Serve to Sell

I recently met a colleague for breakfast at a local coffee shop. The waiters were coagulated in a corner in the far distance with no intention of looking in our direction despite the Mexican wave-type hand gestures. You know these waiters: they have served (or not served) you before in many restaurants, coffee shops and the like. We stood up and walked to the coffee shop across the road.

It’s always a sin to lose a customer to bad service, but even more so during bad economic times. The sad thing about our story is that the manager (who was nowhere to be found) and the owner had no idea that the incident even took place in order for them to try remedy the situation. In my opinion, this is even more of an economic sin.

As it happens, my colleague runs a massive service organisation that employs thousands of people across the globe. I often ask myself if the term “service industry” - which often refers to industries such as the hospitality industry - is not misplaced. Surely, all industries are service industries? Surely, all businesses have clients that need to be serviced?

My colleague’s  motto for 2009 is “We have to Serve to Sell”. He explained that, in order to get that next order, in order to up-sell that deal, you have to be in front of the client and making sure you are serving their current needs. “Serve to Sell” means that you understand that your clients have options, that they are paying your salary and that they are demanding. “Serve to Sell” means that you under-promise and over-deliver so that, when the time comes for the next order, there is no doubt in the clients’ mind that they will support you again.

The old-fashioned travelling salesmen will tell you that, even with the advent of the telephone, the fax, the cell phone and email, the highest probability of securing an order was when you were sitting directly in front of the client. Getting in front of the client - for the first time - was so difficult, fraught with gatekeepers and competitor relationships, that once you eventually did have that privilege, you made sure you serviced the client so that they would order again and again. Out-of-sight; out-of-mind is the idiom that best describes the decreasing likelihood of obtaining new orders when one is not obsessed with being in front of your customers and serving them.

Are you obsessed with servicing your customer? Try this little exercise this week, you will be amazed at the results. Pick up the phone and call all your existing and old clients to find out how they are. Do not ask for any orders, just ask them how they are and how they feel your service has been. If the answer is negative, then it gives you an opportunity to fix the relationship. If the answer is positive, you will either find yourself with another order or have moved yourself from your clients’ long-term memory bank to their short-term memory. There are no negative results from calling, only good ones.

This Week’s Challenge

Serve to Sell