Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Maintain Focus

This is my last blog on supercharging revenue generation through your field service team. 

Imagine opening up a reputable trade magazine and reading an article that states that you should stop maintaining your mechanical and electrical equipment.  You read the following:

Engineers have just discovered that maintenance of mechanical and electrical equipment is not needed to keep equipment running at peak performance.  You’ll get better performance by ignoring the equipment altogether.  The equipment will run better and you’ll save money on not having to pay those service bills!  This is great news for building owners and process managers.  They can now take a hands-off approach, while getting excellent performance from their equipment.

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?  Who could possibly believe that the equipment that we lovingly maintain for our customers could possibly perform better if left un-serviced?  In real life, without maintenance, filters will clog, belts will break and electrical connections will overheat.  The cost of keeping things running, let alone performing at their peak will go up exponentially.  Ultimately, everything will grind to a halt.

And yet, if we don’t take steps to help our techs maintain focus, is it not suggesting that we’ve similarly unrealistic expectations when it comes to their proactive performance?  What are we doing for our field team to “maintain” their focus of making recommendations that will help the customer to be better off?  We can do little or nothing and leave it to chance, or we can take the initiative to put into place a strategy to maintain focus and continually upgrade skills.  The choice is ours.

Helping Our Technicians Maintain Focus

Maintaining focus requires that we put in place a strategy to constantly “maintain” the service our technicians are providing.  This includes:

  • Talking about the valuable service provided by the field service team at every opportunity
  • Providing skills reinforcement on a regular basis
  • Coaching the desired behaviour
  • Keeping the team current on all of our company’s capabilities
  • Evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of our tools and processes to ensure they continue to provide the support needed to help the techs do their job
  • Measuring and reporting on results

A Special Word About Measurement 

The proactive efforts of our technicians will generate new revenues so it’s natural to want to measure any revenue growth associated with their efforts.  This could include measures such as overall revenue growth, growth of project business compared to the maintenance base, etc.  But these types of measures only look at part of the picture.  If we’re performing a valuable service, we should also consider other measures of the success of our initiative. 

These include:

  • Customer satisfaction scores
  • Customer retention rates
  • Emergency vs. planned work (the percentage of emergency work should decrease vs. our planned work which will have an impact on our labour planning)

And don’t forget to ask the customer how they feel about the service itself.  For example, we could ask, “How happy are you with the recommendations our technicians are making to help you achieve your business goals?

This is the last blog in our series of supercharging revenue generation through the field service team.  I hope you have found it of value.  To return to the first blog in this series, click here[JB1] .  If I can be of any assistance, please just let me know.  You can reach me at jim@jimbaston.com or call me at (416) 254-2383.

Reflection

Create a plan to maintain the focus and enthusiasm of your field team in each of the following areas:

Focus

  • Skills reinforcement
  • Coaching and development
  • Maintaining currency
    • Skills
    • Systems and tools

Measurement

  • Customer satisfaction and retention
  • Performance measurement
  • Operational impacts

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.

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

 – Billy Jean King

Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Tell Our Customers

Last time, we spoke about the importance of the words that we use to describe the proactive efforts of our field team.  This time we will consider how we explain to our customers what we are doing .

Can you imagine implementing a new service, making the necessary investments in tools, processes and training and then not telling anyone about it?  If we’re not telling our customers about the proactive efforts of our field service teams and the service their efforts are providing, we’re effectively doing just that.

At a service conference that I spoke at recently, I asked the attendees to raise their hands if they either formally or informally encouraged their technicians to proactively recommend their services to their customers.  Most of those service managers in the room raised their hands.  I then asked them to keep their hands raised if they told their customers that they were engaging their technicians in this way.  Not a single hand remained in the air.  This result is entirely consistent with other discussions that I’ve had.

Why Aren’t You Telling Your Customers?

Asking ourselves whether we tell our customers about what our techs are doing is a good test for us.  It gives us an insight into how we see the proactive efforts of our field service team.  If we don’t tell our customers, why not?  Is it possible that the reason is that, deep down, we don’t regard their efforts as a service activity but more of a sale?  It’s hard to promote “selling” as a benefit to our customers. 

