Your Technicians Can Sell! Transform Field Services Culture

Thank you for clicking on this newest article in my "Your Technicians Can Sell!" series. This week's topic is based on your feedback where by far the biggest question revolved around the cultural transformation that is required to enable technician selling. Sample comments from Field Service Team Leaders were "Ok, I agree that it would be a game changer for technicians to sell, but it isn't in their culture and I don't think it will work." Or a comment directly from a frontline team member "I'm a technician, not a salesperson! Selling isn't in my job description."

The short answer is a combination of Skill, Will, and People practices.

I'll be the first to admit that the journey for a traditional field services organization from a technical service model (install, repair) towards a full service model (sell, fulfill, assure, move, add, change) isn't an easy one. However, it is definitely a rewarding one and a journey that has massive positive impacts to your customer overall satisfaction and customer loyalty. Not to mention the improved bottom line impact to your P&L through the additional customer lifetime value and revenue generation that comes from technicians being a true solution oriented trusted advisor. Arguably the biggest hurdle to building a successful field services sales channel revolves around transforming the existing culture and resetting basic expectations around the definition of service itself.

How do we define service? A quick google search defines service as "the action of helping or doing work for someone." The more complete definition adds "assistance or advice given to customers during and after the sale of goods." This is the definition that matters and what makes a solution-seller the trusted advisor. Good service is efficiently completing the work that the customer has paid for. Extraordinary service includes identifying and offering solutions to the customer that either complements their purchase or is an alternative that better meets their needs. Effectively, a job title of "Service Technician" already demands that the technician provide the customer with assistance and advice during and after the sale of goods.

So how do you support the transformation of field services culture? The organization needs an effective change management strategy that covers the 3 core pillars, skill, will and people. It is recommended that distinct and mutually supportive plans are in place for team members, leaders and the organization and that they are supported in a crawl, walk, run approach towards solution-selling over a multi-year timeline.

• Skill. Sales is a skill and each team member must learn how to qualify customer needs, how to recommend solutions and how to close. Technical skill training must be complemented by a training program that specifically teaches solution selling and the soft skills that customer service oriented team members need to delight customers. "Soft" skills are intended to complement technical "hard" skills and not replace pure technical competency. Sample soft skills are; ability to listen, empathy, emotional intelligence, enthusiasm, and works well under pressure. (A great article on soft skills written by the Playvox Team can be found here. 11 Soft Skills For Customer Service Teams That Make Customers Happy)
• Will. Will is all about willfully adopting a solution-selling mindset. Team members need to build both the desire and confidence to be successful solution-sellers. To encourage the desired mindset, team leaders and the organization must build appropriate WIFM (What's in it for me) incentives and share the mutual benefits for the team member. Recognition programs, rewards, incentives and even channel compensation are hugely important but won't matter if the team member lacks the will to adopt a solution selling mindset. Annual, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals and target setting are essential. The team member needs to commit to what they think they can accomplish and management must effectively coach the team member's growth, celebrating accomplishments and guiding progress along the way.
• People. You can teach skill and coach for will, but the intrinsic motivation of a team member to be solution focused and to believe in a service centric culture comes down to the individual themselves. All aspects of people management must be adapted in support of the culture change. Including but not limited to, hiring practices, job descriptions, performance management, recognition programs, behaviour standards and core training. Team members that exemplify the solution-selling mindset must be celebrated and every effort made to support all team members without leaving anyone behind.

Of course there are many more details regarding the specifics of enabling the cultural transformation, building and implementing the change management plan, motivating the team, gaining buy-in, overcoming objections, good program governance and more. Lots of content for future article topics.

In summary, transitioning to a full-service model that does solution-selling requires an evolution of field services culture. It is necessary to tackle team member, manager and organizational skill, will and people practices to be successful. The journey takes a commitment to change but the payoff for customers, team members and the organization is incredible.

Thank you again to everyone that has offered comments and questions about my previous articles. Your feedback is tremendously helpful and I appreciate the dialogue. Please continue to comment or send me your thoughts directly!

If you're excited about the potential to turn your cost centre into a profit centre by transforming your field service culture then please visit my website to Request a Free Consultation

Glen Westerhof is founder of Mammoth Motion Corporation Operations Consulting and is an experienced Telecommunications and IT executive with 20+ years experience across telecommunications field services, IT operations, commercial security, smart buildings, retail, cybersecurity, data & analytics, business intelligence, digitization and automation.? He leverages his broad expertise to assist with business transformation, building a customer first culture and enhancing value.? He can be reached at?www.mammothmotion.com