Service Team 6

Imagine you are a senior diplomat who has just become aware that there has been a breach of the embassy security and within minutes you will be taken hostage by local extremists. You have the opportunity for one phone call.

• Do you call the sales director of the private security firm your Government has chosen and run the risk that she tries to take advantage of the situation and attempts to upsell you onto a more costly service agreement?
• Or do you call the private security firm’s support desk whose main focus is on getting the job done with maximum efficiency (time spent addressing service issues being one of their KPIs)?

My point here is that when people / organisations have an issue, service people trump sales people.

As I have written before, I believe sales as we know it is a dying art. Today the most effective sales people are your service people. Unfortunately many organisations don’t get this and recruit service people for their technical capability alone.

So back to the story. Typically the security personnel will storm the building, kill the bad guys and most likely man handle you out of the building via the first floor window to ensure the ‘package’ is clear of the threat zone. Now of course the objectives were achieved but the experience was a little scarring.

Wouldn’t it be better if Seal Team 6 arrived without smashing windows, putting bullet holes in the artwork and generally covering the furniture and walls in blood and tissue? Wouldn’t it be nice if their arrival coincided with some helicopter mounted speakers playing dinner jazz as you were hoisted up to be greeted by a medical team and a silver service meal?

Of course the latter is far-fetched but the message is that with some service refinement your support engineers are in a very strong position to cultivate a very positive customer experience. And being conveniently located at the epicentre of this moment of truth puts the service engineer in a much stronger position than the account managers to commercially deepen the relationship.

But of course your service engineers need to have the skills and attitude to capitalise on such opportunities.