Train employees to believe
You can spend that effort finding upbeat employees who are passionate about customers, but it’s moot if you don’t get them to believe in your company and what it does.
“It’s a paradigm shift in the way customer service thinks,” Congdon says. “We’re not trying to get them to [buy] the product so we’ll make more money. We’re trying to get them to [buy] the product because they need to improve their life, and the way they’re going to do that is by using our product. ”
That’s easy for him to say, right? His products actually help people get healthy — thus improving lives. But that same strategy can apply to any company, regardless of what product or service you offer. Just focus on the benefit you provide customers, even if that’s as simple as making a task more convenient for them.
“The point is: If you believe in the product that you’re selling, you should know how you’re affecting people and why the company exists, why it’s good,” he says.
But employees won’t fall in step automatically.
“You have to train people on what the product does and why it’s better than something that’s comparable,” Congdon says.
At least that’s the idea if you manufacture a product. If not, then the training should cover what’s special about whatever it is you do. Maybe that comes down to the experience customers have with your company.
“If I’m a Best Buy, I can’t train all my [employees] on every single product that I sell,” he says. “But I can train them on the Best Buy experience, on what happens when somebody walks in the store, on the fact that I’d rather walk into that store than some other elec
tronic widget and music retailer. So I might be training somebody on the experience and the customer service and the prices and everything else that I consider the best thing about my company.”
So in addition to teaching employees about Beachbody’s programs, there’s also a service aspect. That training involves explaining the expectations and metrics that define great service, down to what phone calls should sound like.
It starts with some of the basics, like: The customer’s always right — and when they’re not, don’t correct them.
“We realized that … when somebody called to say something and they were incorrect, it wasn’t our job to let them know that they were incorrect,” Congdon says. “If their expectation was the product should have gotten there in four days, it didn’t really matter if we said, ‘Well, if you’ll go to the Web site, you’ll notice that it says five to seven business days.’ There was absolutely no upside in showing them that their expectations were off.
“Ignore the fact that you’re right and the customer’s wrong. Just ask them what you can do to make it better. We’ve found that returns went down based on that.”
Congdon also wants customers to hang up the phone feeling like their issue was handled. The only way to know is to ask.
“Even if the call didn’t feel good and was a little tense, you have to, at the end of the call, basically ask, ‘Have I taken care of what you were concerned with?’ and ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’” he says. “We must ask that question and then we must say whether the person said, ‘Yes, my issue has been handled,’ or, ‘No, it hasn’t been handled yet; I’m not satisfied,’ which then can create more conversation. We will get them to the point where they say yes.”
