What is your favorite story of exceptional customer service where you find yourself looking forward to interacting with the company again and spending your time and money?

Here’s my favorite story that may have some things in common with yours:

My daughter and I were going to one of our preferred restaurants for lunch where we helped ourselves to a seat and waited for a server to bring us our menus (the usual protocol for eating in the more casual saloon area).  We were so engrossed in our conversation we didn’t notice we’d been waiting for a server for about 30 minutes or more.

One of the staff eventually realized we weren’t being helped, and sent a server over who graciously apologized for the wait, and thus offered us a complimentary appetizer.  That was nice, we thought.  But upon deeper consideration, my daughter and I weren’t all that hungry, and didn’t want to spoil our lunch with an app.  When the waiter returned we said thanks, but no thanks, and no problem!  We were impressed with their effort to make it up to us!

Our kind refusal of the appetizer, however, did not satisfy the manager.  The server returned at the end of our meal and offered us complimentary dessert instead!  Oddly enough, my daughter and I didn’t want a dessert either and kindly turned the offer down (we were nice customers, weren’t we?!).  Still, the manager was not satisfied because the server finally came back with our bill paid, on the house…Nice!

On the drive home I kept thinking how awesome it was that the manager went out of his way to make up for having us wait longer than usual for a server.  He wasn’t satisfied unless we were compensated in some way!

What’s more, his objective to create a positive experience between the restaurant and us resulted in two highly loyal customers (although my daughter is too young to buy lunch, she sure has influence!). I tell this story to many people who ask about the quality of the restaurant, and it remains one of my favorite places to eat with fresh, healthy food options and exceptional customer service.

And like a good, loyal customer does, I naturally provide free advertising for:  Mitchell’s Fish Market in Brookfield, WI (Props!)

What is your favorite story?

How do you and your organization (regardless of industry) create exceptional customer experiences?

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“Most Salespeople try to take the horse to water and make him drink.  It’s your job to make the horse thirsty.”  ~ Gabriel Siegel

1.    Define success according to you!

Five years from now, what does success look like for you?  What are you doing in your free time?  How are you living?  Where have you taken your organization?  Where are you working and what is your position?  What value are you providing at work that causes you to smile when you think about it?

Your answers to these and similar questions will be your personal vision for success.  Envision your success daily to drive your sales goals and behaviors.  Working off of someone else’s vision of success will not maximize your potential.  Success is personal!

2.    Set transcendent goals!

Consider the following sales goals:  “We will increase sales by 20% this year”… “I will be the top sales rep on my team and in my region in Q4”…

How do those sound to you?  I’ve come across many goals like this as a sales manager.  In fact, I’ve set a few similar-sounding goals myself as a sales professional.  This is how I know they don’t help aspire to transcendent greatness and success.  They can motivate us in the moment but they lack in longevity and passion.

Go big! Transcend yourself beyond simple motivation into the realm of lasting inspiration: “Our company will expand on our core innovations to exceed revenue by 50% in the next six months”… “I will be promoted to sales manager this year due to consistent sales effectiveness quarter over quarter”…

Don’t be afraid to exceed your own expectations!

3.    Educate your market with empowering information.

Customer demands aren’t the only driver for sales and business growth.  More important is your ability to effectively sell your solutions where there is a need.  Often our target market is naive to the cause of their problem for which they have a need for our solution.  It is our job to help educate them on four key things: their industry, their problems, the implications of their problems, all available solutions, and the best solutions (aka our products/services as applicable).

You will often hear me say that educating is the new marketing.  There is nothing salesy about education.  Dive deep into your market’s problems and help them regardless of directly providing a related product or service.  When your prospects and customers can apply the knowledge you’ve empowered them with via a white paper, case study, etc., you will earn their trust and they will follow your lead in the marketplace.  Thought leadership is an invaluable sales tool!

4.    Educate yourself on the selling skills of today.

Old school selling involves brochures, internet brochures (aka your ‘traditional’ website), cold calls, hard closes, staged conversations, bill-board advertising, radio advertising, face-to-face meetings, driving around town all day long, dry sales letters, and press releases.

Contemporary school selling involves communicating on the customer’s terms, with information products, long sales copy, webinar meetings, white papers, case studies, blogging, podcasting, video, as well as  attracting and converting prospects online via various social media outlets.

Old school strategies are best implemented with a new media twist, and new school strategies can be severely screwed up if not taken seriously and carried out with integrity and a plan.  It is a whole new era in which sales and marketing have become a hybrid strategy.  Invest in self-educating yourself so you do not get left behind!  The selling skills of today are always changing!

5.    Sell on emotion always!

Day-to-day business is riddled with emotion.  There are many problems to solve and risky decisions to make!  Never forget, we all buy out of happiness or fear. It’s that simple!  Don’t shy away from communicating the value of your solution based on your prospect’s fears out of concern for appearing negative.  Many of their fears are very real AND justified – your prospect wants them alleviated!  Can you help them?  Tapping into happiness and fear will earn your prospects attention for communicating your value.

6.    Roll with the punches as you strive towards life-long excellence.

When we make mistakes during selling situations, we can beat ourselves up pretty badly.  We didn’t advance the sale to the next step like we visualized, for instance, or we couldn’t recall a pertinent piece of data to help us close the sale.  What’s worse, perhaps we define ourselves through the recent month’s sales numbers and worry ourselves sick about our value to the organization (I’ve seen this a lot in my big pharma days).

Excellent sales people excel because they forgive themselves for inevitable selling mistakes and they commit to life-long excellence. They know that spending their time in anxiety will blunt their performance and make things worse.  As long as you come from a place of integrity and value, not only will you be able to forgive yourself, but your prospects/customers will too.  With trying new and amazing things come mistakes!

7.    Think!

Selling today is hard work!  You can’t just roll into a meeting or give an unemotional presentation and walk away with a sale.  You need to prove yourself first, and then sell your product/service.  You need to understand your prospect simply to show them you understand.  You need to communicate according to their communication style.

In addition to skills, what about your products and services?  What opportunities are you missing?  Does all your revenue come from one product?  How can you better use the internet to acquire business nationally?  What info products can you sell on-line in addition to your services?  Are you connecting with your prospects before you try to convert them?  Are you pushing your research, product, or services on the market, or are you attracting the market with your education-based marketing practices and establishing thought leadership?  Can you trace the sales flow from attraction to conversion in your organization?  What is your strategy?

Like a solid business plan, a sales plan needs to be created, implemented and measured.

I chose these 7 keys as a result of comments I often hear myself saying when I coach my clients about sales and selling skills.  Be they business owners or sales professionals, I believe these “keys” serve as excellent reminders for what success in sales is all about.  

Based on your sales experiences and wisdom, what would you add?

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