Live Up to Customer Service & Sales Standards

Most businesses have policies and standards to which employees must adhere. But how many of these truly contribute to success, versus becoming forgotten words in an employee manual? Within your own business, are you doing enough to ensure the policies you have in place are followed? If not, you’re probably selling your business -- and your employees -- short.

In a presentation at the JA New York Show, Brad Huisken, of IAS Training, said that it isn’t enough to set standards -- you need to enforce them. In some cases, he said meeting or at least striving to meet standards should be a condition of employment.

He offers the following “non-negotiable” standards you should enforce in your business:

• If you show it, you have to sell it (or at least try to close the sale). Don’t simply wait for the customer to say, “I’ll take it.”
• Acknowledge every customer that walks through the door. Even if you’re too busy to greet them personally, being able to at least nod or wave to new customers is a critical component of both customer service and security.
• Suggest (and sell) add-ons. Huisken says the best time to “plant the seeds” for add-on sales are at the beginning of the sales process. A key tool in generating add-ons is to ask the customer what they’re going to buy next.
• Capturing customer information and getting permission to follow up. Huisken says the number one goal of every customer interaction is creating a relationship, not the sale.