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For years
now we have been told that the cost to make a personal sales
call, to cover customers, is prohibitive. We have been told
that we must call on only those customers who buy in large
volume from us.
In other
words, we can afford the expense of covering customers who
already buy a lot of parts and service from us. Many of us
who work with dealers have focused on segmenting the marketplace.
We have split customers into different groups according to
various criteria ( see my earlier article on market segmentation).
These groups of customers all share similar characteristics.
We have
been focusing on a specific method of market coverage for
each group, and the coverage methods vary. In some cases it
will be a product support salesman who works with a specific
segment. In some other cases it would be an equipment salesman.
Some customers want only to receive mailers. Then there is
the vast majorityññthe customers who want to talk to the dealership,
but because their purchases are too low the dealership has
not set up a coverage method.
IN-STORE
SELLING
Knowledge is one of the few critical items for which there
is still a very serious differentiation between the authorized
OEM dealer and the rest of the marketplace. We are all aware
that the differences from one machine to another are narrowingññpaint
all the machines the same color and decal them all alike and
the advantages and disadvantages blur.
The difference
becomes the benefits that the dealership provides to the customer.
Today
it is parts and service that truly make a difference. Turning
the "order taking and order processing" parts counters into
"retail selling groups" is not only necessary for the dealership,
it is badly overdue. Imagine the group that has the most customer
contact in the dealership not being used to its fullest advantage.
For years
this underutilized resource has been hidden underneath the
pressures of sales per employee and processing orders one
after the other in a production mode. In order to make the
various business models work we have short staffed this very
important group. This is due, in part, to our lack of understanding
as to the value of this overworked and underappreciated group
of people. The knowledge that they have of your dealershipsññof
the equipment that you sell; the parts, features and benefits
and services you offer; the computer systems used; your customersí
likes and dislikesññis rather remarkable. Sit down and talk
with them. Many of you will be surprised at the range of knowledge
that these critical customer service employees possess.
Now I
want to push them into a new arena.
TELESELLING,
NOT TELEMARKETING
Many of us have experienced the telephone call at dinner time.
That is the image that the telemarketing industry has created.
Without applying a negative label to all telemarketing people,
not many of us view them in a positive way.
Teleselling
has not played a very large role, as yet, in our industry.
In general it played a very small part in the sales strategies
of most companies. Teleselling, however, has to be a fundamental
activity in every dealership. If we intend to cover the marketplace,
we must include teleselling as part of our strategy.
Teleselling,
not telemarketing, is a very important piece of market coverage,
especially to companies that sell to business. Provided it
is done wellññwhich means with properly trained, knowledgeable
professionalsññmany customers will prefer to have telephone
coverage rather than face-to-face personal coverage. Given
the high costs of the customer sales call, including the increasing
costs of keeping product support salesmen on the road and
the growing pressure on parts and service sales volumes, we
can no longer delay.
THE
TELESALES CALL
As with almost everything else in the parts department, the
success or failure of teleselling will be dependent on how
well the parts department employees are trained. This is not
simply a matter of telling the parts sales people to make
some sales calls - rather it has to be in a structured plan
to make a series of contacts.
The call
itself needs to follow three simple steps.
- Contact
- Content
- Conclusion
And each
of these "three Cs" has two key rules to follow.
Contact
If teleselling is to be part of the overall dealership sales
strategy then all instore sales people should have a list
of customers that are assigned to them. Many times making
outbound sales calls is intimidating. This can be overcome
when you assign specific customers to each sales person. I
have found that you can increase the probability of success
by using a tried and true method in the early stages of this
process. Have the parts manager sit down with each instore
sales person and place calls and let them listen. They will
achieve a good level of confidence by this example of show
and tell. One other important point is to find out when it
is most convenient for you to contact the customer. It is
not of any benefit to call your customer first thing in the
morning if that is the time of day in which they have the
least amount of time.
During
the contact stage the two key rules should be quite obvious.
- Be
prepared
- Be
direct
Before
making the call, the salesperson should know everything possible
about the customer. Some of you might remember the term "pop
screen." The screen contains all of the critical information
for each customer. The machines they own, the jobs they have,
current work order or back order status, personal information
such as birth dates, hobbies, family information. The same
type of information is also available to be stored in contact
management systems such as Goldmine or ACT. So the first step
in being prepared is a knowledge of the person that you are
going to be contacting.
