In 2021, anyone can sell an MFP (with the right training), but it is the customer service that keeps the client. How is your dealership maintaining a meaningful customer relationship before, during and (especially) well beyond the sale? Do you know what impression your contracts department, AP / AR, technicians, customer service reps or delivery team members are making with each interaction they have with your customers, be it in person, over the phone, or in writing? What must we do differently in 2021 to ensure our customers always receive an exceptional customer support experience and do not leave us for our competitors? With more than 20 years of experience as an office technology prospecting sales trainer, I have exclusively focused on net-new prospecting at the C-level for the business technology sector. As such, I have come to realize that the long term relationship a customer has with an office technology dealership only just begins with the sale. Furthermore, this past year has created more time for sales executives to prospect because they have been working in a hybrid work model. Your current customers are being bombarded with the opportunity to jump ship and try a new technology partnership because they are being requested more often. Our job is to prevent that from happening. Delivering exceptional customer service experiences every day, with every customer, is a decision a dealership makes to transform from a selling mindset to a service mindset.
It is about how you make your customers feel during the journey of getting their issues fixed, needs met, supplies ordered, service visits scheduled and questions answered. Your customer's interaction with your dealership does not stop at the “front of the house,” with sales executives in suits and fancy talk tracks. It comes from your employee interactions, ranging from the accounts payable employee respectfully inquiring about a late payment, to the fast response provided by your customer service reps when a customer needs to know what to do when a waste container is full or they think they have received the wrong toner (even though they did not). How can we better handle sharing with our customers that there is an unknown ETA on a needed part or that the customer's outstanding balance is preventing you from scheduling a service visit? The analogy that comes to my mind is the relationship a residential tenant may have with his (or her) apartment property management firm. In the beginning, the broker (like our sales executives) helps the would-be tenant find the right apartment for his needs and budget, gets leases drawn up and closes the deal. That broker may then check in on the tenant periodically (like our client partnership reviews) and can remind the tenant when other, better apartments become available. The broker is usually there when it is time to sign a new lease (like upgrading the client). However, it is most often the building superintendent and the doorman (your customer service department and technicians) at the apartment building who are available to help the tenant with package deliveries, water leaks or to fix a broken air conditioner. A big reason you would continue to live at that building for a second lease is not just because of the rent price; it is taking into account the quality of life in the apartment. If the elevator constantly breaks, the water pressure is terrible and the doorman always seems annoyed, those are reasons you might move out. Imagine if your long standing customers were asked today to describe in three words how they are treated by your dealership. Hopefully their response would include adjectives such as “valued,” “taken care of,” “appreciated,” “like family,” “responsive,” “reliable” and “consistent.” Would their answers be based on the impression formed during the sales process and based on their experience with their sales executives who sold them their deals, and now is only visible during infrequent partnership reviews? More than likely, their impression would be based on the day-to-day interactions they have with the other members of your staff who form their lasting impressions of doing business with your dealership.
The mindset of your staff members should be focused on providing exceptional customer service during every interaction so your customers will continue to do business with your dealership, regardless of price. One way to level up your customer's experience is to standardize the answers to their most common queries. This can be accomplished by creating consistent interactions and controlling the narrative with how each employee answers and ends his phone conversations, and looking at the hard copy and email correspondence from each of your departments. How, then, do we approach creating a repeatable, elevated customer experience? You can begin by recording some of the phone conversations that your accounts payable, dispatch or contracts departments staff members are having with your customers. Listen to how they open and end each conversation. For example, I called one of the largest office technology dealerships in the country because I was going to work with it in an effort to level up its customer service. The woman who answered the phone very politely asked me my name, but never proceeded to use it again. I called the dealership several more times and different people answered the phone, and they all did the same thing - asked me my name, but never used it again; one woman even asked me twice. Later, when I started the customer service training with the company's staff members, I asked them why they answered the phone that way and they said someone told them to do it, but they did not know why they were instructed to do so either. Great customer service starts with ensuring your department's staff members understand the value that their impressions make during every interaction they have with customers. A dealership can improve a client's impression by having staff members answer the phone this way:
Staff member: “Hello, and thank you
for calling (Dealership Name). This is
(Staff Member Name). May I please have
your name? ”
Customer: “Yes, its Julie.”
Staff member: “Thank you, Julie. How
can I help you? ”
Staff member at the end of the call:
“While we are on the phone together, is
there anything else I can do to be of help Julie?
If “yes”: Help the customer.
