On Jan 10th, 2015, IBNlive reported the news of a young destitute boy ill-treated in McDonald’s Pune outlet spurring media outrage. What followed was an angry debate of how sales executives in retail outlets must be trained to treat every customer with respect and empathy. What McDonald’s had spent millions of dollars and many painstaking years to build was questioned and tarnished due to one employee’s behavior. We are speaking of the premium brand, goodwill and TRUST that I, as a customer, feel when I enter the outlet. But now every time I go I may look at how the executives treat me and the people around me with microscopic judgment. If I get annoyed by one of them I may feel irritated enough not to go back and tell 5 of my friends that perhaps, the shutting down of the Pune outlet was treatment well deserved. I will add fuel to the fire. How does McDonald’s and any other retail outlet including your Kirana store round the corner, ensure that the lowest rung of its field salesmen- GET this point?
I initially started this discussion here in part 1 of this blog where we spoke of how 1) Making your customer “feel” important and valued, erasers barriers and helps you relate to their needs better.
2) We also spoke of the ability of customer to spend on single transaction is less important than his/her Lifetime value and ability to spend cumulatively.
3) And we thus saw how a customer can help grow your business by positive word of mouth and how you in turn can help grow him by building an aspirational journey, and then him/her achieve it along with revenue for your business.
I received some great insights from my blog readers. The most intriguing summary of all of them put together was that the organizational management is to blame for Salesmen not understanding the value of how to treat their customers. The root causes are
The way organizations train and evaluate their salesmen
The way they measure and commission their salesmen
Let me address part 1 of the problem in this blog.
On what skills are organizations training their sales people?
The WRONG WAY to train
It was Jan 2013, when we stepped into a Subway outlet in Noida. I must now clarify that I am loyal Subway fan and had survived on only sub sandwiches for 3 months in row in 2006 and then again in 2009 and that too with only vegetarian options. When I go to the store, I feel a sense of familiarity that I “know” their products and I know exactly how “MY” sub should be like. On that day, we asked the executive to put extra “Olives” in my salad. My request had been refused in any other outlet prior to this. Subway was second home. But that day the person behind the counter made faces and added two pieces of broken olives reluctantly. My cousin immediately got irked and asked him to add a few more.
To that, the executive, said, he had been strictly instructed to add ONLY “TEN” olives per order. “Is this what he is really being trained for or he said it out of the blue?”
My cousin got angry. It was not the olives, honestly if he had told me politely that it was charged beyond a quantity, I would have paid. It was the sensitivity of the executive. FOOD is highly personal business; especially when it is charged at a premium. Any sense of hostility, judgement, a smirk or reluctance from the person serving you immediately touches a raw spot. It makes you feel that you are “BEGGING” the guy when in actuality you are PAYING a Premium.
When you train the executives to stick to ten olives, also teach them HOW to handle exceptional requests for more. Just 2 more olives would have made a subway loyalist happy.
Long story short, we got into an argument which neither the executive nor the store manager could resolve. Not even the Facebook India page. I refuse to step into that Subway store till date.
THE RIGHT WAY
Jan 2015, Subway outlet, Connaught Place, New Delhi. I step into the store on working day, hungry and tired. An employee surprisingly held out the door for me and the entire staff behind the counter shouted “Welcome to Subway Ma’am”. I was pleasantly intrigued. While I sat down with my Sub, I heard the lady behind the cash counter consistently greet every single customer with an upbeat tone, genuine enthusiasm and question or two about how their day was. When I was leaving, I went and made it point to appreciate her and Thank her personally. That is when she fished out a book and requested me to “write down” my feedback.
I saw from the corner of my eye, it was the store manager encouraging these employees to measure themselves through this demeanor. They were specially appreciated for these efforts. And they felt genuine enthusiasm.
I have a colleague in IBM Retail marketing who was a McDonald’s store manager prior to his MBA. Nihit Sharda shares his surprise when he looks at the McDonald Pune’s story. He shares his experience of how he shared burgers, multiple times with destitute kids and sometimes even at half price and then ended up paying the remaining amount from his salary.
He encouraged every employee of his store to be kind to every single customer.
We may have conscientious managers like Nihit or smart franchise owners like the manager of the enthusiastic Subway store. But this should not be left to matter of chance. Retailers need to set systems in place to make it happen. Retailers like Mcdonald’s appreciate their employees in multiple ways such as Wall of fame visible in their stores. However information says parameters of evaluation are speed of service within 2-3 minutes and quality. But it is evident that while sellers maybe driven by commissions for number of sales closed, they also respond to verbal appreciation for good behaviour with customers.
Like the customer’s immediate value is not evident to the salesman and the organization, the value of good behaviour is not evident to the salesmen. If treated well customers buy more in the long run.
If they genuinely develop relationships, sales people make 35% more and easier revenue from existing clients and repeat sales than acquiring new customers.
So as a manager or a person running an organization it would be good to ensure
1) Consistent training and communication to your sales people to “Treat” customers well, they statistically make more money, repeat and volume sales and longer relationships.
2) Create an ecosystem of recognition and appreciation for their good behaviour NOT just highest SALES.
3) Recognize employees on titles such as “Most kind executive”, “Most liked executive” or “Most friendly executive” based on customer feedback and measurement.
As Bob Phibb says in the Retail doctor’s blog here that “if the conversation stays focused on price, it’s nearly impossible to upsell or suggest useful add-ons. As long as the customer is focused on cost, they can’t see value”.
It is one part to get your employees to treat your customers well, it is another part to help them understand the next step if this journey- to empathize and humanize the conversation to realise the life time value of the customer.
This post is second in series emotional connect for building superior client experience. You may like to read on part 1- Acquiring the customer and part 3- on building the personalized client experience
