Episode 126: Did Covid Kill Salesteam Customer Service, with Ingrid Maynard

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world World of B2B Sales Management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive you is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to be the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Well, in any business, part of life, personal conquest, we always need great people around us to help us grow. And when we're talking medical terms, we often turn to doctors. Well, for the first time today, we actually have a sales doctor on the podcast. So self proclaimed, no doubt. But I've already had a few minutes with Ingrid and you can tell when people know their stuff, know their subject matters, and I've certainly got that feeling with Ingrid Maynard, who is our guest today. So Ingrid is the founder of the Sales Doctor and she's also a host of the Sales Revolution podcast. And Ingrid has over 25 years experience in essentially helping businesses transform their sales performance from wherever they are today to where they need to be. So she's worked with some ripping Australian, some iconic Australian and New Zealand brands, helping their teams get the tools they need and the strategies they need to really get that next level growth in competitive markets. Ingrid's a dynamic speaker. We've just been speaking about Ingrid speaking and she's actually doing more and more of that these days. She's a sought after media commentator. She regularly is asked to contribute to leading publications and give her thoughts on some really important matters in sales. So her approach is absolutely around driving customer centric, commercially savvy cultures. And she's written her first book, which is the Sales Revolution. But I think outside of that, the piece that's jumped out at me already about Ingrid is that we've been speaking around sales being a dirty word. And I mean, I hate. That's a dirty phrase, I hate it. But it's so true that sales isn't dirty. And we've been speaking about how Ingrid really places an emphasis on communication, genuine curiosity and the Power of relationships, which is an art, an art or a skill, depending on who you are, that I think has been lost a little bit over the last few years. So we're going to talk a little bit about that today, but before we do. So, Ingrid, welcome to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do?

Yeah, sure, Ben. So, I mean, I think you've pretty much given me a great introduction and thank you for that. So I have a practice that predominantly focuses in on revenue growth and profitability. They're the two outcomes that I drive. And I help companies by working with sales leaders and their sales teams to enable them to have more structure, more accountability, and greater capability to achieve the targets that they need. But I also increasingly these days work with a whole of organisation because if we think that sales is going to be enough to take us to where we need to get to, I think we're really fooling ourselves. So we need a whole of organisation approach to what I'm calling a culture of customer great.

So rare we hear that from sales focused consultants, strategist leaders. It's very much sales can be viewed as a siloed part of a business. So I really like that straight off the cuff. And in fact we're talking kind of loosely around that today. And the topic is, did Covid kill customer service? And I have to say, I get asked, what would I get? I would get at least 10 guests requests a week and chick, it's hard to filter through them. And I must say, I looked through your topics and it was that one was the one that I went, okay, we might have something here. So we haven't done this for a little while. So sales leaders, I know that we're not always customer service teams. We don't always have those lines reporting into us. But gee, if we can nail customer service, I'd say that most people on this podcast who are listening, you're going to say, yeah, we're going to get more sales, so we're going to dive into that today. So, Ingrid, let's start at the beginning. What does good customer service look like to you in the modern world?

I think good service, you know, is probably the umbrella that we really need to dive into today. Because I don't think that there's an appreciation or even an experience for a lot of people who are going into service based roles or customer facing roles that really understand what that means. They're very transactional in their focus. So they're really about completing the task, whatever that is with the customer rather than really thinking about that as an opportunity to give that customer an experience of them as a person, as an extension of the brand that they're representing. And I think that that's a real lost opportunity for most of us. So when we think about service, I actually think that today when we say the word service, we think of customer service. We think of people in a call centre with headphones on who are taking automated calls or making automated calls. And for the most part that's been our definition of service unfortun. But really for those of us, and you're a lot younger than me, Ben, but for those of us who are old enough to remember, any customer facing role was one where you had an opportunity to be of service to another person. And that means putting yourself aside for the time and to be there to really make that person feel understood, heard and seen. And that's a human experience that I think that we can really embrace today. But it's a lost, I would dare say it's a forgotten muscle that I think we can rebuild and we must rebuild.