In an earlier blog, we asked where the value was for the customer in a conversation that goes like this:  “Mr./Mrs. Customer, I want you to know that we’ve encouraged our technicians to look for opportunities for us to sell you more services so that we can get more money out of you.”  It’s hard to see any value in this statement, regardless of how noble our intentions or those of our field service team are.

In finding the right words to promote our techs’ efforts to our customers, the key is to keep in mind that we’re encouraging our technicians to use their expertise and proximity to look for opportunities to better serve our customers’ needs.  Their recommendations therefore, are a valuable service. 

Here is an example of how we could initiate the discussion with our customers.  “Mr./Mrs. Customer, we’ve provided direction and training to our technicians to encourage them to look for opportunities to help you operate your facility/processes more effectively while they’re performing the service.  Would you have any objection when they find something that will help you achieve your business goals, if they bring the opportunity to your attention?” 

We can then position our techs’ efforts as a point of difference.  We’re providing our customers our “heads” as well as our “hands”.  When they recognize the value of these efforts and benefit from the resulting recommendations, they’ll be delighted that we’ve engaged our technicians in this way.

Next time we will consider the last item on our list – How we maintain our focus and efforts.

Reflection

Clearly articulate the conversation you will have with your customers to introduce the proactive efforts of your field team.

  • What is this new service?
  • Why is it of benefit to the customer?
  • How does this differentiate you from all the other service providers?
  • What can the customer expect?
  • How will you measure your performance/

Using the same approach, how will you describe the service on your website or service brochure?

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.

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.
You know what you are doing, but nobody else does”

– Steuart Henderson Britt

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

Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Get Buy-In from Supporting Divisions

The third item in our list of steps to ensure our success is getting buy-in from supporting divisions.  There are a lot of interdependencies associated in delivering a service.  For example, in the process of recommending a product or service, we may rely on a sales team that reports to another division to follow up on the initial inquiry and provide the customer with detailed product information, payback evaluations and the final proposal.  And, in delivering a product or service, we may depend on another group within our organization to provide a specific part of it. 

This can work well if everyone is aligned, but, unfortunately, this is not always the case.  Sometimes the other departments don’t have the same interest or excitement about the opportunity or the same relationship with the customer.  When this is the case, they may not treat the customer or the opportunity with the level of care and urgency that you would expect.  If this happens, the customer may become disappointed and the field team frustrated. 

By recognizing this, we can take proactive steps to address any misalignment and prevent these types of problems from occurring.  There are several things that we can do.   For example, we can speak with the management of those groups to get their commitment and the commitment of their team to support our efforts in the manner required, and we can set up a system to address any problems relating to any misalignment quickly and efficiently.  We can also take steps to personally address any problems early that cannot seem to be corrected in the normal way.

Next time we will consider how what we say and do as managers, can impact our success.

Reflection

Thinking about your service of making recommendations, what are some of the relationships that you depend upon to perform this at the highest levels?  As you work through this exercise, consider any interdependencies in areas such as:

  • Completing the proposal
  • Presenting the recommendations
  • Delivering the service
  • Specific areas within the organization such as:
    • Sales
    • Projects
    • H.R.
    • I.T.

Under each identified interdependency, identify the specific proactive steps you can take to ensure complete and seamless alignment.

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.

Interdependent people combine their own efforts
 with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

– Stephen Covey

Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Support the Initiative

In my previous blog, we considered the actions necessary to clearly define the service of our technicians making proactive recommendations.  Now that we have defined the service we’re offering, it’s time to ensure that we have the support structures in place to ensure the efficient engagement of our field service team.  There are a number of things to address here, so let’s consider three critical ones: processes, tools and training.

Processes

This is one that often gets overlooked, but we ignore it at our peril.  Without a clear process, opportunities can fall through the cracks.  When opportunities are not followed up in a timely fashion, this can cause embarrassment for the technician and send a clear signal that we’re not that serious about this new service of making recommendations. 

Some examples:

  • How are opportunities captured?
  • Who’s responsible for following up with the customer?
  • What’s the tech’s involvement once the opportunity is identified?
  • By whom and how is the technician kept informed of the status of an inquiry?
  • Once a quote is issued, who is responsible for tracking outstanding quotations and inquiring into dormant ones?

