Slow Time Travel Engagement

Fast does not mean efficient when planning a holiday

I am as guilty of this as anyone.  See a problem, solve a problem. I encourage my staff to be fast and efficient.

“Be efficient.”  One of our metrics at Stuba  is about trying to be more efficient on the phone.  It’s part about  time, part efficiency.  I hate “um’s and ahh’s” on the phone.  However, no good moving too fast if the other person in the conversation can’t keep up with you.  Rushing through details will convince your customer that you know your product, and that you know it’s the right one for them.

Customer service or the sales process may be about efficiency, but its not always speed.  Speed can reduce the time required for appropriate engagement and it is ultimately the engagement which draws the facts out , creates opportunities for iterative listening which is where clarification of  real needs occurs. Its the difference between recommending the right option and sounding like a website.

It’s the life equivalent of stopping and smelling the roses; in travel it’s creating the tone that opens the door to the information you need to close a sale or finish the call. It’s inserting slow time in our fast moving business practices to help with service.

Here’s the tips for making your engagement more effective during the sales and comms process:

• Plan the call – what do you need to turn this call into a service resolution or a sale?
• Don’t be in a rush!
• Use open-ended questions that build rapport and identify commonality
• Start broad, drill down
• Summarise answers and actions before moving on to the next point

It might seem mad taking one or two minutes longer, but it falls apart when they ring back later on and cycle through the same questions  and queries..If someone is cycling through the same questions over and over, making the same statement in different ways over and over, chances are, you haven’t listened and in turn, anything else you say is going to be perceived as a lower quality answer.

This doesn’t mean waste time, or getting drawn into long-winded conversations about non-relevant topics, and it doesn’t mean losing focus, but it does mean understanding one call, one interaction, in the context of many.

Slow Time Travel Engagement