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Do You have a "Sales Prevention Department?"
| Guest post by: Gary Silverman |
Article Overview: When was the last time you met with your sales prevention department? Did you listen closely to what they had to say, the excuses they had, and their plan to mishandle customers in the future? Sales Prevention Departments can masquerade as your advertising, marketing, frontline sales, customer service, phone technology, or any department including accounting.
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Do You have a "Sales Prevention Department?"
Do you remember “It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign? As a result, Oldsmobile became “It’s not ANYBODY’s Oldsmobile and subsequently a 100 year old brand became extinct. There are many reasons behind their collapse but the tipping point for Oldsmobile came when some large, Madison Avenue ad agency (who ironically is still in business) decided, with General Motors blessing, it would be a good idea to reposition Oldsmobile to a younger demographic. In the mid 1980’s Oldsmobile was the third largest brand of automobiles, behind Chevrolet and Ford, sold in the U.S with yearly sales in excess of 1,000,000 units. The process went like this: First, alienate your existing owner base forcing them to other G.M divisions and non G.M competition. Second, don’t change the actual product to attract the “new” demographic. Third, adopt a “one price selling” strategy never embraced by the buying public in an environment of negotiation. Then repeat the process until you can’t reverse the downward spiral. Not only did the right hand not know what the left hand was doing but both hands were amputated in the process. Oldsmobile’s product continued to be introduced too late and the competition always had the upper hand. You cannot hang a sign over your father’s Oldsmobile proclaiming it to not be “Your Father’s Oldsmobile” . This was the home run where the runner went around the bases backwards. Truly a GOLD MEDAL for the Sales Prevention Department. Keep an eye on your SPD. There are times when continuous improvement can lead to continuous decline. Remember when Starbucks didn’t smell like coffee anymore? They stopped grinding beans and went to computer operated espresso machines. Actually, if you arrived in the morning when they first opened Starbucks smelled like disinfectant. I am currently sitting in one while I am writing this and it smells like chinese food. The guy sitting across from me brought his laptop in for the free WiFi as well as his take out chinese lunch...sweet and sour chicken latte? This is Starbuck’s non pay-rolled, visiting Sales Prevention Department.
Here’s an example how sales prevention can spread throughout your business. I approached my bank of 20 plus years for a loan to buy some land I planned to build a house on in the future. No problem with my credit scores or debt ratios. I was called by the underwriter a few days before closing and was questioned about a credit card that I failed to list on my credit application. They said that my omission was jeopardizing the loan approval. The account was with a small department store that I rarely did business with. In fact it had been so long that I had forgotten I had the card. A little research on my part turned up that I actually had a “credit balance” of $7.00 on the account. They actually owed me money! Apparently I overpaid the last bill I got from them and probably returned some merchandise at the same time. This was a road block to my approval? My response to the underwriter was that in fact this was NOT a LIABILITY but an ASSET that I neglected to itemize on my application. This was an accounts receivable item. I was ultimately approved by the bank’s Sales Prevention Department. Another true example occurred in the accounting department of a business I managed. One of our larger accounts, a worldwide theme park operator who shall be nameless, had a $9.00 receivable that had aged over 120 days. This account generated over $100,000 per month in revenue for our business. Their payment history was spotless, except for the $9.00 which was actually a truck part that they had returned and the credit didn’t go through. Accounting was about to cut them off. I caught it just in time. The Sales Prevention department must have been on “Spaced Out Mountain”.
Here are a few comments that I’ve heard through the years. Purge these from your sales vocabulary.
I can’t help you
They’re at lunch
I’ve heard that complaint before
There’s nothing I can do about it
The person you need to speak with isn’t here right now
We’ve had this problem for a long time
Everybody complains about him/her
Take it somewhere else to be repaired
That’s just the way it is
You’re imagining things
No problem found
Did you read the owner’s manual?
It’s supposed to do that
If we try to fix it we’ll just make it worse
Come back later
We’ll be closing in a few minutes
Our insurance company won’t allow it
That’s our policy
Talk with our legal department
He/she never returns calls
I feel bad for you
The manufacturer will not cover it
Why should we have to pay for it?
It’s not my responsibility
I don’t have the authority
It took me about a minute to write those down. I’m sure you can think of a few of your own. These words do not offer a solution, but instead are “amplifiers”. An “amplifier” makes the situation worse. When you stack a few amplifiers on top of each other the result is deafening. By the time the customer reaches top management, which they eventually will, the cost to the company increases exponentially. Not only monetarily but in lost customers and negative word of mouth.
If the first contact provided a solution because the employee had the authority and took ownership of the problem, the cost is minimal. Empower your people to solve customer problems regardless of their level of authority or responsibility. They must be trained properly to handle these situations and not “chastised” for doing “too much” to help the customer. Most of the time they don’t need to “give away the farm’, that’s your job. If you allow the problems to float upstream you will have to spend more money to calm down a very irate customer. Some customers may need to be fired, do that yourself.
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Article Tags: ad agency, chinese food, chinese lunch, collapse, continuous decline, continuous improvement, downward spiral, espresso machines, free wifi, general motors, gold medal, left hand, madison avenue, negotiation, oldsmobile, prevention department, spd, starbucks, sweet and sour chicken, tipping point
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About the Author: Gary Silverman RSS for Gary's articles - Visit Gary's website Click here to visit Gary's website   HeresJohnny Cant Touch dis Goals Versus Resolutions Its Time For The Small Business Owner To Get Back In The Game Everyone SHOULD BE a Salesman |
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