The ultimate goal of our time together is to raise their Tooty scores. I usually begin by asking, “How do you use your script right now? Do you have it somewhere that allows you to refer to it at a glance or do you write on a script during the call?” The majority of CSRs will confess that they have the scripts in a folder or taped to the wall, but don’t actually use them.

Would your CSRs say scripts work best when-
A) Used as a coaster for a coffee mug
B) Used as a magnet to capture flies and dust bunnies
C) Used as a tool to document and streamline customer conversations
Recently a CSR told me she had all the scripts memorized. However, her scores ranged from 22 to 75 which clearly indicated she was overlooking important details. To help her realize where she had blind spots we began to review all her evaluations since she began in April. She tallied how many times she had deductions for each skill and realized she was missing the same things time and time again. She discovered her own blind spots which made it easier for me to help her commit to a strategy to improve.

If you are not happy with your team’s scores or you have individuals who are struggling, here are some strategies to help you make those scripts work.
1) Dust off the scripts and revamp them so they are easy to look at. A new font can trick the eye to look at old information in a new way. For the residential, roll-off and commercial new business scripts, use both sides of your paper. Have side one include everything needed to ask for the sale. Have the back side relate to everything needed for a set-up. You will have more space for notes, too. A completed script should be a part of required documentation for any new service. This helps when the phones are busy and your CSRs might be saving the new start data entry until later.
2) Have each CSR look at past evaluations and tally how many times he/she is receiving deductions for each skill. The top 3 or 4 should be highlighted on the scripts as a visual reminder. This process should be repeated each month.
3) Any CSR that does not score 90 or above consistently should be required to complete a script for each call. For accountability, collect the scripts at the end of each day and spot check them. If it was a busy day and a CSR only hands in a few then it’s a good chance that the CSR got off track and took some short cuts that will have an effect on your operation.
4) When the Tooty calls come in, do not pass out the evaluation. Have the CSR grab the appropriate script and queue up the audio for him/her to listen to. Have your CSR score the call and tell you afterwards what specifically will be done to improve. Remember to document that on the Tooty website by clicking on the comment button when you are in the evaluation to track the person’s commitments.

Our common goal is to be better and more effective day by day and to accomplish that we not only need strategies that work, we need to implement them. The script is a tool to document and streamline customer conversations. You are empowered to pick one or all of the suggested strategies to move your team forward.