The Ultimate Sales Question

How to build repeat sales, cross sales, upsales and referrals through customer feedback.

Common Sense Principle 4 of ‘Great or Poor’

Measure (and act on the results)

Overview of Common Sense Principle

What gets measured gets done

If we can measure something we can improve it (if we can't, we probably won't)

Money is the result of other actions (not an end in itself): in order to get more money we have to measure the actions that cause the customers to want to give it to us!

Feedback (done well!) builds customer loyalty, builds extra sales and reduces the customer’s need to tell everyone else when you get it wrong!

More Detail to Clarify

Many customer service measurements are lame and pointless at best, and very often have the opposite effect to that intended.

This is because:

    * They ask too many questions

    * They ask the wrong questions

    * They annoy your customers (rather than build trust with them)

    * They have low response rates

    * They are hijacked by the marketing department

    * They have no meaningful score

    * They are not regular, so no one can see what progress is being made

    * They provide little helpful feedback

    * They look for ‘satisfaction’ (and we don’t want this!)

The key is to ask the customer common sense questions based on the 3 ‘Great or Poor’ principles:

   1. What do you think of us?

   2. Why?

   3. What else could we do to improve?

If we ask these questions, we’ll have the score (from the 1^st question), along with the qualitative feedback we need to develop our organisation towards excellence (this is called ‘The Great or Poor Score’ and for free information or a chat on how this works and WHY, please contact us).

When we’ve asked these 3  questions, and got ‘great’ feedback, (and ONLY when we’ve got ‘great’ feedback) we can then ask ‘The Ultimate Sales Question’ to continue the relationship and build our business through repeat sales, selling up, cross selling and referrals.

This question will depend on your strategy, but be sure to ask them first if it’s OK: say something like:

‘Is it Ok if I ask you one more thing?’

If you have a specific new product or service, then by all means ask your customer their opinion of it (or whether they know about it) etc.

If you don’t have anything specific you’d like to know, you can ask them ONE of:

Ø  If they know of the other products or services you offer and if it’d be Ok for someone to call them to talk about them

Ø  If they’d like someone to call them to discuss any future needs

Ø  If they’d like someone to visit them to find out what else you could do to help

Ø  If they know of anyone else who might like to hear about your services … and would it be Ok to refer them for a testimonial if you contact them?

Ø  If they’d ‘recommend you’ (and ensure you have a system to enable them to do this … and if you want some help here, please do contact us), or give you a written (or video …) ‘testimonial’, or

Ø  Ask them if it’s OK to put them on your ‘special customer list’ or suchlike: if you’re looking to build sales through adding value and up selling to existing customers who think you’re ‘great’ (a sensible strategy!) but don’t have their email address already (eg in a shop, pub or restaurant).

[Note: PLEASE ensure anything you do send them is helpful and not a ‘newsletter’ or pointless information that only you’re interested in: for more information, please email us  for my free article ‘How to make social media actually work’.]

Another option would be to ask them: ‘The Ultimate Marketing Question’: for example:

·         Can you tell me why you chose us over anyone else? Or

·         What was it about our offer that made you choose us?

Of course, both these questions assume you don’t already know the answer to this question!

Alternatively, if you’re doing this survey anonymously (which is a powerful way of doing it), or if you don’t have data showing you the customer’s current or potential turnover with you (for example in a hotel), a GREAT 4^th question to ask is:

·         How much do you spend on this (product / service) every year, and what % of that is with us?

I call this last ONE question: ‘The Ultimate Sales Question’, because this is what builds extra sales, cross sales, and referrals. It starts your reselling to this customer.

But be sure to:

1.    Only ask ONE extra question

2.       NEVER start a selling conversation in the same phone call: this will then undermine the whole call: ALWAYS arrange to phone back at a convenient time.

In fact I strongly recommend:

1.       That the ‘Great or Poor Score’ call is done by a 3^rd party for this reason alone (quite apart from the other benefits) … (and we can offer this service).

2.       That the ‘Great or Poor Score’ is done by phone by preference to any form of writing, as they key to whether it’s appropriate to ask a 4^th question lies in the response to the first 3: so you need to be able to choose! (And very often, you’ll only know through tone and inflection of the respondent, rather than the words they use).

Doing this type of surveying is an area where the input of a third party is essential: it will give you high quality honest information, a meaningful score, perspective on your business, high response rates, regularity, and, above all peace of mind. Using a 3rd party is also a huge message to all within the organisation that you’re serious about getting this right …and it can be done very cost-effectively.

It’s also CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to get the questions and process RIGHT:

·         Done badly this will piss your customer off, waste resource and give useless data!

·         Done well this will build customer loyalty, increase sales and give hugely helpful data.

Don’t guess!!! Ask a professional: please don’t get this wrong for all our sakes!

Here’s a quote from ‘The Stupid Company’

… How British Businesses throw away money by alienating customers (National Consumer Council Report 2008), by Philip Cullum.

The key message from our research is that companies need to do much more to understand what it feels like to be a customer. Indeed, customers themselves are usually only too happy to provide advice and information on how to get things right-so long as they are sure that someone is listening and is ready to act.

Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco says this approach has been key to his own success:

Our leadership team spends a lot of time in the front-line, not stuck in a chateau a long way from the trenches. I visit hundreds of stores a year, and I would say 40% of my time is spent in stores. I talk to staff a lot and I talk to customers a lot. I attend customer panels as a way of life.

We’ve developed many ways of giving customers a voice in the business, from Clubcard database management to market research, focus groups, panels, surveys – and so it is with staff. I used to work in marketing – and developed a number of these tools – but for me the most powerful thing is still listening to customers. The life they lead, the problems they have, and their experience in your stores.

All this information could just gather dust. But it doesn’t, it’s hard wired into the key decision-making committees of the company. The customer gives the leadership of the business the plain and simple truth about the business – it’s the most honest feedback you ever get. In my experience, if you listen really closely they not only tell you what’s wrong – they actually tell you what you need to do (and it’s all free advice). Then what you have to do is believe them – and act on it!

‘I want to labour this point. It isn’t enough to use the language of the customer. You really have to believe the customer. This is where I think many organisations fall down. Because they only pay lip-service to the consumer, they never really find out where their business is. They never learn where they need to be, and even when they do, they don’t always have the courage to go there.

So there you have it:

This is too important not to do, and not to do well.

What you can do to ' make it happen’

The process is this:

a)      Explain to all your stakeholders that you will be starting a measure and , most importantly, why you are doing it

b)      Train them in the Great or Poor system and the thinking behind it

c)       Tell them that you don't need anything from them at this stage, apart from to be aware of this, and to think about how their actions will impact on this

d)      Start the measure

e)      Start feeding back the results of the measure at meetings you already have

f)       Over time: gain buy in and support from your people (you do this by using the information to catch your people doing something well, and by providing them with helpful information to improve sales that you glean from the customer feedback)

g)      Make a large and prominent scoreboard (a good place to put this would be in your reception area and in your staff recreation area): be sure to change the score frequently (at the very least monthly). You can put other scores on this board (for example turnover or response times ... one or two key critical measures of your business), but don't make it busy: make it simple clear and empowering.

h)      Start the go the extra inch meetings and start taking action from the results of those meetings.

i)        Develop your communications so you have a process that drives greatness

j)        Then you’ll have a SYSTEM to drive excellence and continuous improvement

For more advice and free information on these points, or to access paid help to make this work for you please contact us or go to www.greatorpoor.com  look at our blog and and sign up for our free weekly top tips.