Learning to sell from the developing world

I'm headed to Bali for a family vacation next week. Yay!

The only job I've been given is to arrange a driver. I contacted two personally recommended drivers and was stunned by their responses. Though their English wasn't the best, they still responded quickly and precisely.

For my Mystery Shopping clients, the callback process is one of the worst performing parts of their service, scoring only 36% in their call backs. In Bali (though a miniscule sample) the response is 2/2.

Here are the Balinese responses.

"Yes hello mr steven,

Thanks for your contack, if you need the small bus I give you good price just 135 u$ for one day, maybe for how many day's sir. You need car and driver?.. Pesan Asli"

The response came back within hours, despite us being in different time zones.

The other driver was only contactable by SMS, but similar response:

I run a mystery shopping company with clients who would love to see this kind of response. Why the difference?

Perhaps it's a few things:

• The sale has a direct impact on income,
• The drive know the importance of repeat business and recommendation,
• Take good care of your high paying customers.

We could all learn from Gusti and Pesan

The biggest thing affecting store managers is....

The biggest thing affecting store managers is getting people/staff to do what they need to do.

Below are the results of a survey conducted with about 100 store managers, and the results are clear.

I have heard this time and time again from my Mystery Shopping clients when clients say ... "we stuggle to change behaviour".

So what can you do about it?  That's going to be the focus of a number of follow-up articles.

The biggest cause of the problem is not the staff, but the managers themselves, and one of the main causes of the problem for managers is loneliness.

It's lonely being a store manager.  You can't talk to your staff, to your boss, or friends. So often, managers have to work it out for themselves.

I've got something special in the pipeline to help managers overcome their biggest obstacle - but more about that later.

In the meantime, consider surveying your own store/department managers, and don't focus on things that don't worry managers (like competitive pressures).

If you have any insights on how you've tackled this problem, please feel free to email me directly.

Customers can't give meaningful answers to meaningless questions.

You need to ask the right questions.

When interviewing for a waitress, your not going to need to know their IQ.

When auditioning for a dancer, you don't need to know about their high school math results.

Stock brokers aren't evaluated on their fitness levels.

So why do big companies continually evaluate service on the wrong metrics?

When you book an airline flight online, you probably want a good price and an easy to navigate website.  The website, price and brand 'are' the product.

Service is important when it comes to the checkin and flight, but not while your negotiating the website.  So why would an airline like Qantas ask the following question after making an online booking?

"How likely are you to recommend booking and managing your Qantas travel directly with Qantas to friends and collegues based on your recent experience?" Scale 1-10.

It's a ridiculous question because the booking process is such a small part of the service experience.  Can you imagine using an airline website and being so blown away that you would say the following?

"Hey Bill, next time you travel overseas you should book on Qantas.  Their website blew me away.  It so awesome" ....... What rubbish.

Companies continue to use Net Promoter Scores (like Qantas) in the wrong situations, because it's a) inexpensive, and b) not intrusive for the customer (hey it's only one question right?). Wrong.

If you want to limit survey to one question, perhaps ask a more pertnent questions; and rotate the questions.  Maybe ask something like these questions.

• Rank how easy it was to make your booking online?
• Based on your experience today, for a similar booking, how likely is it that you would book again online?
• Do you feel you got a better deal booking with Qantas direct online?
• Did you also get a quote from another website or travel agent for this booking?
• Do you feel added security by booking on Qantas directly?

Customer Feedback measurement should be based on appropriate questions. The Qantas questionnaire got even less relevant when they asked a follow-up question:

"Why did you give the above score?"

How can a customer give a meaningful 'why' to a meaningless question?  Either the data collected will be unuseble and wasteful, or it will be used as the basis of bad decisions (even worse).

Are you asking useless questions of your customers?

See also: Should you use Net Promoter Scores?

One thing all premium retailers could do, but don't.

One of my clients is a worldwide Jeans clothing brand.  I asked at a recent workshop whether they ever took photos of their customers buying their high end aspirational jeans.  You know the answer.

Here's a simple idea.  Ask the customer for a photo and post it on your Facebook page and Pinterest.  You could even print all the photo's and put them on a Pride wall.  Here's what you'll gain.

Source: google.com via Chris on Pinterest

• a customer who feels appreciated
• a proud customer
• a customer who will automatically link to their friends
• Friends who want to get in on the act.
• a bunch of people you can offer new promotions.
• a customer who sees other people buying from the same store - social proof.

Social proof is a one of the most powerful tools of marketing.  If you see Thai people eating in a Thai restaurant, you have social proof that it's good.  If you see people lined up at a coffee shop you have social proof it's worth trying.  Most business proposals and sales letters contain testimonials, again social proof.

Start the process of getting social proof in your retail store with social media.

All it takes is a little effort.  Just a little.

Massive shift in Retailing? Pinterest - sounds lame, but not

Pinterest is a place where people can share photo's about different topics.  Sounds lame, but in two years it's become the 5th largest referrer of retail internet traffic - even ahead of Google+ (according to Experian Hitwise US).

Photo Source: Uploaded by user via A Noreen on Pinterest

So what's all the fuss?  It allows you to see the world in categorised pictures.

Imagine a place where you can find great holiday ideas, or find a pair of cool jeans - but all in pictures.

Below is an infographic which explains how it works and describes the phenominal growth.

If you sell any sort of goods, it's easy to create a picture board and link it all straight back to your cash register.  Any product will work:

Clothes, Cars, Whitegoods, Gearing equipment, Pumps, Bikes, Airplanes, Plates, medical equipment - you name it.

Even charities could use it to post photo's of kids, fresh water wells, blackboards, or even schools built with donated funds.

It's probably not yet a place for Services companies to update, but maybe you can find a way. 

Oh and you can follow me here http://pinterest.com/sdipietr/