HOW NOT TO SELL ME OVER THE PHONE (PART 2)
What could Charles have done differently to completely change my reaction to the call?
The first thing he could say to me is “This is Charles from Cigna, I realize that you didn’t ask us to call you, but I see you are interested in insurance and I wanted to check and see if I could clarify any questions you have, or give you a more accurate quote?”
I would have said yes to that, and been happy that I was being given a choice about whether or not to engage. So in salespeak I would suggest calling this:
Phase 1: Is it okay if we talk right now?
Upon getting my agreement, I would like to hear a strong “Statement of Intent” from Charles telling me why he had just appeared in my life. For example “I’m a customer services representative with Cigna and my intent is to help you understand our service, and partner with you in making the decision that is right for you.”
See Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play by Mahan Khalsa for an excellent summary of Statement of Intent.
Phase 2: My intent is to help you.
Most sales interactions start the same way.
There is a sales professional who presumably has the client’s best interests at heart. However, that sales professional cannot possibly help the client unless she understands what the client’s needs are, and to do that, she must ask the client some questions.
On the other side of the table, the client has to make a decision about:
what questions he will answer
to what level of detail
whether he’ll tell the truth
The decision for all of those things will be based on how much the client trusts the salesperson. And where does trust come from? In just that first 5 minutes of a meeting is it possible to build trust?
Yes it is, because of this equation:
Trust = Intent + Expertise
Presumably Charles is an expert in the cold hard facts of insurance, and having been well-trained by Cigna and experienced, he will be able to expertly advise me on the best option for my unique situation. I believe that Charles probably had the expertise to help me.
Most salespeople focus on “Expertise” to the detriment of “Intent” though. If a sales professional doesn’t have a strong statement of intent that gives her goosebumps when she says it out loud, what is her intent in interacting with her clients?
Another way to enhance the trust you are building with your client is to make it very clear what exactly you are doing and why.
Few people want to be asked a series of closed questions without knowing where the questioning is going. Imagine someone emailing you a link with the note “Can you please take this online test and tell me the result? There are somewhere between 3 and 300 questions, you won’t know how many until the end.”
Phase 3: Would it be alright if I asked you some questions, for this purpose (and it’s going to take about this long)
Then we engage in a question asking/answering process that is more comfortable for me because:
I know why we are doing it
I feel Charles’ intent is to help me
I have a good sense of how long the whole thing is going to take
Quick check – how many times did you tell someone you are “busy” today? Everyone is busy in 2015, no one has time for a phone call of interminable length with someone he doesn’t know.
After a few questions Charles is able to give me a quote, and then he could ask me for my initial reaction. This type of “meta-communication” is effective for stepping out of the conversation and talking about it. It’s an elegant way of saying “So whadda ya think?”
Phase 4: Having spoken now for several minutes, and now heard our quote, may I ask your interest level in our offering?
I think Charles could have done all this in 5 minutes if I was a willing participant. I wasn’t, and he spent his precious 5 minutes finding that out the other afternoon.
Don’t get me wrong. I feel for Charles. I love him in fact. I love every damn sales professional out there trying to get by with a Monday morning commit meeting that starts when your boss goes around the room asking “How many policies you good for this week?”
I had an auto-generated email from Charles yesterday, a few weeks after our phone call. He wanted to know if I was still (*ahem*) interested in Cigna’s insurance offering and if not, please reply to his email asking to be removed from the list.
How many policies you good for this week?