The second
part of being prepared is knowing what it is that you want
to talk about. If it is going to be a specific product then
you want to have available any promotional material that highlights
the features and benefits of the product. If it is a service
program you should have available all the information that
you need to present the service to the customer.
The second
key rule during the contact stage is that you be direct. Get
to the person that you want to talk to, introduce yourself
and very directly tell them why you are calling. It is important
for you to understand that in the first minutes or so of the
telesales call you will be doing all of the talking. At the
end of this introduction to the customer I like to ask if
this is a convenient time to talk. If your contact is busy
doing something else it might be better to call back at a
more opportune time.
Content
If the time is right for the customer and you have been direct
and to the point, now is the time to ensure that the customer
wants to go through the telesales call.
During
the content stage, use these two rules to guide you.
- Arouse
Interest
- Adapt
Your Presentation to the Responses
If you
do not arouse interest on the part of the customer, sooner
or later the conclusion that the customer will reach is that
you are wasting his time. So it is very important that you
are able to arouse his interest. One of the easiest ways to
get going on a telesales call is to relate your product or
service to the customer's business. By this time in the call,
and from your preparation at the contact stage, you should
know if the customer has a use for this part or service, and
if they do, who they buy it from. You should also have some
understanding of how much this part or service would cost
and how much it might save the customer. If you are not interested
and enthusiastic during your telesales presentation, how can
you expect the customer to be enthusiastic?
At some
point during the telesales call, the customer will bring up
objections. You must not ignore the objections. This is where
you need to adapt your presentation. If a customer is happy
and satisfied with her current supplier, then it might be
good for you to find out what it is that the customer likes
best about that supplier. From this you can adapt your presentation
to deal with the strength of your competitor, in the eyes
of your customer and how you can provide something better.
The employee has to know his stuff. This is where your telesales
person has to be very knowledgeable about both your business
and your customers' business.
I don't
want to take this into being a general sales piece, but it
is important during this part of the presentation that your
employee ask open ended questions: questions that cannot be
answered with a simple yes or no. Furthermore, don't forget
that the features of your product are for you, but the benefits
to be realized are for your customer.
LAST
BUT NEVER LEAST
So now you come to the critical point.
Conclusion
If you have done everything you can up to this point with
your contact and content, you have set the stage for the conclusion.
Don't
forget that this is a telesales call. On every sales call
you need to have a conclusion.
During
the conclusion phase of the telesales call the two key rules
are straightforward.
- Go
for an attainable result
- Confirm
the results and update your records
Going
for an attainable result means that not every TeleSales call
will end up with an order. But if you have followed the steps
above carefully you will have exposed the benefits, the customer
will be clear about the facts of the deal and the customer
will know the price. The only thing remaining would seem to
be to ask for the order. Don't forget, you must ask for the
order.
Now you
might be going through some more objections. Objections are
not the end of the world. Normally when a customer continues
to have objections it is because we haven't explained properly
or completely. I like to deal with objections from the positive
perspective that the customer is interested but that she needs
more information. So be patient, continue to answer objections,
if they exist, but overall continue to seek an order.
In a normal
sales call, and the telesales call is a normal call, you cannot
expect an order each time. If you do you will be more disappointed
than satisfied, so you must be prepared with a fall back position.
Find a result that both you and your customer believe is positive.
Perhaps it is that you need to get more information and call
back. Or it could be that you send sales material to the customer
in the mail and then call back. But what you were seeking,
what you were trying to achieve, is a positive result to the
call.
No matter
what the results of the call are, you must record them. The
next time you contact the customer you need to review what
you talked about on the previous call and what results were
realized.
If the
instore sales personnel are properly trained in the "three
Cs", if management takes the time to do the show and tell,
if you assign customers to each person and set up a plan of
parts and services to sell, you will have all the ingredients
for a successful teleselling program.
And if
you become successful in teleselling your market coverage
will improve beyond your wildest dreams.
As equipment
dealers, itís your job to:
We must
cover more customers regularly.
We must retain more of our existing customers.
We must recapture customers we have lost.
And one
of the most important tools available to you for achieving
these goals is teleselling. But remember: this is teleselling,
not telemarketing.
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