Tools

What tools can be employed to help the field service team improve their efficiency?  For example, what can be done to allow technicians to issue quotes in the field?  How can opportunity status be relayed to the technicians so it’s readily available in a timely manner if needed?  How can you alert technicians of outstanding opportunities so that they can follow up directly with the customer on their next maintenance visit?

Training

Most techs I know are comfortable engaging the customer in technical conversations, but fewer feel as comfortable talking about commercial issues.  A tech that’s not comfortable discussing new opportunities with customers may avoid doing so.  It’s important, therefore, that our technicians learn and gain comfort in conducting a conversation with the customer about products and services that will benefit them.  A good training program and practice role plays can have a significant impact here.

Product and service training should also be considered.  Often technicians have limited knowledge about their company’s capabilities beyond their own areas of expertise.  If our techs don’t know about ALL of our products and services how will they identify an opportunity?  And even if they have a general understanding of what we do, if they don’t have conversational knowledge of a product or service they’ll likely avoid the conversation altogether.

Reflection:

What hurdles stand in the way of fully engaging your field service technicians in making proactive recommendations that will help your customers to be better off?

How do your current processes and systems facilitate or detract from the implementation of your strategy to engage the techs in looking for opportunities to help your customers achieve their business goals?

Make a list of all the actions you can take to support your technicians’ efforts in making proactive recommendations that will help your customers to be better off.  As you draft this list, think about each action’s impact on the following:

  • How does this make the service easier for the technician?
  • How does this minimize the amount of time required by the technician?
  • How does this help improve the techs’ comfort level in completing this service?
  • How does this help keep the technician informed?
  • How does this prevent opportunities from falling through the cracks?
  • How does this help ensure that every technician provides a comparable level of service?

Next time we will consider the interdependencies that we will rely on when making and delivering on our recommendations.

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.

“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.”

– Helmut Schmidt

Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Define the Service

In my last blog, we identified the following list of possible steps we can take to ensure that our field service team is successful in generating new business opportunities:

  1. Define the service
  2. Support the initiative
  3. Get buy-in from supporting divisions
  4. Talk the walk
  5. Tell our customers
  6. Maintain focus

In this blog, we will look at the first step on our list – Define the service – and identify specifically what actions we need to take in order to do this.

Consider one of the maintenance services that you offer to your customers.  Imagine for the moment that you left the details of what the service entails to each individual field service tech.  What do you think would happen?  One tech includes an oil change with every service.  Another changes the oil every two services and a third does not change the oil at all.  One tech makes certain adjustments, and another doesn’t make any.  In other words, the service work completed (and therefore the service level) varies depending on the tech that went to do the work.

Now think about how your customers will view your service offering.  Will they be happy that the level of service provided would be determined by the person you send?  Will they have confidence that they’re receiving “excellent” service?  Will you keep them as a customer for long?  Somehow, I doubt it.

So, if making proactive recommendations to customers is a service, then it’s important that we define what that service is, just as we would any other service that we provide.  How are the proactive efforts of your field service team defined?

Where to Start?

It’s best to start with defining specifically what we are doing.  What is the service we are providing through the proactive efforts of the field service team?  Why is this a service at all?  What is the benefit for the customer?

Next consider what we specifically want the field team to do.  Are there definite actions that we want them to take that will help them uncover opportunities to help?  Are there certain questions that they should ask the customer?  Are there any environmental factors that they should be on the lookout for?, etc.

What do we want them to do if they see an opportunity to help?  Do we want them to bring it to the attention of the customer or simply record it on the work order summary for someone else to follow up?  Will this expectation change depending on the size and scope of the opportunity?  If they do bring it to the attention of the customer and the customer would like to explore the opportunity further, how is the opportunity captured so that nothing falls through the cracks?

And, remember to define the components of the service in terms of what the customer can expect.  Can we be more specific about what the customer will receive?  For example, our service might include an annual review of our performance with the customer.  At the beginning of a contract, it could include a formal meeting where the key customer operational goals are identified and evaluate how we can contribute to these.  Future meetings might involve reviewing the results of the proactive efforts of the field team over the past period, revisiting open recommendations and re-establishing operational goals for the coming year.

Reflection

Think about the product promotion efforts of your field service team. What can the customer expect when they sign up for this service?  How will you describe it on your website?

