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The Extra Mile

December 23, 2008 By

I’ve spent the better part of the day going through my annual “virtual” spring cleaning. I was doing some maintenance on my home PC when I started receiving some weird errors I traced to a memory problem–as in the memory test was even freezing.

I have a two-year old Dell which is still under warranty for another year. I’ve always liked their service tag approach where I could look up my warranty info online. While I was there I just happened to see a Dell Chat window. I’ve had poor experiences with these things in the past but decided to give it a chance. Here is basically what happened:

I opened up the chat window and got connected to a tech in under a minute. After a brief intro to the problem we ran a few tests and found it to be one of my memory sticks. Just to be on the safe side he offered to overnight me two replacement sticks. He was very cordial and I never got a hint that he was copying and pasting from a script. After the session I received a copy of the conversation along with the tracking information.

Very slick.

This incremental investment by Dell to provide me this experience has given me a huge boost in confidence about its products. This is a perfect example of a company leveraging technology to improve interactions rather than as a way to cut contact and minimize cost.

This dilemma presents itself time and time again as SEs. Do you give the customer your cell number? Do you even leave your cell number on your office voicemail message? Do you give out your instant messaging name? Do you try to summarize a response in an email or do you pick up the phone? Do you give the customer the support escalation desk number or do you make the call for them?

Each situation is different, but here my point: My experience with Dell was only fantastic because I am so use to others’ mediocrity at best and complete incompetence at the worst. Every time you go do just a little bit better by your customer you are helping create that experience that customers crave.

When you do this consistently you are creating a value-add for your company that is extremely hard for a competitor to overcome with product features. To me, spending that little extra time to go the extra mile is time very, very well spent.

Happy holidays everyone!
Darrin

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales, Soft Skills Tagged With: , ,

Fight the Bull!

December 10, 2008 By

As I have covered before, our choice of words is critical. This point again was echoed in my conversation with John Care (see The Perfect Pitch section). Even with this knowledge firmly in mind, I still find “bull” words creeping into my articles and emails.

Help is here! I came across a great little utility called Bullfighter. It’s an add-in for Word and PowerPoint that searches for “filtered, jargon-filled corporate speak.” I’m using it with Office 2007.

Simply install the application and run the utility on any documents you want reviewed. It works very much like Spellchecker and even makes replacement suggestions—very cool! You can also get a score (called a Bull Index) on your document before and after you run it.

I also really like that it attempts to analyze your writing style by measuring average word count per sentence and average syllables per word. These scores will force your attention on being concise and using plain language.

I plan on using this on all my articles and lengthier emails and will track my scores over time. I’ll post my results in a brief follow-up.

One thing I did notice right away is how many words it considers “bull” that I wouldn’t have considered. I even started arguing internally a bit :) . That is to say, if nothing else, it’ll make you think.

Enjoy! I would love to hear any personal results you achieve. Just for the record, here is my score for this article:

Filed Under: Marketing, Soft Skills Tagged With: ,

Free book offer

October 20, 2008 By

I came across this today and had to share. You can get a free audio book of Seth Godin’s new book Tribes. As I am a huge fan of his work I highly recommend (I think I own about 7 of his books).

http://www.audible.com/adbl/entry/offers/productPromo2.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&productID=FR_ADBL_000302

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Marketing, Soft Skills Tagged With: ,

Opportunity Lost

August 1, 2008 By

I know I owe everyone some book reviews, though I’ve been so busy in other matters that those will have to wait. In the mean time, I do want to keep things rolling so here is a thought for the day based on recent experience.

Yesterday I had to cancel two home-based services, my internet access through Cox and my phone service through Vonage. Let me start with Vonage.

I made a call into their main customer service line. I was presented with a lengthy options menu which finally led me to the option of being able to cancel my service. I waited on hold for about 6 minutes and then was disconnected. I called back and went through the same procedure and was connected to a service rep in about 5 minutes. Being overly polite the entire time intentionally in the hopes it would speed the process I made the request to cancel my service. Then the loss prevention scripting began.

They wanted to know why i was cancelling and I was honest about it (had nothing to do with their service which was I happy with, I just decided to only use my cell phone). After making me repeat my reasoning 3 different times they began offering discounts. I went through 3 rounds of offers to try to get me to stay. Finally comes the (and I quote): “Mr. Mourer, I now have the cancellation button on the screen, before I ask your permission to press it, I want to review the reasons you want to cancel your service today.”

Still remaining calm, I politely interrupted the rep and gave her my permission. While it was “cancelling” I was probed yet for more information. 32 minutes later after being connected for the 2nd time the call was complete.

—

Let’s contrast this with Cox. I call the main service number and am presented with three general options. I pick service changes and get transferred to someone in about 3 minutes. The person asked for account information, proceeded to start cancelling my service and asked me why while that was happening and I gave him my reason. After about 2 minutes on the phone he asked me if there was anything else he could assist me with and bid me farewell. Total time about 7 minutes.

—

There are some lessons to be learned here for companies everywhere:

  1. Treat your customers the way you would like to be treated, even if they are departing
  2. Instead of using it as an opportunity to cajole customers into possibly staying (which I’m sure only a very small percentage do), why not use it as an opportunity to build a stronger long-term relationship
  3. Whatever you do, don’t kill any future opportunity of a business relationship
  4. And IF you kill it, be absolutely damn sure that it’s not such a bad experience that other’s feel compelled to write about it publicly (or record it) which does FAR more damage then the few extra customers you keep

The net of this semi-rant is this. I will gladly become a Cox customer again. I will NEVER become a Vonagecustomer again. In fact I will now go out of my way to tell people to avoid them, that is if they’re around much longer.

