Here’s a useful tale about how a single member of staff could be killing your business.
Have you ever flown before? Going from Heathrow to Los Angeles.
The cabin crew are busy going about their work.
You push the overhead buzzer to try and attack their attention. You just want an extra glass of water, because the cabin air pressure is drying your throat.
A very testy female member of the cabin crew comes to your aisle. She gives you a withering look as if to say, “You’ve interrupted my day. What on earth could be so important that you need me.”
You meekly ask for a glass of water.
She storms off, gets it for you, thrusts it into your hand with the same withering look she gave you just three minutes ago.
You sit there. You think, “Wow, that was pretty uncomfortable. I wasn’t rude. I can’t easily get out of my seat.’
You vow and declare that XX airline is the worst on the planet, and you vow never to fly with them again.
All because of one member of cabin crew and a not quite so good experience.
But here’s the kicker!
You are basing your whole airline experience on the one interaction.
Yet this airline may have 10,000 employees, 9,999 of whom you’ve never spoken to or met.
This was my experience when I flew Qantas back in the 80’s.
Two female cabin crew gave me a terrible experience, so I ‘wrote the airline off.’ Yet they are an airline with about 20,000 staff back then. My judgement of the whole airline became clouded by this one bad interaction by two staff members.
Silly, eh?
Yet that’s what customers and clients do to your business. They base their experience on possibly one interaction with one employee, and then decide whether they will do business with you again. That one staff member could be killing your business.
Or worse, bad-mouth your business on that one interaction they had with you staff member. Yet they never spoke with the other four, or yourself.
One airline exec said it is so difficult to hire and train people, because service is the only thing we have to sell. But it’s the toughest to teach, because nobody wants to be thought of as a servant.
What’s the answer?
Ensure you have a robust 90-day induction plan for every staff member who joins your business. This can make or break your business.
Then, train your staff.
And then train them some more.
And continue to train them in customer/client service.
Every week.
Role play with them.
They’ll hate you for it. However, they and you will love the results.
Ensure your staff never ever use the words when greeting a customer “Can I help you?” We all say “no”, don’t we?
Yet, we’ve gone into the store to potentially purchase something, and this is the first experience or interaction we have. And we know why we say “no”.
This must NOT be part of your business vocabulary or your staff’s vocabulary.
One business we worked with, we trained the staff to ask:
“Have you visited my store before?”
If the customer said, “No,” the staff member would follow up with “well, welcome to my store then. You may not know about the special we have this week on the XX. I’m here to help you when you’re ready. My name is Pete so please come and ask me if you need any help.”
If the customer said, “Yes,” the staff member would follow up with “Well, welcome again, it’s great to have you back in my store. You may not know the special we have this week on the XX. I’m here to help you when you’re ready. My name is Pete, so please come and ask me.”
Please note the words ‘my store.’ The staff member took ownership of the interaction with the customer.
Now, the corollary to this is – if you recognise the person as a returning customer/client DON’T SAY, “Have you visited my store before?”
Instead say, “Welcome back to my store. It’s great to have you back again. You may not know the special we have this week on the XX. I’m here to help you when you’re ready. My name is Pete please come and ask me!
If you know the client’s name, PLEASE USE IT. People love hearing the sound of their own name.
When we implemented this system/process into the retail store we were working with, sales shot up 37% in the first month.
The business owner was beside herself with joy.
Don’t ever have a situation where one single staff member could be killing your business. What can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen?
I love to help business owners and entrepreneurs scale their business to 6 figures within 90 days or less.
Book a free strategy session with me, right now, and let’s move you away from the pain you may be experiencing. Click below to book a call and let’s get started.
Contact: http://flow.page/peteokeeffe
website:https://globalbizsuccess.com/
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