As you have probably guessed, I got my cell phone bill in yesterday’s mail. To me it is very simple and pretty cut and dry. I have a family plan (which includes our minutes allowed each month), 4 lines (first line comes with the package the other 3 each costs me a monthly fee), 3 media packages, unlimited family texting. That’s it! What could be simpler? Fee #1 + Fee #2 + Fee #3 + Fee #4 + whatever taxes and junk fees AT&T adds = my monthly bill. This can all fit on a few lines on one page.
MY BILL is 18 PAGES! WHY?
I know how much the bill should be within a few dollars (the tax and fee process seem to change) and the amount due is correct. I tried to see how many minutes each line used, that took almost 30 minutes to dig up, I tried to find how many MB each line used on the media packages, another 30 minutes to decipher. It seemed no matter what information I wanted, it was going to take about 30 minutes to find. AND once you find it, it is written in a language that I don’t seem to speak, read or understand!
It really looks like they make the bill complicated so you CAN’T understand it. They just hope you get the bill, see how complicated it is to read, and send a check! It makes you wonder how many errors there are every month that people don’t catch. I don’t know this for a fact, but if I had to guess, most of the errors are in AT&T’s favor. If they weren’t you can rest assured they would find the cause and fix the errors!
I am making an exaggerated point here so you can get a mental image of what this looks like. My question to you is; DO YOUR CUSTOMERS FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU? How difficult do you make purchasing your products or services for your customers?
Studies show that business look at the “ease of doing business” when they consider the value of a product or service. If a customer needs to spend a lot of time figuring out how to order, tracking the order, or trying to read a statement, the value of what you bring to the table goes down.
As a sales rep, what can you do? First, be proactive. Know your companies weaknesses and work with the customer to minimize the impact. If reading the bill is a problem (like my AT&T bill is) go through with a highlighter and highlight the items that your customer needs to know. If ordering is a problem, work as the intermediary to help get the orders placed. Every problem has a solution, sometimes you need to think out of the box, sometimes you need to throw the box away and really get creative.
You need to know the customers pain, and do whatever you can to stop the pain. I have always found the best way to do this is to ASK the customer about it. Ask the question, “Are there any problems that you have to deal with in order to do business with me?” After you ask, LISTEN and write down what they say. Then start to develop solutions. Bring the problems to your company, sometimes they don’t realize what the customers are going through and can make changes to solve the problems. DON’T POINT YOUR FINGER AT YOUR COMPANY, OR BLAME YOUR COMPANY! This will do nothing but leave doubt in the minds of your customers about if they made the right decision to do business with you in the first place.
Make it your business to make doing business with you as simple as you can.
WOW, I can hear some of you yelling at me already! I hear you saying, “Lorin, I am a sales rep. Why should I have to take my time and fix problems that the company made? I need to be selling to make a living not playing office worker and doing administrative stuff!”
I can’t argue with you on these points. You are 100% right, selling is what you do best and that is what you should be focused on every working minute of every working day. HOWEVER, let’s look at real life. Who is getting hurt the most here? Sure the company is losing, but overall it is losing a small amount here and a small amount there and they might not even feel the pain...YET. Like I said, bring the problems to them, they might be able to fix them and make things better for everyone. If not, the person being hurt the most, the person with the greatest amount of pain is YOU. You are the one loosing direct income, you are the one loosing sales, you are the one taking your time to listen to your clients and customers complain, you are the one putting out the fires. YOU, YOU, YOU, are YOU starting to see the big picture?
If you overcome a problem for one customer, you will then know how to solve the same problem for all your customers. The time investment gets smaller and smaller as you grow your business.
The late great comedian Freddy Prince had a line that made him famous, “It ain’t my job man” (said with a thick Spanish accent). If Freddy was alive today, and was in sales he wouldn’t be so quick to say that. Everything that is involved in making the sale, making the customer happy, and getting repeat sales, IS your job.
Lorin
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