Algario Insight – The Customer Experience

Face-to-face customer interactions are precious commodities that are often wasted.

Online access to information about our products and services has changed the way customers conduct business. And in the event that a customer has to physically go into a store or branch, online access has also changed what they expect from that retail experience.

When customers physically walk through our doors, we have to both understand their expectations and engage them in conversations that make the most out of the time we have with them. Often, we leave it to frontline employees to address customer transactional or service issues in the most effective way they know. We even ask them to try and uncover opportunities to sell products or obtain referrals that product experts can follow up on.

But, we don't always provide frontline employees with an easily repeatable formula that shows them 'how' to do this effectively. Or a learning process that allows them to learn the formula over time so it becomes ingrained, second nature and is used in every customer conversation or interaction.

As we focus on a value-added customer experience, companies and their employees that consistently engage in interactions that can explore and satisfy both active and latent needs and expectations will stand out in the crowd.

Why? Because customer-facing employees are the key to providing that differentiated customer experience that will open the door to new business opportunities.

The PowerLearn™ Sales Development System enables all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in real, unscripted conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales and service effort at every stage of the sales process.

And since managers are integral to your employees' success, they are equipped with the coaching systems, skills and feedback required to reinforce and embed those behaviours that will differentiate your business well into the future.

Join the conversation and share your thoughts and experiences about changing sales and service behaviours in your frontline employees.

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Customers Have Choice

In fact, customers have so much choice that independent of what service you provide or product you sell, it’s more and more likely to be viewed as a commodity. And, as is the tendency with any commodity, price and convenience tend to have an exaggerated influence on a customer’s purchase decision.

In our quest to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, we increasingly turn our attention to delivering a customer experience that makes us stand apart. We may focus on delivering services faster, easier, friendlier or perhaps more professionally than our competitors.

Online access to our business certainly provides an important portion of that experience, but there is no substitute for the role that frontline customer-facing employees play when it comes to increasing sales and building long-term loyalty.

As a result, 'how' employees interact and engage customers is the true differentiator that will make your business stand out from competitors. Similar to the way that the attention you receive at your favourite restaurant dictates your total dining experience, how company representatives connect with you greatly influences your final purchase decision.

Customer-facing employees are fundamental in being able to stimulate a customer’s curiosity and obtaining permission to initiate a conversation that can explore and satisfy both active and latent needs and expectations. And in order to do that, you must first institute an approach that has been proven to change how frontline employees systematically and quickly move customer interactions into a much richer and rewarding experience for everyone.

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System fundamentally enables all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in real, unscripted conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales effort at every stage of the sales process.

And since managers are integral to your employee’s success, they are provided with the coaching systems, skills and feedback required to reinforce and embed those behaviours that will differentiate your business well into the future.

Join the conversation and let me know your thoughts. What have your experiences – either from the learner side or the coach/trainer/manager side – been?

Moving Past a Discussion about Rates and Price

What can we do to influence both current and future sales results?

As managers we have daily interactions with frontline employees and every one of those is a coaching opportunity. Observing and reinforcing how customer interactions are conducted is certainly a good start, but to truly influence results, you must first institute a successful approach that has been proven to change behaviours and then provide feedback in a way that reinforces and embeds those behaviours.

For instance, take a customer entering a financial institution and inquiring about an interest rate for a five-year mortgage. We know that customers commoditize our products by focusing on rate comparisons so, as managers, we often limit our feedback to the obvious elements of the employee’s interaction with the customer – their courtesy, their professionalism and their accuracy. All are elements that impact the overall customer experience, but not necessarily ones that drive a successful conclusion such as a referral or sale.

‘How’ the conversation is conducted will determine the outcome. In our ever increasingly commoditized environment, the really important part is how the frontline employee moves past the rate discussion (for example), engages the customer and matches their needs with the available solutions.

And what constitutes effective coaching is when we can provide concrete suggestions on ‘how’ an employee’s next customer conversation could be handled in a more effective manner – suggestions that reinforce a verified methodology or activity that improves results.

My belief is that we should provide the tools that enable all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales effort at every stage of the sales process.

And we should provide managers with the coaching systems and skills required to build the foundation of a truly robust Coaching culture.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Please submit and let's start a discussion.

Unleash the Frontline Sales Potential in Everyone

Searching and implementing solutions that contribute to sales growth in our organizations is a challenge that we all share. Increasing sales while at the same time dramatically improving the overall Customer Service Experience is what we are aiming for.

Responding to client requests to involve everyone in the organization in their sales effort, Algario created its most advanced system to date, one that blends forward-thinking Sales skills with traditional Service and Transactional skills and delivers the training to all customer facing employees – including customer service reps, contact centre reps and proactive sales professionals. The goal was to deliver and entrench the practical skills necessary to truly differentiate the frontline customer experience.

In business environments where many individuals didn’t see themselves as part of the sales process, the sales role they were asked to play often intimidated and confused them. The Algario PowerLearn™ System not only changes this, but also tightly integrates the sales component into frontline employees’ regular workflow as opposed to traditionally being treated as an add-on responsibility.

The balanced blend of Online Skill Development supported by Personal Coaching Reinforcement focuses on providing the skills that initiate and encourage the sales process to advance… making the most out of every customer interaction with measureable results:

• Customer referrals from transactional service roles increased by 220%
• Referral quality increased by 42%
• Employee confidence escalated by 59%
• Call back ratios jumped from an average of 10% to over 70%
• Booked client meetings increased over 300%
• And the sales of add-on products more than tripled

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System fundamentally enables all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales effort at every stage.