Service technicians have ongoing customer contact. You could use this potential to generate additional after-sales turnover. But should technicians also act as salespeople? Colleagues in the industry are divided on this question.
Acquisition is important for every business model. In the service sector, winning orders often works through personal contacts. Trade fairs, an open day or similar events are excellent opportunities to get your customers excited about your after-sales services. Traditional advertising and communication channels such as trade journals, on the other hand, are used less. This is also due to the fact that After-sales services unlike products, do not satisfy acute needs. At least if you exclude the repair and spare parts business.
In times of lower margins in the primary business, companies are naturally thinking about expanding after-sales and do not want to leave any communication channels unused. A company has a very direct link to potential buyers of its services through its service technicians. But should technicians be tempted to get involved in initiating new contracts? Or does this keep them away from their actual work?
Service has far more contact with customers than sales!
The development of a suitable Sales strategy is a cornerstone for success in service. Sales staff with experience in selling services know the needs of customers and develop suitable sales messages based on this. However, your service department interacts with customers far more frequently than your company's sales department. After all, in most companies there are four times more people working in service than in the sales department. It therefore makes sense to do more than just a good job in technical customer service. If the right messages are conveyed to the customer, further sales can be stimulated in this way. After-sales is pre-sales!
In another article, the Difference between the sale of primary products and services worked out.
Your service technicians' assignments can be used to generate further sales!
Your technicians are a figurehead for your company. If they impress with their work, that's half the battle. There are ways and means by which you can use service technicians to inform customers about additional offers. The aim here is to drive additional business. To this end, training courses can be used to improve the way your employees interact with customers. Such training can possibly also be carried out by members of your own company's sales department.
The idea behind this is that your technicians become little salespeople or, if this is not desired, at least brand ambassadors. Of course, the sales talent of your service technicians is sometimes limited. However, thanks to their in-depth specialist knowledge, they can often explain the benefits of various services more vividly and realistically.
Simple guidelines are necessary
If you want your technicians to not only focus on the best possible order processing in the future, but also have an eye on new business opportunities, you need a little support. In addition to appropriate training, suitable information material can help. Make sure that no service technician travels to the field without carrying advertising material with them, which they can use to discuss new and old offers from your company with the customer if required and interested. This way, they don't have to get overly creative themselves.
Why service technicians can be good salespeople
Technicians are authentic! After-sales services are often difficult for customers to grasp. This is where technical staff can impress with their specialist knowledge and go into greater detail. In addition, the level of trust in the person providing the service is somewhat higher than in a salesperson in a suit. The customer can be sure that what they are being sold can be carried out by your team in exactly the same way.
A reward system helps
If you are a Service Manager If you simply set targets, they will most likely only be met sporadically and often reluctantly. Instead, you can consider an incentive strategy for your technicians. This means you don't have to keep motivation artificially high in order to focus your technicians on it. You simply reward your technicians financially if they manage to convince the customer to sign a service contract as part of a repair assignment.
However, the reward must not be so high that it creates a gold-rush atmosphere. Otherwise, there is a risk that the actual main activity of maintaining and repairing systems will be neglected. Your technicians should only be encouraged to talk to customers after the job has been completed, if the situation is right, and perhaps to close another deal as a result.
Why not use service technicians as an extension of the sales department?
In principle, it is of course fantastic when service technicians can land new orders for you. But unfortunately, there are a few catches to the whole thing. Firstly, there is the problem that they may no longer be able to concentrate on their work if they are too busy chasing sales commissions.
Furthermore, the additional demand on the technician to now also be commercially active could put them under pressure. This quickly results in reduced employee satisfaction. It is also not always welcome for the customer if the appointed technician is not only concerned with his actual job, but is constantly trying to take money out of his pocket.
How do we deal with this dilemma?
You don't have to invest too much. However, it should be clear that the appearance of your service staff has a major influence on the repurchase rate and your relationship with the customer. It takes relatively little effort to develop a few ideas in this area. The effect, in the form of additional orders, can be impressive in most cases. Therefore, despite the risks and negative effects, sales by service technicians should not be completely abandoned. Some colleagues in the industry may disagree with this. Nevertheless, such an approach seems sensible as long as these principles are observed:
- - Explain to your technicians exactly what the objective of your sales efforts is!
- - Take the pressure off your technicians: no one has to sell, everyone can!
- - Limit the sales task to a few offers that do not require a lot of explanation! (e.g. consumable parts packages & maintenance contracts) The technicians are at home in this world and can make the benefits immediately clear.
- - Develop a simple incentive system that provides no false incentives!
- - Offer voluntary sales seminars to technicians!
- - Start by praising successful deals!
If you implement these measures, you will see that technicians with a talent for sales will automatically follow your strategy. In a few years, you may have the first full-blooded after-sales salespeople in your team. This additional career path for technicians opens up new development prospects and reduces your staff turnover.
