PEOPLE BUY BENEFITS NOT PRODUCTS!

How do we discover the real benefits of our product or service? The best way is to complete a FEATURES/ADVANTAGES/BENEFITS analysis.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a feature as a - ‘distinctive or characteristic part of a thing’ and an advantage as a - ‘better position, superiority, favorable circumstances’. A benefit is defined as’ ‘do good to, receive benefit (by thing)’.

Product features should be fairly obvious to anyone selling their product for more than a few weeks. If you have staff that has been selling a product for some time and they don’t know its features you really should (no offence intended) advise them to change their profession. Acknowledging that some products are more complicated than others the fact remains we can’t sell what we don’t understand.

To start have your sales staff list down six to ten of the most important features of your best-understood product or service, (ask them just for fun). Then check that they only have features listed buy checking if what they have written qualifies under ‘The Concise Oxford’ definition above. Examples may be, it has two handles, it is conducted over 3 days, it has a 3-litre engine, it has river views, or it has a 1000-meg ‘Pentium’ chip.

Then have them give each of the features at least two advantages. In the Pentium chip example the advantages could be, faster processing, quicker programme loading, superior movie viewing or quicker web browsing.

The final step is to review the features and advantages in light of the definitions and turn the advantages into real customer benefits. To do this it is best to line the three headings up side-by-side and turn the three categories into a sentence joining them with the words (feature) “which means” (advantage) “which gives you” (benefit). An example is… this computer has a 1000-megahertz chip…‘which means’… faster file processing…‘which gives you’…an increased work output over a shorter time period. In the case of the two handled pot it could be ‘this pot has two handles which means it is better balanced when being carried improving your chance of getting from A to B with out spilling the contents.

ONLY BUY COMPLETING THE THREE STEPS WILL THE REAL BENEFIT BE FOUND.

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EXCELLENT SERVICE IS A PHILOSOPHY, NOT A TECHNIQUE!

Does our company/department/staff take customer requirements very seriously? If we are to be truly customer focussed… no one is just doing a job, we are all satisfying customers. How long has it been since we have executed (metaphorically speaking) anyone for saying “its not my job”. Is our organization free of demarcation disputes? Do we have a total quality attitude to our work or is everybody working to rule.

Do we look at what we do from the customer’s point of view? How long has it been since we surveyed our customers; got feedback on how we are doing. (“Face-to-face” is best.) How much effort is really taken to make our customers feel important and respected? Try this… put a dollar coin in a jar every time you hear a phone sound for more than three rings and if the jar is too heavy to lift at the end of two months invest in some attitudinal changes in the corporate culture.

The latest wisdom suggests that partnering is the way to the future… do we show concern for our customer’s business requirements, communicate effectively our needs and demonstrate an understanding for theirs. Is there a follow-up system in place or do we just wait for complaints. When we get complaints do we conduct a ‘witch hunt’ or do we re-educate the staff to do it better next time.

DOES OUR ORGANIZATION PROFIT (LEARN) FROM OUR MISTAKES OR DO THEY JUST COST US CUSTOMERS?

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EXCELLENT SERVICE NEEDS TOTAL COMPANY COMMITMENT!

A strong customer focus at all organization levels is basic to success in providing excellent customer service. Customer focus by all employees versus, the all to common, ‘IT’S THE SALES DEPARTMENTS RESPONSIBILITY’ is essential to prevent ‘cock-ups’ at the external customer service level. We all need to realise that there are three types of customers for most of us to service… ‘internal’, ‘ultimate’ and ‘external’…

We all know our internal customers (don’t we)… these are any individuals that receive our work output. In most organizations we also have ultimate customers… these are guys/ladies at the sales/buyer interface… and of course we are all here to serve the external customers or those (if we are smart) we refer to as ‘king’!

So who are our customers then? Anyone for whom we do anything is our customer, whether it is directly from one hand to the next, or indirectly through others in the service chain. Therefore if we need a strong customer focus by our non-sales staff they will have to buy into the proposition that they need to work to serve the ultimate customer and their priority must be to do their job in such a way that it makes the job of the next person in line as easy as possible.

HOW DO THE STAFF IN PURCHASING, FINANCE, ACCOUNTING AND ADMINISTRATION SEE THEIR ROLES?

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