Hold My Beer!

When we are in stores we like to help associates with their Protection Plan offer. We’ve had plenty of situations when the associate has us present the Protection Plan, answer questions, and ask for the customer to make a decision about protection. And you know what one of the best moments is? When the customer declines protection.

That epic failure, face plant, hold my beer moment in front of everyone in the store!

Failure? Hold on! It’s a best moment because it allows us to help everyone to understand what’s actually important. (Spoiler alert: it’s not ‘selling a plan.’) After the customer leaves one of our first questions to the store team is “Did that customer understand the choice they were making?” We always get a “Yes.” We follow up by asking what did we tell the customer to be sure, and what questions we answered to guarantee that the customer understood the choice they were making. It’s only after that review that we say “Then I was successful! I did my job: respecting the customer’s right to an informed choice.”

(If I have time I like to add “What might I have said to do a better job?” to generate discussion about approaches.)

Does your team know what Protection Plan success looks like? We need to make sure our teams understand that there’s no embarrassment—no failure—when our customers choose for themselves whether they want protection. The best way to do that is by setting the example ourselves of celebrating the customer’s choice no matter what that choice was. Only then will we be able to…Make It Happen!