No matter what a salesman says, these users are YOUR CUSTOMERS, so make the first six months a pleasant experience, and they will become your biggest fans!

Aug 20

It starts with no one taking the time to thoroughly explain the system to the people who will use it the most.

I want to put you in the shoes of your customer. It doesn’t matter if you are a residential, small business, or large commercial security company. Heck, I’ll even throw in the Pentagon if you’re the lucky guys to manage that account (you know who you are). When the next lead arrives, your sales rep schedules the presentation and meets the customer. He/She conducts a needs analysis (hopefully today you perform it electronically), and then taking that information into account, they walk through the premise to design a comprehensive solution to solve the customers’ problem. Once they complete the walk-through, they sit back down and, either in one meeting, or over the next few days or weeks, create a proposal that hopefully the customer likes and buys. The customer seems happy, the salesman seems happy, and you, the owner or general manager, seem very satisfied that your team was able to protect one more building that will provide security to its occupants. Hank, you ask, what could possibly go wrong to make my customer hate the experience? How about six short months?

It starts with no one taking the time to thoroughly explain the system to the people who will use it the most. For years, we have been relying on the installer to go over the system, but you can’t really blame the technician if it doesn’t happen. After all, they’re not usually the most talkative people in the world (no offense techs). MISTAKE 1 - Where are the security experts that can explain the system? Why aren’t they here back at the premise, explaining the valuable details to the customer, so they gain even more confidence that they have made the right decision? SOLUTION 1 - If you want to keep your customers' confidence high in you, then start by making sure they understand all this electronic stuff hanging on their wall. Remember, it’s all new to them. The owner or manager needs to make the wise decision to choose whether they want the salesman to follow-up, or hire a designated person to support the relationship after the sale (I will explain further below).

Then, the customer never receives any thank you card from the company. MISTAKE 2 - What, no thank you for spending $5,000.00 or more for a system? (NOTE: There is no “free system”. The average customer pays $60 per month for a lifespan of at least 84 months). Now is about the time the owner of the company, or the GM of the branch (if a large corporation), should express their appreciation for the new business with a written thank you card. You know, every time I get off a plane at Southwest airlines, the pilot thanks me by saying, “we know you could choose any airline, but you chose Southwest, and appreciate your business”. And that is why I fly almost exclusively with SWA. SOLUTION 2 - Buy some thank you cards and in it mail your business card along with a reminder of the “customer promises” that you committed to fulfill when your rep made the sale (will explain in an upcoming blog). This little step will help to smooth out any edges of “buyer’s remorse” that may have come up after the installation.

Finally, the customer has now been using the system for about one month and realizes, “Crap, I should have gotten that extra equipment they talked about during the installation”, so they patiently wait for the dealer to call, convinced that when they said, “We’ll check back with you in a about a month”, they meant it. MISTAKE 3 - two months, four month, six months go by, and no one from the company ever calls. As the customer recollects on the experience, they realize some important facts: They never had someone who truly cared walk them through the system after installation, they never got a thank you card, and they never got a call from the dealer again. Hey, wait a minute, aren’t we supposed to make sure the customer TESTS THE SYSTEM about a month after installation? Now, with six months under their belt, they simply quit using the system, and when the mass-market doorknockers come by, they are ready to look at other options. SOLUTION 3 - When you are close to 30 days, do what no one else in this industry does; promise them you will send your “tiger team” member to walk through and test the system to ensure it’s working properly. As an “after-the-sale” tiger team member, I once visited 100 of my customers that were sold by other reps, and 50% of the time the customer added an additional $425.00 (adjusted for inflation) in extra equipment, and all of them re-signed to extend their agreement. Why? Because they saw value in the earned relationship.

Alarm company owners and managers, please listen to me: You are the facilitator of an account that pays you a lot of money each month, so why do you avoid them? Value your customer enough to have a relationship. If the reps cannot (or will not) do these tasks, then create a tiger team of great people who prepare not to “hard sell” but enjoy the customer advocate experience - people who want the best for your customers, and can advise them. No matter what a salesman says, these users are YOUR CUSTOMERS, so make the first six months a pleasant experience, and they will become your biggest fans!