Consider:

  • Why is what you are asking your technicians to do a service (and not a sale)?
  • Why are the field service team’s actions of benefit to your customers?
  • What specific steps should all your field service technicians take to uncover and capture opportunities?  For example:
    • Should they make a special effort to visit with the customer before the service begins?  After the service is completed?
    • What questions should they ask?
    • Are there specific things that the technician should look for or listen for that might provide them clues for opportunities to help?
  • When an opportunity is found, what specifically do you want the technician to do with the lead?
  • How and where do you want the technician to record the opportunity?

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.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

 – Alan Kay

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Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – It’s All About Perception – Are You “Selling” or “Serving”?

In my last blog, I wrote of the opportunity to stand out from the crowd by helping the customer recognize that they are better off for having engaged us.  Our techs play a huge role in this.  They are in the best position to recognize the opportunities for improvement and typically have the trust and ear of the customer.  However, the success of our efforts to engage our field teams in revenue generation depends on two key factors. The first is that the customer must see value in our technicians’ efforts.  The second is that our technicians must see their proactive recommendations as an integral part of the job that they do.  Achieving both outcomes relies on how we, as managers, define what the technicians are doing when they make recommendations to customers about a particular product or service.  Do we regard the field service team’s efforts as “selling” or “serving”?  Our perception of their actions can mean the difference between outstanding success and mediocrity.

“Selling”

Let’s start with the “selling” perspective.  Many service organizations appear to take a “selling” perspective.  You hear it in the language that’s used.  Managers talk about getting their field service team to “sell”. They use terms like “up-selling” and “cross-selling”.  Unfortunately, a “selling” perspective can have a negative impact on our ability to fully engage our technicians in promoting our products and services.

A selling perspective is centred on us – the service provider.  The focus is on how the customer can fulfill our needs.  It arises from the question, “How can we capitalize on our field service relationships to win more business from our customers and increase our revenues and profitability?” 

This can be problematic for a number of reasons:

Firstly, it can appear to suggest that business development is an opportunistic tactic rather than an integral part of the service strategy. 

As such, it can be perceived as an add-on to the tech’s main responsibility. If it’s perceived by the technician as an add-on to, and not part of, their main role of providing service, then the tech may regard making proactive recommendations as optional and not enthusiastically participate. 

Secondly, skills development tends to be focused on selling. 

Maslow famously said: “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”  When we see the task as “selling”, we may conclude that the solution to improve our techs’ performance is to provide them with selling skills.  Unfortunately, some of the sales training for techs has been adapted from sales programs developed for salespeople.  Such programs often include topics that prove uncomfortable for the technician – closing techniques, overcoming objections are just two examples that come to mind.  As a result, the technician may not see much relevance to what they do every day in the training and some may even resent being considered a “salesperson”.

Thirdly, a sales perspective has the potential to negatively impact trust with the customer. 

Our technicians typically have high levels of trust with our customers, partly due to the fact that they’re not there to sell the customer anything.  If we try to turn our technicians into salespeople, then the customer may perceive that the technician is “selling” to them.  When this happens, the customer becomes confused about the tech’s role and that foundation of trust is eroded.

Fourthly, a selling perspective is difficult to communicate to our customers. 

How do we communicate to the customer about our techs’ proactive efforts in a way that shows value for them?  Can you imagine if we said, “We’ve asked our technicians to look for more products and services to sell to you so that we can get more money out of you”.  Somehow, I don’t think this would resonate well with the customer.

“Serving”

When we see the proactive recommendations by our field service team as a “service” rather than a “sale”, we set the stage for enthusiastic engagement by our field service team and welcome acceptance by our customers.  That’s because the focus changes from being centered on us as the service provider to being centered on the customer and their needs.  Whereas the focus of the selling perspective is on how to get more money out of the customer, the focus of a service perspective is on how we can deliver a higher level of service to the customer through the recommendations of our field service team.

When we take a “service” perspective, identifying opportunities to help the customer becomes part of the service rather than an add-on to it.  Skills development considerations broaden to include all that’s needed to facilitate the techs’ efforts to share their recommendations with their customers rather than limited to “selling” products or services.  The techs’ efforts can add to the trust they have built by demonstrating the value of their recommendations from the customer’s perspective.  And it becomes easier to differentiate because we can discuss it with the customer in terms of what is in it for them. 