Yeah, I like that piece around it being a forgotten muscle for me. I look at it, you've either forgotten how to give good customer service for those that are grappling with it at the moment, or you're yet to learn it. Because I think the next generation of sales people coming through and I'll talk about a pet hater, miner salesperson links up with you. They say, hey, whatever my service or value I'm going to provide is, you go, great, let's chat. They send you back a calendarly link. Please book into my calendar schedule. I'm like, oh my God, there's no service in that. You're just wanting me to fit in with you. And I always will go back and go, here's the time, I'm available, you make it work. Right. And if they can't, well then we have that conversation. So for me, I think there's quite a few newcomers. I was going to say newbies. There's quite a few newbies into the sales world that actually haven't learned good service. Okay. So for me, the other piece taking out of that I think is that good service is around helping someone do something perhaps they couldn't do themselves. Right. I think you alluded to creating value, getting an outcome for someone, solving a problem, capitalizing on an opportunity. I think that was an undertone that I heard from what you said. So yeah, really like that. Okay, so what about on the other side? What does Service in the modern world. And let's focus perhaps on the sales landscape here. What does service in the modern world that isn't as successful look like to you?

Look, I'll give you a personal example and this is where I think AI is, you know, going to help us out a lot. I recently moved into my new home and, and we're replacing all of our furniture, so we're starting from scratch, which is really lovely. And on the same night I ordered three stools from one online furniture retailer and I ordered a sofa bed from another online retailer. And the experience from both of those retailers couldn't be more different. And so with the first one, with the stools I got, the initial email which I got from, was exactly the same from both of them that said, you know, great decision, you know, you've made a great purchase, well done, order confirmed, we'll be in touch, you know, when it's going to be dispatched from our warehouse to, you know, organize delivery dates, et cetera. They both said that. And then this is where one dropped away and one just soared in my estimation. And it was AI that did all of the heavy lifting, which was, and it was an extraordinary experience for me, the customer. And what customer service looked like in that instance was ongoing, constant communication, setting expectations, meeting those expectations. And then the handover from the AI communication to the in person communication when it was time to, for the delivery to actually arrive. And then the way that the guys came in and just made sure that it was all put together and that I knew everything that I needed to know. And then there was follow up with the AI again. So it was like a hand in glove experience. Whereas with the stools, I only just found out last weekend and it was well over a month that I'd heard anything. And it was all over email, no texts, no constant anything of an approximate date, not when I'd receive it, but when it was going to be dispatched. So it was all just very transactional. It was all from their end, what they needed to communicate. It had nothing to do with me, my needs, my expectations or my timeframes, nothing. And that's an example of good and bad customer service. So if we take that out and we expand that to the human experience, it's exactly the same. Doesn't matter whether it's AI or a person. It's, it's really about good communication. It's about how we make another person feel. It's about setting expectations, meeting those expectations and hopefully superseding those expectations. But I think most of us as customers would settle for even just having having the fundamental expectation met, let alone exceeding it. Let's start there.

Yeah, and I think that's a really interesting point to start, because people listening, I'd encourage you to ask yourself, the question is, when you go into an engagement with a customer, let's call them a prospect, right? When you go into an engagement with a prospect and you walk out of that first or second meeting, right, when you've got down to business and you've asked questions and you've listened two ears, one mouth, all that stuff, have you walked out of that meeting fundamentally understanding what expectations are, because if you haven't, then it's going to be really hard to deliver good service against those because you might be running south when you need to be running north. So I think that piece you said there around expectations, wow. It's so important to just work out exactly what they are before you get starting. And I talk a lot about that through my 3DS framework.

But I think just, just on that, like, you know how you talk about that, you and I erroneously and probably increasingly are now realizing, like you said before about that whole generation, I don't even think it's just generational. I think it's a skill that we haven't really cultivated and that is the ability to really uncover that sort of information and to genuinely want to find out, you know, so we can go through that. We can uncover expectations in a meeting. If we kind of know and we have a process and we're kind of ticking a box, we can still fulfill the task of that. But it's the quality with which we do that that really makes a difference. It's the energy exchange. It's about how am I holding the space for another human in that time frame so that there's a really deep level of connection and trust. And you. We can teach skills until the cows come home. You've done it, I've done it. But there's that X factor that makes somebody who's skilled go to the next level, where they create such depth of loyalty, retention and referral just through the way that they do what they do. It's more than just. I mean, again, the skill of being able to do that is one thing, and I think that we need to develop that capability. But also it's that other, what I'm calling the X factor there that I think, you know, we really need to also build.

