Continuous Educational Opportunities – 3rd Step in Creating a Proactive Service® Culture

In the last blog post, we talked about the 2nd step in creating a Proactive Service^® culture or focus for your field service team. The 3rd step is to provide them with continuous educational opportunities about your products and services.  We often assume that our staff knows more about what we do as a company than they actually do.  In fact, in many cases, our technicians’ lack of knowledge is actually holding us back and negatively impacting our bottom lines.

In our work with training technicians to be more proactive in business development activities, we ask them to list all of the products and services that their company offers.  We usually get two, three and sometimes as many as four sheets of flip chart paper filled with products and services.  We then ask them’ “How many of your customers know that you do all of these things?”  “Very few, if any” is the usual answer.

We then ask the technicians, “How many of you know enough about all of the services and products that your company offers to have a high-level conversation with your customers about what you do?”  Several, if not all of the technicians typically will indicate that they are not aware of all of the products or services offered.  We then ask, “If you were more aware and were able to carry on that high-level conversation to explore if the customer could benefit from the product or service, do you think that you would be of more value to that customer?”  The answer is invariably “Yes!”  “So what are you prepared to do about it?” is our challenge.

Now we have had many discussions with both technicians and their managers about who is responsible for their learning about the capabilities of the company.  Is it up to management to educate their technicians or should the technicians make it a point to educate themselves?  Regardless of where you sit on this question, you will do your customers, technicians and yourselves a great service by taking the initiative in educating your technicians on your products and services.

Take every opportunity to educate your technicians about your products and services.  Ensure they know the value of each one and how your customers will benefit.  Help them understand what to look for to determine if there is an opportunity to help and encourage them to speak to your customers about these services when they think that they will benefit.  Doing this will ensure your team knows the complete range of services you offer and give them more confidence to engage the customer.  This will allow your technicians to offer a higher and more valued level of service.  Your customers – and your technicians – will thank you.

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”

– Benjamin Franklin