The “service” perspective positions the tech’s recommendations as part of their job – as important a part as their ability to repair and maintain the equipment they service.  We enhance our service and add significant value when our field service team makes recommendations to help our customers to be measurably better off.

Reflection

On a scale of 1 – 10 (“10” being “promoting products and services is an important part of the service that we provide”, and “1” being “promoting products and services is not part of my job and should be done by others”), how would you rate the general view of your field service team of the role of promoting products and services?

What are the factors that caused you to give the score that you did?

What steps could you take to increase your field team’s score to a “10”?

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.

Jim Baston
President
BBA Consulting Group Inc.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

 – Henry David Thoreau

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Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team – Differentiating Service Through the Field Team’s Proactive Efforts

This is the first in a series of blogs on “supercharging” revenue generation through the field service team.  If you encourage your field team to promote your products and services to your customers and you are disappointed in the results so far, please read on. 

Our field service teams represent an excellent opportunity to increase revenues and profitability by proactively making recommendations of our products and services to our customers.  They need only bring their ideas to the customer’s attention while they are on site performing maintenance.  And the revenue generated in this manner can be highly profitable.  No increase in overheads.  No additional travel or other incremental costs.  Profits go straight to the bottom line.

It sounds too good to be true.  And for some of us this must seem to be the case.  Despite our best efforts, we struggle to get our teams as engaged in business promotion as we would like them to be.  We fail to meet our revenue generation goals.  We continue to be disappointed in the results of our efforts.

In this blog series entitled Supercharging Revenue Generation Through the Field Service Team, we’ll look at the possible reason why our results fail to reach expectations and look at specific steps that we can take to turn those results around.  We’ll examine how any service organization can supercharge their revenue generation through their field service teams and use those efforts to stand out from the crowd.

Standing Out From the Crowd

The reality for every service provider is that it is an increasingly competitive world out there.  The challenge is how to stand out from the crowd.  How can we differentiate our service from our competitors when our customers see very little difference between us? The answer is that we can do this by helping the customer answer “yes” to this question, “Am I better off for having known you?” 

Imagine a customer reflecting on our work over the past several months.  Will they say, “Not only does my equipment continue to run exceptionally well, but we’re saving more money today than we’ve ever saved before.” or “… we’re achieving better productivity than we’ve ever achieved before.” or “… we’re getting fewer complaints from tenants than we ever have before.”, etc.  When our customers say those things about us, we will stand out from our competitors and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Our Customers Want us to Make Recommendations

Studies suggest that helping the customer to be better off is exactly what our customers want their service providers to do.  In May of 2015, the Globe and Mail newspaper published an article entitled “Why Customer Satisfaction is Overrated”.  In the article, they reported on research that found that 75 percent of organizations that left one vendor to go to another, were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the vendor they left at the time that they left.  Upon further investigation, researchers found that the reason that satisfied or even very satisfied customers left was that they thought that the company that they were going to was in a better position to help them achieve their long term business goals.  This study suggests that good customer service, although important, is not enough.  Today’s customer is looking for a business partner who can use their specific knowledge and expertise to help them achieve their goals.

Our field service team is in the best position to recognize opportunities that can help our customers achieve their goals.  They have the technical expertise, they understand our company’s capabilities, they have an intimate knowledge of our customer’s equipment and they have insight into our customers’ goals and challenges.  And, of course, they have direct access to speak with the customer.

Next time we will look at our perception of the proactive efforts of our field service teams and how our mindset may be impacting our results.

Reflection

Think about how your customers view your business:

  • Do they see you as a “service provider” or a “business partner”?
  • Do they claim they are better off for having engaged you? What steps do you take as an organization to help your customers see this value in your relationship? How do you measure your customers’ perception about this? 
  • How well does this customer viewpoint allow you to differentiate your business from your competitors?  How sustainable is this differentiation?

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.

Jim Baston
President
BBA Consulting Group Inc.

Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities.
Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It’s your move.

– Tony Robbins

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Announcement: Proactive Service® Self-Delivery Workshop

I am pleased to announce that we have developed a self-delivery version of our very successful Proactive Service® workshop to allow organizations to deliver top quality customer service training during these times of restricted travel and social distancing.  The program comes with a step-by-step presentation, videos highlighting the key points and clearly defined exercises so that anyone within your organization can deliver the workshop. 