I feel like you're leaning around the C word here, which is curiosity. I was running, if you jump straight into it. We spoke about it earlier on that genuine level of curiosity in wanting to actually understand how you can help someone. Right. And sure, you might go down that path. You may end up at a point where whatever you're offering isn't going to help that person. But gee, a fast no is so much better in that instance than going all the way through your process and forecasting. 60% chance this is going to close in three months time. And we just need to get to the right decision makers and make sure they know us and go through that path. And at the end it's like, no, no, hang on, you're not solving okay problem. So that curiosity at the start to have the time to go down there and actually make sure you can offer that value through that genuine. I think you said the other C word, connection. Lots of C words today.

We'Ll refrain from the other one. It's unspoken.

But yeah, look, I really love the approach you're taking here around showing genuine. Another C word, genuine care. Right. Care, connection, curiosity. So if you're a sales leader or you're working with one of your sales leaders, because I know you've worked with plenty right over your career in this game.

Yes.

Where are you recommending they start to look at delivering better service to their customers?

I mean, I think that it starts with the quality of people that you select, you know, to be your representatives to begin with. Because you can teach skill, but what you can't teach those sorts of values and qualities. You can't teach someone to have a genuine curiosity about other people. You can't teach someone to love other people, you know, if they really don't like people. I mean, I even asked a salesperson once, I said, what do you love about the job? And for the most part, most salespeople say, well, I love the people, you know, I love my customers, I love this. And she said, well, I hate people. And I thought, oh God, this is going to be a tough one because I don't understand how you could be in, you know, people role a people, career, profession and not, you know, have a love for humanity. So that's the first thing. And that really takes, that's a skill in and of itself is to build in behaviorally based questions that will uncover and unearth people who have those orientations towards being of service, you know, of wanting to actually listen to another person ask great questions, that they're curious people. I've noticed that curious people are also people that have great levels of self awareness and therefore they have great levels of humility as well. So I think there's a myth, which is why I think sales has become a dirty word. There's a myth around salespeople that they've got the best salespeople, have got the gift of the gab. You know, they're full of themselves. They're super confident they can go out there and, you know, climb mountains. Well, that's great. But how are they making people feel in the process? You know, they might be able to smash a target for today, but they're forgetting that, you know, real profit is made in the long term, playing the long game. You know, Simon Sinek calls it the infinite game. And I think we've lost the, you know, the ability to do that. I think we can rediscover it, but it starts with the type of people that we're recruiting in the first place. And then it's about how we support those people to develop and scaffold, you know, their innate qualities with some really solid, robust skill.

Okay. Okay, great. So we're hiring the right people and then we're supporting them with the right training, coaching environment to help them foster the growth of that skill. So if we had to get a little bit specific and you're a sales leader and we're looking at the second part there around how we foster the right environment, training and coaching, where would you focus in on or even a couple of areas where would you focus on as a sales leader to help really grow that service development?

