Coaching increased Canon's sales
If you want to increase sales, you have to sell more. But how it is done without pushing it too far? The answer is smart customer service.
Just selling for buying customers, or maintenance for only the copy machine, is the old way of doing customer service. Added sales are created from when customer service is taken to its full potential. Customer is contacted and talked with, his/her needs are sorted out and solutions are found for them.
In the spring of 2008 Canon Finland decided to invest in customer service skills of its maintenance personnel and to gain added sales through it. – Our goal was primarily to start up a model oriented towards added sales and to increase the customer service orientation of our maintenance experts. To our delight, our added sales have been multiplied, says Canon’s HR Business Partner Laura Leminen.
Canon chose Balentor as its partner in Smart Customer Service- coaching. – We liked their new, humane and practical approach to coaching, tells Leminen.
The participants are part of Canon’s strategy
Balentor’s business coach got to know maintenance technicians’ work by talking to them and by taking part to customer visits. This way he conceived a broad picture of the present state as well as built a trust relationship with the technicians. – The participants especially liked about the personal relationship that the coach created with them and that he used a lot of examples from practice. He was received with open arms. The personality of the coach played a key role in this, says Leminen.
Rantanen reported to Canon’s management about observations he made during the coaching process and received immediate feedback. – Communicating towards both directions was very important for the results. Financial appraisal is sure to motivate the participants, but it is even more important to receive appreciation from the management for the good work done. The participants felt that they were an important part of Canon’s strategy, Rantala concludes.
Leminen also sees the commitment from management as a vital part of the process. – We have noticed that without the example from the management, nothing is likely to happen.
Own thinking is essential
Most challenging task during coaching was to turn the technicians’ role towards sales orientation. When they realized that selling does not have to be forcing the products to the customer, but helping them, they started to create different models of action by themselves.
The Technicians’ attitude toward customers has changed dramatically. Now they do not just fix the problem that the customer has, but also find out more about overall situation by asking and listening. And they charge the customer for jobs that do not belong to the maintenance contract, a ting that they did not do before.
Successful coaching concept has been branched out to other departments. The concept has also awoken interest internationally in the training organization, through which the coaching is also being exported to other countries.
Communication agency Diverstas / Balentor Stakeholder magazine 2009