One last request: As easy as Cox made it, make it easier. Let me cancel my subscription from my online account. It would give me even more warm fuzzies and it would save you costs.

The moral of this story for SEs is this: Always take every opportunity to better your relationships. Sometimes saying “no” to moving an opportunity forward builds trust which can translate into even more business in the future. If a customer says no to a deal, don’t burn your relationship by trying to cajole the customer. Be professional and recognize the potential in every situation.

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales Tagged With: ,

Virtual Lab

July 3, 2008 By

   In the last of my three-part series on the SE lab, I want to cover the concept of lab centralization and virtualization. Once a sales organization reaches a certain size it stands to gain from economies of scale in various areas, labs being one of them. Because of the length of this entry I have divided it into 3a and 3b.

When a sales organization is small, for the most part the SE’s lab is his/her own set up at the office or at home. When the organization grows to the point of supporting regional sales teams with several SEs per region, it usually makes sense to create regional labs where SEs can experience the benefits I outlined in my previous post. When the organization grows large enough, or has extensive technology requirements, it makes sense to take the lab to the next step.

Creating a central lab environment has several benefits:

  1. Focused investment – Budget can be pooled within the organization to invest in hardware that would not be feasible at the regional level.
  2. Better management- Pooling resources allows for the possibility of dedicated personnel to managing the environment, meaning SEs don’t have to.
  3. Formal strategy – A project of this size will require proper planning and maintenance to ensure success. This is often a problem that afflicts regional labs.
  4. Higher utilization – Better resources mean more value for the SE which lead to increased adoption.
  5. Remote access- SEs can leverage the environment from home and at the customer site which may be invaluable for proof of concept.

If you are in the business of selling software, you can also heavily benefit from virtualization. While up to this point I have used lab in a very generic sense, a central lab can be used specifically to enhance product demos and as proof of concept.

Demos
With everyone having access to the same virtual environment, SEs can use this as a launch platform for creating enhanced demos that would not be doable with a laptop. SEs should be able to share these demos with others. Having a standard demo catalog with the best of the best content is a great way to drive additional revenue. SE management/enablement and marketing can also leverage the work that SEs create and incorporate them into the master library. If you really want to get fancy, you can start tracking this in your CRM to statistically determine which demos work better than others. This is all part of building a repeatable sales process.

Proof of concept
Some companies use evaluation and proof of concept interchangeably. Sometimes a customer just wants to kick the tires without an SE. Sometimes the customer needs to see the product in action to validate the technical specs and sales presentation. Allowing SEs to build a environment that matches the specific requirement of the customer can be a huge time saver for both sides. It also reduces risk to the opportunity be being able to run the POC in a controlled and familiar environment.

Microsoft goes even further and has integrated this strategy into their corporate marketing efforts on their website. With many of their products, you can register onlineand get access to a virtual environment with a demo script to evaluate the product remotely–without an SE! This can take a huge load off the channel or SMB SE’s shoulders. It also gives your corporate SEs an alternate option of letting a customer self evaluate in a controlled and scripted environment. This is especially useful for opportunities that you would not deem appropriate for a full SE-led evaluation.

Training
One other very valuable use of this type of platform is as a training aid. Instead of trying to get access to a classroom with a purpose-built set up, or messing around with virtual machines on laptops, you can configure the labs ahead of time, virtually, and allow students to access them through the browser on their laptops. Whereas the demo and proof of concept provide additional revenue opportunity, this is an easy way to demonstrate cost savings to the company.

In the follow up post I will detail the process and considerations for building out a virtual lab.

Filed Under: Demo, Lab, Management, Marketing, Proof of Concept, Roles & Responsibilities, Sales, Training Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Value of Packaging

May 30, 2008 By

Never underestimate the value of packaging.

Consider these two different experiences with two competing products. In order for a company to purchase one of these products meant they were shelling out at least 6 figures for the deal. For the most part competition is fierce enough that the majority of the time one of the vendors (usually the one in poor position) would drive a bake off—or on site evaluation.

Product A would be shipped to the customer and arrive at least a week in advance. As part of the package, there would be printed manuals on nicer stock, a binder of forms where a customer could record their information, support contact sheet with temporary access code for use during the evaluation, etc. All in all we’re talking a very professional appearance, even if the collateral was used only a fraction of the time.

Product B would arrive in a lightweight cardboard box with only a CD in a vanilla white sleeve. Even worse would be if the product wasn’t shipped at all and the SE had to leave behind a burned copy of the product.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Even before you ever get around to installing the product, for which one are you going to be willing to shell out that kind of cash?

This experience is still ripe in my mind because I was responsible for supporting Product B. Sure I was able to overcome first impressions some of the time; but, considering the dollars at risk, why was marketing putting me in the hole on day one.

Sometimes we don’t have control over those situations and we have to make do with the tools we are given. Metaphorically though, have you considered your personal packaging or the impression you are making with the customer? I’ve written before about the need to create a sustainable and repeatable SE engagement process. As part of that process, are you taking every opportunity to market yourself and company above the competition? Take a step back and think about your presentations, demonstrations, and collateral you leave behind. If anything customer facing is feeling more like a flimsy cardboard box it would be time well spent create a more polished and professional image. Don’t put yourself behind from the start.

Filed Under: Marketing
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