The Proactive Service® Self-Delivery Workshop is designed to help service organizations successfully and enthusiastically engage their field teams in making recommendations aimed at helping their customers to achieve their business goals.

Participants will learn:

  • Why making recommendations is a critical part of the service provided
  • How success depends on the customer’s perception of their credibility
  • Specific and practical steps to build credibility with the customer
  • How to make recommendations to the customer in a concise and engaging way
  • What to do if the customer says “no” and the risks are high

Click here to view the Workshop Topic Overview

Advantages of the Self-Delivery Option

The combination of videos, guided facilitator presentation and comprehensive workshop delivery notes means that anyone can effectively facilitate the workshop – no previous facilitation experience is necessary, and at a time and location that is most convenient.

This option provides a number of advantages including:

  • Ability to deliver an excellent training experience during these times of limited travel
  • Flexibility in workshop delivery such as:
    • From small to larger groups
    • One day delivery or smaller segments delivered over a set period of time
    • Adjust emphasis and time to specific components of the workshop most relevant under current circumstances
  • Opportunity to include relevant examples from real-life experience
  • Thought provoking follow up emails encourage and reinforce behaviour change
  • Videos can also be used for:
    • Keeping core concepts top of mind
    • On-boarding new employees

What’s Included

  • Subscription to a series of seven videos – each focused on a key component or sub-component of Proactive Service® and presented under the following headings:
    • Personal Credibility
    • Professional Credibility
    • Proactive Recommendations
  • Facilitator slide deck
    • Step-by-step guide and presentation notes to deliver the workshop materials
  • Facilitator “how-to” video
  • Facilitator guidelines
    • Background information
    • Scripts for each slide
    • Suggestions for leading the in-class exercises
  • Participant workbook and exercises
  • Pocketbook of Proactive Service®
  • Follow-up emails to reinforce key learning points

For more information on our Proactive Service® Self-Delivery Workshop, please visit our website at www.jimbaston.com and click on Proactive Service® or contact me directly at jim@jimbaston.com.

Sincerely,

Jim Baston

President

BBA Consulting Group Inc.

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Preventative Maintenance for Business Promotion – Step 4

An important step in any maintenance activity is to ensure that the moving parts are properly lubricated and that there is a regular lubricating schedule that is consistent with manufacturers’ specifications.  Lubricating moving parts is critical.  Proper lubrication will reduce noise, heat and extend asset life.  Failure to lubricate will result in premature failure.

Management Support is the Lubricant

Our initiative to engage our field team in business development needs regular lubrication too.  Lubrication is vital to prevent premature failure of our efforts.  Management support is the lubricant of the initiative.  Consistent and engaged management support will contribute to the efficiency and longevity of the efforts of our field service team.  Initiatives that are poorly supported by management will never achieve the planned performance levels and will lose whatever momentum they have quickly.

As you assess management support as part of your PM program, consider the following:

  • How often do you speak of the initiative? Is it part of most conversations?
  • Do you speak of service promotion by field professionals as part of the overall strategy to serve the customer? Are the proactive efforts of the field team referred to as a service to the customer?
  • Do you regularly provide training for your team to enable them to perform capably and comfortably?
  • Do you offer reminders and refreshers to keep the initiative fresh? Do you provide an opportunity such as role-playing to let your field service professionals practice their customer conversations in a safe environment?
  • Do you make time to regularly coach the team on the desired behaviours?

Providing the coaching and support needed to maintain momentum and achieve desired results is difficult.  Because coaching and support is not “urgent” (like responding to an emergency breakdown for example), and the results of the efforts tend not to be immediately visible, it often takes a back seat to other opportunities.  Management must be disciplined.  The effort is worth it, however.  Research shows that the most important component of any initiative requiring behaviour change is how management introduces and supports the initiative, not the quality of the initiative itself.[1]

Next time we will consider the importance of spare parts and how providing the security of this backup will help keep the processes running smoothly.

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.

Jim Baston

“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
– W. Edwards Deming

[1] This series of blogs is based on an article published for Field Service News – https://www.fieldservicenews.com

[2] James Kirkpatrick, Transferring Learning to Behaviour