Don’t penalize your clients

Last week we encouraged you not to make policies that penalized your best clients because you were trying to weed out the jerks.

This week we had an experience at Engage that illustrates the point nicely. As you know, we have Live Chat installed on our Engage Selling and Testimonial Director websites to provide immediate real time help to our community members and those browsing for sales advice. You can see the box over to the right of this page.

Client’s love it because they get to speak to someone real – usually Casey or Chris – who can help them or provide direction.  Not everyone who visits and chats with us is a serious sales pro though. Take the following unedited transcript below: (their typos are their own)

Chris: Hi there, this is Chris from Colleen’s office… How can I help you today?
Visitor: I need A car
Chris: Hi there, I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.
Visitor: I NEED A CAR OK
Chris: Sorry, we are a sales training company. Good luck finding a car.
Visitor: will what do you sale and sorry my name is XXX
Chris: We sell sales training. I’m afraid no cars here…
Visitor: Ok than what do you have for me
Chris: I’d be happy to discuss who we can help you. I just need to know a bit about you: what is your position and in what organization do you work?
Visitor: I am a math teacher at Yale University.
Visitor: Are you there?
Chris: Yes. Are you interested in a sales career?
Chris: Our resources are designed to help sales professionals and business owners sell more.
Visitor: Well what can you offer $$$$
Chris: Colleen’s coaching program (called Lead-Up!) may be of interest to you. It provides on-going access to web classes, sales tips and our member’s only web site full of useful resources. In fact, we’re having a special offer now that provides you your first month free – and you can cancel at any time. It gives you a chance to try out all of Colleen’s resources, completely risk free. Do you want me to show you the specific offer?
Visitor: Well i will need a jump start in cash because im having a hard time right now so what do i do?
Chris: I’m taking you to our Lead-Up! Coaching program risk-free offer…
Chris: https://www.engageselling.com/leadup
Visitor: How will taht help me????
Chris: It sounds like we’re not going to be a good fit for you. Thanks for coming to our web site and make sure to let us know if there is anything else we can help with.
Chris: Thanks for visiting – it was nice chatting with you. Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help further at contact us@engageselling.com or 1-877-Engage U (364-2438).
Visitor: Well i have 4 kids and i need help can you help me

Seriously? A math teach er from Yale?  I think maybe not . And yes! this is what Chris got to chat with last week. We get about 2 of these a month. Maybe more, Casey tries her best to shield me from too many distractions.  This interaction was the worst we have seen in a while. AND,  I am not taking the Live Chat functionality down because of it. Why would I penalize my existing clients?

Make sure you are creating processes and policies to benefit your existing loyal and profitable clients. Provide them with the best deals, and the most opportunities to engage with you. Sure, you might have to deal with a few jerks along the way. My guess is that it will be no more than 2% of all your communications. Never mind them, you will always come out the winner when you reward your clients and not penalize them for it.

Dedicated to increasing your sales!

Colleen