A brilliant article appeared some years ago that represented an acute observation on the part of the author, Wilbur Schramm. The title of it was, “The Obstinate Audience.”
What Schramm, to his great credit saw, that no on else had at least written about so clearly, was that the time had come and gone when people could be counted on to hear our messages and act on them, passively. Schramm said, based on strides in mass education, people were becoming resistant, hard-shelled.
You could see it at movie theaters, where audiences felt it was okay to “talk back” to the characters on the screen. They were insisting that a one-way medium somehow become a two-way communications device.
Fast-forward to the here-and-now.
Until recently, we expected customers to passively accept up-selling efforts on the part of marketers and customer service personnel. It has been common practice to ask CSR’s who are solving conflicts or straightening out billing errors in one breath to hustle additional products and services in the next.
But now that such efforts are becoming standard parts of conversations, they are no longer flying under the radar. Customers, more pressed for time than ever before, are finding the insertion of extraneous topics and new offers irksome.
The result can be the welling up of conflict within a call that wasn’t there when the call began. In other words, calm customers can grow enraged when they believe their time is being wasted, or when they’re being forced to listen to a pitch, or else.
For instance, if you call one of the satellite TV companies and request a downgrade in service, i.e. to dump unwanted channels, or if you wish to cancel entirely, you’ll be compelled to speak to more than one person to accomplish the task. This is frustrating, in itself, having to tell the same story twice.
But with the second person, you’ll be forced to answer questions as to why you’re changing the service. If you interrupt or say you’re too busy for this exit interview, you’ll be told your subscription won’t be changed until you relent.
Then, they’ll try to resell you what you’re trying to jettison, further preventing you from achieving your original purpose for the call.
This is not what many of us had in mind when we pioneered up-selling in customer service calls. We urged clients to use it at the right times and to weave it seamlessly into conversations. If customer seemed resistant, such efforts were to immediately abate.
If companies such as the satellite TV providers insist on doing it crudely, they’re going to usher in a new era of animosity where constant up-selling will be countered with incessant down-buying.
Those calls won’t be pretty to make or to take!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.
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