About Product Belief & Customer Service

I recently had a conversation with a friend who is a salesperson for a large, national service organization. He was very concerned about two interrelated aspects of his job. He mentioned that he has been extremely successful representing his company due to his attention to his customers’ needs and the company’s best-in-class core product.

His growing concern is based upon a recent trend within the company to hire inexperienced people into customer service roles and then “throwing” them into their positions with little or no training. This has resulted in two troubling concerns:

1. My friend has a new prospect for whom his company’s core product is perfect. However, he is not sure that the organization’s customer service team is up to the task of filling the gap between his customer service and the core product. He knows that the company’s total product offering includes more than an excellent core product. The total product definition includes all the customer service, the ease of getting day-to-day questions answered on a timely basis, customer onboarding, and much more. Thus, my friend has lost his confidence in the product he is selling. That is a huge problem for him, and the company he represents.

My questions for you are:

• Do all your sales team members have confidence in your product, your total product?
• Are they just going through the motions?
• Are you soliciting their feedback on a regular basis?
• Has your organization properly defined and communicated the definition of its total product or service?

2. My friend’s lack of confidence in his company’s total product stems from lack of quality in their customer service effectiveness. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve heard about this issue. We have created a service economy, but we fail to train our teams to provide real, effective service.

My questions for you are:

• How would you rate your customer service team and their effectiveness?
• Are they fully and continually trained?
• Do they know your total product or service backwards and forwards?
• How many complaints about your customer service are you aware of?
• Is your organization churning through customers?

Two major potential business issues came out of my brief conversation with my friend. I would be surprised if you are confident that you have a sales and marketing team that has complete confidence and understanding of your total product or service. For additional insight regarding total product or service definition please see my blogs https://michaelbreitmanactioncoach.blog/what-is-your-product-or-service/ and https://michaelbreitmanactioncoach.blog/is-your-business-commodity-or-value-based/ about this important subject.

In addition, if your organization’s customer service team is not providing true customer service, you can leave your competitors in the dust by improving their training and product knowledge.

Need assistance with your sales and marketing team, or your customer service? My colleagues and I have new Master Classes that address these subjects. Just give us a call.