Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – “Talk” the Walk

Talk the walk.  Language is important.  Our team will scrutinize what we say in an
effort to understand what we mean.  So,
if we tell everyone that their proactive efforts is a valuable service but we
talk about it as if it’s a sale, then our team will think that our service
ideas were just for show.  If the team
feels that the proactive initiative is really a sales program in disguise, it’s
unlikely that we’ll get enthusiastic participation from them.  We might get lots of lip service, but no one
is going to do the really uncomfortable bits like talking to the customer about
an idea that they have.  Leave that to
the sales team.

Here Is an Example of What I Mean
By Not “Talking The Walk”. 

We’ve introduced the initiative;
everyone is excited and at a service meeting we decide to report on the efforts
of someone on the team.  We announce with
some fanfare that: “As a result of this
technician’s efforts, we have increased our sales to this customer by 10%.  Way to go tech!”  Hmmm, sounds like selling, doesn’t it?  Notice that the words view the benefits from
the service company’s perspective.  It’s
focused on what the tech’s efforts have done for our company, not the service
impact for the customer.

Please understand that I’m
not suggesting that there’s anything inherently wrong in recognizing the tech’s
efforts and saying those words. It’s just that by speaking about the tech’s
accomplishment in this way we may do more to dampen enthusiasm around the initiative
than to boost it. 

Where to Start

Recognizing the tech’s
efforts by “talking the walk”, starts with describing those efforts from how they
impact the customer rather than our service company.  For example, we could say: “As a result of this technician’s efforts, we’ve
helped this customer lower their operating costs and reduce their risk of
failure”.  In other words, rather
than talking about how the technician’s efforts helped us (sales), we’ve talked
about how their efforts helped the customer (service).

It’s worth taking the time to
evaluate the words we use on a regular basis to describe our techs’ proactive
initiatives to help the customer.  Do we
use words like “sales”, “selling” and “cross selling” as part of our regular
vocabulary?  Do we talk about your techs’
efforts from how it impacts our business rather than our customers?  This awareness will help us be more sensitive
to what we say and help ensure that we talk about our techs’ efforts as the
valuable service that it is.

Next time we will consider
how we promote what we are doing to our customers.

Reflection

Over the course of the next
week, listen carefully to and make a note of how people within your
organization talk about the role of techs in business development.  How
many times do they use the word “service”?  How many times do they use the
word sales?”

Evaluate your own words.  When talking about the results of the techs’
efforts, how do you describe it?  Do you
talk in terms of how those efforts benefit your company or how they benefit the
customer?

Create a plan to raise awareness of how you and the rest of the management team speak about your techs’ proactive efforts and how you will change the talk to align more with the walk.

Let’s Connect

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right 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.

Sincerely,
Jim Baston
President
BBA Consulting Group Inc.

Words have energy and
power with the ability to help, to heal,
 to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to
humiliate, and to humble.”

– Yehuda Berg