Welcome to the Profit University audio series. Here are your hosts Bill Kennard and Tom Grandy. This is Bill Kennard along with our company’s founder Tom Grandy.
This month we’re overviewing a program by Steve Kasha entitled Converting Phone Calls into Sales. Tom, you know it really strikes me that the way people answer the phone, the words that they use, the speed that they talk is really critical in forming that initial first impression. How important do you think that is? I think it’s critically important.
I was privileged to attend a national franchise conference a little while ago and prior to the conference the main franchise called a number of the franchisees. They recorded how they answered the telephone and then to everybody’s amazement they played about a dozen of those during the conference and it was amazing. I mean you listen to the way people answer the phone, they talked fast, their pace was poor, in many cases you couldn’t literally even understand the name of the company.
So when Steve talks about the importance of pace and number of words used per minute and things like that, that’s critically, critically important. And as I was listening through the presentation Bill and I think you probably got the same impression, he talked about the value of first impressions. You want to comment on that maybe? Well you know it’s interesting, you know he had a line in there that really struck me and I have always heard you know the the old adage that says you only have one time to make a first impression.
But really the the way that Steve put it I thought was great is your first impression is part of the customer’s final decision. And it really is because you can’t make that first impression that second time and and how often we really make a decision to buy within those first couple of seconds of contact with another individual or more importantly that decision not to buy that we wind up actually shooting ourself in the foot right out of the gate. Let’s go ahead and get into the this month’s program right away.
Steve Kasha is one of the most widely published and quoted authorities in the trade publications on topics of customer service and soft skills. His new seminar converting incoming calls to more sales is his most innovative and groundbreaking curriculum yet. His soft skills curriculum are taught worldwide at colleges and career centers.
Trade associations such as ACCA, PHCC, SMACNA and NPGA host these speeches and seminars as a benefit to their members. As an avid researcher of customer service trends, Steve conducted one of the industry’s first studies of stress in customer service environments. The survey revealed causes of stress along with the most common manifestations of post-stress behavior among customer service professionals.
In fact, telestress is a registered trademark of Kasha Communications. His books, videos, audio programs and e-learnings have helped thousands of customer service professionals across the trades industry. And now here’s Steve Kasha with this month’s Profit University audio series.
Hello this is Steve Kasha and welcome to this lesson on converting calls into more sales. Customer service professionals invest much of their time answering questions, solving problems and they add value. And while this sounds oversimplified, it’s what service and sales boils down to.
Customer contact is usually driven by a problem that needs fixing or a question that requires an answer. And both scenarios are opportunities to convey quality, add value and maximize revenue opportunities. Mastering phone call conversion requires that a service professional practice, apply and trust in the rudiments of good telephone voice.
I have seen too many seasoned professionals assume that they already know everything about using the telephone. So they discount new ideas and then revert back to old behaviors. If we seek greater sales conversion over the phone, then keeping an open mind is vital for future success.
In business, relationships matter. When you suggest a value-added service to a customer, their response often depends on whether a relationship exists. Getting a yes from a customer is what we seek, but sometimes there’s rejection.
And the rejection that we get is often in proportion to the depth of the relationship during that phone call. It works like this. The deeper the relationship, the greater the discomfort a customer has in rejecting our suggestion.
So here’s the methodology. When there’s no relationship, it’s easiest for a customer to reject your suggestion. When there’s some relationship, there’s some discomfort in a customer rejecting our suggestion.
But when there is a deep relationship, it becomes very difficult for a customer to reject our suggestion. So a service professional’s role over the telephone is to seek the deeper relationship and thereby give the customer something to lose if they choose to not accept our suggestion. Over the telephone, customers will make assumptions based on what they hear.
Therefore, the components of a good telephone voice include the pace of speech, which is the speed at which you speak, the vocal tonality, which demonstrates a service professional’s certainty and authority, clarity, which is another word for articulation over the phone, empathy, which demonstrates your concern, and finally, the word selection to reduce misunderstandings when serving customers over the phone. For starters, a service professional’s pace of speech is the glue that holds their presentation together. So to help demonstrate the power that a pace of speech has on a customer’s perception, listen to this service company greeting.
Did you get the company’s name? I didn’t either. Let’s play that again. Now let’s hear a different greeting with a slower pace and an over-the-top message.
It’s a great day here at Cavalry Heating and Cooling where it’s always 72 degrees. This is Danielle speaking. How can I make you smile today? Whether or not your greeting conveys that it’s 72 degrees isn’t as important as speaking slowly, clearly, and with empathy.
Adding a little sizzle can be good within your own comfort zone. Perhaps you wouldn’t mention the 72 degrees, but you might simply say, thank you for choosing us. Use a greeting that reflects your company’s culture and style.
While these two messages are at opposite ends of the greeting spectrum, Danielle’s greeting is over-the-top and it does include the four components that make up a professional telephone greeting. Those four parts are the greeting itself, which is what happens when you say thank you for choosing us or good morning or good afternoon. The second part is your company’s name.
The third part is your name. And the fourth and final part is the offer of assistance, which is what happens when you ask how may I help you today. And those four parts must be there to convey a professional telephone greeting.
Conveying your greeting with a smile will enhance your vocal tonality. And adding a little sizzle, the way Danielle does, can be a powerful customer service behavior. And here’s why.
It can be disarming and it will almost always make a customer smile.