Let's go back to Covid, because I think a lot of stuff was lost, you know, with lockdowns. And I know that in Australia we had almost like a five speed economy because every state was doing something different, which made it a nightmare for sales leaders who happen to have national teams, you know, to try to navigate that whole process. And if you were a national sales leader and you were in Melbourne and you couldn't move for nearly two years and you had a salesperson who was in wa it what it meant was you couldn't actually do a lot of that really great coaching, which is in person, in field coaching, which every sales manager should be doing. So, you know, I think that was the beginning of the change or the shift, you know, in this country. The other thing that I think happened because I think there's a conflation of things and then I'll come back to where service starts. So. Yeah, so I think when we went into lockdown, the first two weeks we were all in it together, then we weren't. We had the five speed economy in Australia. And then we decided that actually we can use technology. Technology is our friend. We can use teams, we can use zoom, we can use all of those, you know, those meeting enablers to enable us to actually do more. Actually, you know what, we can rejig the way that we do our, you know, our in person or our customer visits. We can see more people in less time. It's going to save us a fortune on cost of sale. It's going to maximise our margins. It's great. And it was until the novelty kind of wore off. Because the other thing that happened during lockdown was people became a lot more casual and the lines between professional and work life got blurred, which meant that people didn't use a lot of the disciplines that they were accustomed to using, that they would have used if they were in person. But now, kind of where does it sort of finish and end? So there's a lot of meandering conversations which you can't have. So when you're on teams and zoom, unfortunately, a lot of that, you know, that. That secret sauce that I was talking about before, the X Factor, it's not possible. On teams and zoom, you can get 80% and 80% still an A, but. But, you know, there's those little nuances that really make a relationship and that connection and that experience significantly greater or deeper, richer when you're in person. And then when we came out of lockdown, salespeople was reluctant to go back out there and see people. I don't know whether it was because they'd become really comfortable staying inside or whether it was just that they'd lost. Like I was saying before, that muscle, you know, it was like. Like almost like they became sales couch potatoes, you know, where they stopped going out and seeing customers or doing as much activity as they. As they probably needed to. So when it comes to service and rebooting that side of our approach to selling, I think it's got to start with some of those, you know, those what I call big rocks, which are, you know, activity levels, and then the quality of those activity levels, and then having the grit, which I think is, again, something that we need to reinvestigate in order to make sure that the first knockback, the first. No, the first, you know, challenge that we come up against in trying to win new pieces of work or even to grow existing pieces of work, if we're an account manager, that those sorts of things, we're better than that. We've got a little bit more backbone about you know, overcoming. That's where I would start.

Yeah, we're talking about first principles here and I so agree with the piece around. When we moved to video it was a novelty, but gee, the professional standards have slipped. And I've just had a conversation with the team this week around. They need to be in the office for three days at the end of this week. And I had serious pushback. I'm like, guys, working from home is a privilege that this world, in our industry, in sales, it's a privilege we've been able to afford. Please don't take it as the only way that we operate. So I think for me, I fundamentally agree with that piece around. To provide great service you need to have the fundamentals, right? We spoke about curiosity, care, communication, right. Lots of C words. We spoke or you've spoken through about getting your base level standards right. So turn up to work behind a screen like you're going to turn up to work in front of someone. Okay. I'll fully admit I'm in shorts and I have bare feet, but the top half, I'm as professional as I would be with any with any customer business.

Upstairs, party down below.

That's it. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think most people listening have heard the story of the snake wandering up to my ankles the other week. So if you haven't, send me a message and I'll tell you because it's a ripper. But the first principles around turn up professionally. Ask the same questions that you'd be asking when you're face to face. Try and create that little bit of sizzle because often if you don't create the sizzle, you don't get the deal done. There are too many other people in this market now. There are too many options for buyers and customers to go and look at for you to be just okay. So I love that. The piece around, which I think you alluded to, around measuring the right behaviours, get the right ones. I work off three metrics, right? Get whatever number of metrics you work off, get them right and measure them just like you would when you're face to face. Have those same engagements with your team as when you're face to face. Sit down, work through their deals, have your sales meetings, right? When you have your sales meetings, people don't bring their emails and their sometimes they bring their phones, but they don't bring their emails and their phones and all the distractions to a face to face meeting. So don't bring them to a virtual meeting, right? You know, I Absolutely agree. Because once we get those disciplines right, we're tuned into the environment around us and we can do our best. So, Ingrid, I think that's a great place to pause and hopefully I've summarised what you've said really well. We've spoken about C words, we've spoken about what good service looks like, what not so good service looks like, whether you're buying three stools or a couch. We've spoken about first principles of selling and even just getting the right people in your team. So lots of little pots of gold across today. So thank you very much, very grateful for your time. Where can people find you, Ingrid? About you or learn more about you or the sales doctor?

Yeah, I mean, the easiest place to find me is the website, which is the sales doctor. So that's doctor that's sales doctor.com au find me on LinkedIn. Ingrid Maynard. And you know, I'm also on Instagram and Facebook as well. Or you can email me@adminhesalesdoctor.com Excellent.

Well, thank you very much for today, Ingrid, for everyone listening, we'll see you next week. But please keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now.

Excellent. Thanks, Ben.

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