Winning is Everybody’s Job!
Doyle Slayton | Sep 23, 2009 | Comments 19
I called on a prospect the other day and I was blown away by her voice mail greeting. It said, “Hi this is ‘Jane’. If you are calling about (it was something directly related to her department) please leave me a message. Regretably, if you are calling about (it specifically related to purchasing their services), your voice mail will not be addressed.” What? Are you kidding me?
Are you telling me that if someone ends up in your voice mail… and wants to purchase your product, you are just going to delete it and act like it never happened?!!!
Yep, I think that’s what she was saying. It’s incredible to think how often this type of mindset exists within organizations. Most people are smart enough not to voice it!
Ok… Ok… time to get off the soap box.
Ultimately, it applies to all departments… customer service, client retention, sales, etc. Sure, everyone has a role, and it comes down to communication and teamwork. Great employees share the responsibility and know… WINNING is everybody’s job!
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Filed Under: Blog • Leadership • Sales • SalesTaxi
Doyle,
I love that you title this “Winning is Everybody’s Job!” because I think the point is every interaction with a prospect or customer needs to be all about them. Regardless of department or job function.
I’ll even take it a step further – even if they will never be YOUR customer, but might be the company’s. I was working with a client who breaks salespeople’s territories into vertical markets and observed someone working with a prospect, who wanted to buy “stuff”, and found out it wouldn’t be their sale.
They never stopped helping the person and then at the end said, “Remember my name is xxxx and I’ll make sure someone from our government team gets you the information you need today, but you can always call me back.”
WOW
It’s so sad to see that people get blinders on by their role in the organization and fail to see the bigger picture. As a small business owner I always try to hire jack of all trade people who can shift gears and perform multiple functions. Sales is the job of everyone in the company.
Doyle,
Are you sure you weren’t calling a purchasing department? I hear these types of greetings all the time when I call to sell. I imagine they get tons of sales calls when they have these types of greetings.
If you were calling to make a purchase, is it possible the company is going out of business? If not, that is absolutely ridiculous for a person not to accept voice mails related to buying something. Isn’t that the point of being in business?
That kind of stuff drives me crazy! The most fun companies I’ve had the chance to work with do a great job creating a ownership culture – customer service, sales, etc – it’s everyone’s job.
In today’s economy this kind of behavior just astonishes me. The “it’s not my job behavior” should not be tolerated and these are the folks who should be forced into the unbelievable unemployment bureacracy so that others that are committed can shine.
I don’t have sympathy for folks who are not driven to help customers!
@mikedmerrill
Doyle the concept of total customer experience is obviously not present at this company. I can almost visualize this woman, I think I know some people like this. The micro thinking that is present will not grow the company or put them in front of the pack. I deal with this far too often in building company cultures that grow. Owners, Managers, have a serious conversation with these people!
H. Goerger & Assoc
Author, The Selling Gap
I once worked in a company with deep silo issues like this. Once, at an executive meeting the VP Marketing tried to make a point and began by saying “I’m not in sales, but…” Our new CEO shut him down immidiately with the statement “…we are all in sales.” That was the beginning of a refreshing culture change!
Great Post,
What you are referring to is what I call “silo Speak” and I discuss it in my blog post about Silos are only good for shooting missiles…
Silo speak says…”I did my job, I am hitting my KPI’s and it’s not my problem _____is not hitting his or hers….your silo is not my job.”
They build silos, for perceived safety, and in reality while they are shooting missiles at other internal silos; sales, marketing, production…your competitors are acting like one team and taking your customers.
Great job
Mark Allen Roberts
http://www.nosmokeandmirrors.com
So, what’s the solution? Somehow I doubt it’s the employees fault. I’ll bet you will find that culture throughout this organization and it’s unlikely they made that many hiring mistakes. Furthermore, who’s checking?
There are a lot of strategies to encourage employee engagement. But first I would recommend a book, Branded Customer Service, by Janelle Barlow. The book sets the stage at the 30 thousand foot level and smart CEO’s will figure out what to do from there.
Call Zappos some time and ask any employee for some sort of bizarre assistance. I wouldn’t credit the book with any of Zappos’s success, the CEO is an incredible person. However, I know he read it early on.
Unbelievable. Amazing how people get so “busy” and forget the mission, how what they’re doing fits in, and of course, the customer is the one that makes their paycheck possible!
My observation is a bit tongue in cheek, but I must confess there is a shred of truth to my comment…………… I can only dream of having a competitor with a staff as insulated and uninformed as this person appears to be. Life would be so much easier; for this firm is clearly on the road to failure.
Everyone’s comments are dead on in terms of their observations regarding this unfortunate individual.
Why don’t you collect all of these comments along with your blog posting and forward them to the CEO for his reveiw? Whether he would appreciate it or not, you would be doing one of the greatest favors ever for this company.
…and yet she has a job, while millions of savvy professionals (myself included) are unemployed.
I can’t help but wonder…How come people like Jane have a job, and I don’t?????
Sad, but true!
In my role as management consultant, I have often advised companies to disband their Customer Service Departments in favor of completed training programs that teach ALL employees how to handle customers.
You’re right that there’s really no reason that every person in any organization can’t function as part of a sales or sales referral or customer service team.
Home Depot and FedEx, by the way, come to mind as two large organizations that succeed in a very large way because all employees share the attitude and responsibility for serving and selling.
When the responsibility is spread out throughout the organization, there’s no drain on manpower and customers and prospects are more impressed… not to mention the savings on all those customer service staff salaries and compensation plans, some of which can be redistributed among other personnel who are being asked to step up to the plate.
For anyone interested in another aspect of this thinking… the projecting and promoting of self-defeating “I” “Me” “My” attitudes, see last night’s post on my blog: http://halalpiar.com/2009/09/todays-small-business-game-results/
What’s even more disturbing; when the owner or manager of a company does nothing about the bad attitudes of his/her employees! I see it every day.
When I was a store manager, I did everything I could to provide outstanding customer service. There was no other way to survive. It blows my mind that companies like this remain in business. It must hinge around the fact that they must sell some proprietary product that no one else offers.
I remember I got a message from the recruiters of a large consulting firm saying there would too busy to look at my profile to see if they have suitable jobs for me !
Doyle— How could you be so callous as to cut into her “eating her muffin and chatting with coworkers about American Idol” time. Shame on you!!! lol
My admin came to me yesterday (she is new) and said that there was a sales person at the door and wanted to know if we would talk to her about her services. My admin then asked me “Do we allow soliciting here?”. My response was; “We are a sales organization and we are all responsible for selling our services. We extend the same courtesy we expect our sales people to recieve to sales people from other sales organizations who come calling at our door.”
For those of you that have been in sales for any length of time…we all know or have meet this person when out prospecting via door knocking. You enter the office and approach the front desk and there he/she sits. You stand there and nothing not a “Hi may I help you”. You then politely clear your throat and again nothing.Finally you say excuse me my name is Joe Investor and I was interested in speaking with someone on your sale team. We don’t have a sales team….
Amazing,simply amazing!
Leonard,
I had to LOL when I read your comment.
When I make a cold call, I always ask for the person responsible for sales. It’s amazing how many organizations that sell products and services, don’t have anybody selling them.
What’s even more amazing is that the people telling me that sincerely believe it, they aren’t just gate keepers.
This is one of the best group of postings I have ever read.
Thanks Doyle!