If “no”: “Everyone here at (Dealership Name) appreciates your business. Thanks for calling. ”
Another place where your dealership can focus is LinkedIn. Have all employees at the company create professional LinkedIn profiles with headers describing how they help your customers. If a potential customer checks outs your
dealership, he will see not only sales executives, but all members of your staff professionally represented. Examples of headers: Help desk employee: I provide best-in-class remote resolution to IT support issues. Logistics specialist: As a logistics specialist, I coordinate and optimize technology deliveries to obtain faster installation times. Take a look at the written correspondences your dealership is sending and ask your departments to send you some of the emails they are sending customers. This will allow you to form a real-time impression of how it is to interact with your dealership from your customer's viewpoint. Here is a real example of how an email went out to a customer from a dealership:
“Hi. Thank you for submitting your count online for us. Can you please double check it for us? The count came
through as '0.' Please either send the counts by return email or resubmit. Make sure that no front zeros or any punctuation is used that could cause this to happen. We appreciate your cooperation. ”
Notice that it is far from professional. Try using the template below when your team needs to reach out to customers
when their meter reads come back as zero. Notice that the subject title describes what the email is about; this is what your customer sees first. Do not be afraid to send an email with a detailed subject line. This will help your customers identify your email as important to them and they will want to address it immediately because of the subject line's clarity. Also look at the end of the email; always share that you appreciate their business, because not feeling appreciated creates an opening for your competitors. Maya Angelou, one of our country great writers, once said, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Email Template: Meter Read Came Back as Zero
From: (Dealership Name)
Subject Line: Good morning (Client Name). We have a question regarding your online count submission.
Body:“Good morning (Client Name), I am writing to thank you for submitting your meter reading online for us. Here at (Dealership Name), we continue to strive toward reducing the workload for our clients, even when delivering important information to us. We are glad that the online submission is working for you. When you submitted, the count came through as '0.' We would ask that you double-check your numbers and make sure that no front zeros or any punctuation were used. That is usually the cause of a '0' value submission. Please resub? Mit online or, if you prefer, you may respond with your numbers via email. (Dealership Name) appreciates your business. We are focused on the success of (Client Company Name) through technology innovation. ”
Another example would be the following template:
Email Template: First Open Account Balance toLong-Standing Client
From: (Dealership Name)
Subject Line: Regarding (Client Name) invoice from Dealership Name) enclosed.
Body: “Good Morning (Client Name),
Knowing that (Client Company Name) has been a long-time client, we always appreciate your business! I wanted to reach out and make sure that you had the attached invoice (s) on file as currently these items remain open on the account and are past due. I am sure either the invoice (s) may have just been misplaced or did not make it to the appropriate person. Please provide an update as to when payment may be received. Feel free to respond to my email or call directly at (Insert phone number) and I will be happy to assist further. For convenience, we do accept payment via credit card and can maintain such information on file moving forward. If you have already sent payment, please also provide an update so I can notate it correctly on your account. All of us at (Dealership Name) appreciate your business! ”Here is a great tip to decrease the written correspondence workload of every department. While delivering the customer service training program, I created 300 different talk tracks and emails, and found that it was faster and more efficient for each department to create email templates for the emails they send frequently. Once you have written your emails, have each staff member (who sends them) create a template for each one he uses frequently using Outlook's signatures feature.
How to Create an Email Template With Signatures in Outlook:
The next time you need that template, all you have to do is go to “Signature” in Outlook and click on the signature you want (which is clearly identified by its title), saving you all the time of copying and pasting or rewriting the template. As we look toward a successful 2021, we want our sales executives to aggressively try to identify and net new business, meet with those companies and sell them technology solutions. But we also must focus on keeping our clients. Standardizing our correspondence in hard copy, phone and email, and making the templates easily accessible while showing customer appreciation, will deliver more professional communication in front of clients while making less work for staff members. Staying true to a culture of delivering exemplary customer experiences every day will guarantee that we will not get through this pandemic merely surviving, but actually thriving, while gaining new clients and keeping your old ones. For the last 18 years, Kate Kingston has been exclusively educating office technology sales executives on every type of prospect across 60-plus industries and how they proprietarily use technology. She is a recognized authority on lead generation, recruiting new hires from a prospecting skill-base perspective and new business development. Sales-driven, Kingston is an energized communicator who uses humor, audience participation, proven techniques, handouts and real-time phone calls in her training sessions. She can be reached at while gaining new clients and keeping your old ones.
For the last 18 years, Kate Kingston has been exclusively educating office technology sales executives on every type of prospect across 60-plus industries and how they proprietarily use technology. She is a recognized authority on lead generation, recruiting new hires from a prospecting skill-base perspective and new business development. Sales-driven, Kingston is an energized communicator who uses humor, audience participation, proven techniques, handouts and real-time phone calls in her training sessions. She can be reached at while gaining new clients and keeping your old ones. For the last 18 years, Kate Kingston has been exclusively educating office technology sales executives on every type of prospect across 60-plus industries and how they proprietarily use technology. She is a recognized authority on lead generation, recruiting new hires from a prospecting skill-base perspective and new business development. Sales-driven, Kingston is an energized communicator who uses humor, audience participation, proven techniques, handouts and real-time phone calls in her training sessions. She can be reached at recruiting new hires from a prospecting skill-base perspective and new business development. Sales-driven, Kingston is an energized communicator who uses humor, audience participation, proven techniques, handouts and real-time phone calls in her training sessions. She can be reached at recruiting new hires from a prospecting skill-base perspective and new business development. Sales-driven, Kingston is an energized communicator who uses humor, audience participation, proven techniques, handouts and real-time phone calls in her training sessions. She can be reached at kkingston@kingstontraining.com . Visit www.kingstontraining.com.