Bishop’s Move Luton, part of the largest privately owned removals company in the UK, is taking a unique approach to talk of a downturn in the local removals and storage market by looking to excellent customer service as a way to ensure existing customers are retained, and new ones found via referrals.

A three-day training programme, held in February, gave all 36 members of staff the opportunity to enhance their existing customer service skills and to see how, when applied correctly, such skills can make the difference during challenging times.

Bishop’s Move Luton employed specialist external company, Executive Playground, to deliver their TeamVention Challenge programme.

Over the three-day period, the entire Bishop’s Move Luton staff were split into teams of three and set various team building games and challenges, all designed to make them consider and think about what they do from a customer’s point of view. The outcome has been a top-to-bottom realignment of understanding the potential of how important good customer service is to company bottom line.

After seeing that over 50 per cent of its business comes from recommendations from other clients, Bishop’s Move Luton ensured the course also focused on how it could improve the experience from the customer’s point of view to maintain its good reputation with its public, thereby driving sales and encouraging potential referrals.

Philip Edwards, Managing Director of Bishop’s Move Luton says the range of exercises during the training programme has not only resulted in a clearer communication between staff and its clients, but has also created a more positive and energised working environment. He comments: “All of the exercises made the guys think about what they do from a clients’ point of view. Although each day involved a lot of fun, it did present some thought provoking challenges such as different ways you could modify your behaviour to enhance the customer experience.

“One particular exercise involved 15 images on a wall depicting people in different attire. We then had to guess the occupation of the person in the photograph. Quite often we got the answer wrong and this not only highlighted the point that you can’t judge someone’s character by his or hers appearance but it also revealed how the client may well judge us from our first impressions.

“Although three days represented a significant investment, we really believe that it has been worth every penny in terms of providing us with the tools to negotiate some troubled waters.”

Results of the programme are already apparent. Clearer internal communication techniques have improved the flow of information from the initial meeting made by the customer account manager down to the crews involved with the move, meaning customer’s concerns are dealt with at source rather than carried through each stage of the move. This has meant customer satisfaction levels remain high, a vital requirement if positive recommendations are to be made.

However, it’s also the atmosphere at the Bishop’s Move Luton branch that has been most positively benefited by the training programme. Phil says: “By far the greatest impact of the training has been an enormous desire, by everyone, to pull together and improve our offering during these challenging times. It’s easy for motivation to falter and fear to spread. This initiative has helped us quash those factors and stay positive. A happy workforce is a productive workforce.”

Alan Sugar has certainly achieved things in the past, maybe in the 80's when his particularly aggressive and rude style of communication would have served him well and made him a lot of money. But a lot has changed since then and thank heavens it has. It's just that the TV companies, like the newspapers are only interested the negative side of life to bring in the viewers. And it works sadly.

We work with many people in different capacities in business and 99% of them cringe at what they see and hear on The Apprentice. The contestants lack basic business experience and even common sense. They are rude, bitchy and aggressive towards each other and certainly do not show themselves in a good light. This is not what we see in the real business world. Most of the people we work with want to develop their skills, become more successful and bring out the best of themselves and each other. Why do the Apprentice contestants do it? For fame or fortune?

There are so many amazing and successful ambassadors for business in the world today who are changing the world for the better with the fruits of their success. These are the people to seek out, read about, watch and learn from. Not the type you see on The Apprentice or anywhere near it.

Communication is both simple and complex. It can easily go right or easily go wrong. Our choice of words, our voice, tonality, pitch, intonation, speed and volume, our facial expressions, degree of eye contact, gestures and body language - we use them all instinctively and unconsciously to communicate the little and the large things in life.

We may even get a 'gut feeling' about how things are going as we decide 'I like this person or I don't like this person'; often without really knowing what it is that leads us to these decisions.

Here's a true story.

I was working with a delightful client doing one to one sales development. During one of our sessions, we were focusing on building rapport and influencing techniques and my aim was to help her become more concious about how she made decisions about others. She then said 'I knew when I saw you in the office that I would enjoy working with you'.

I asked her how she knew that.

'I don't really know' was the first answer. Then, 'I suppose it was the way you looked, what you were wearing. I heard you laughing out loud and I thought you were an open person. And professional, you carried yourself well.

'Who else comes to mind that has these kinds of qualities I asked. Stunned she said 'my mum!' You can imagine the hoots of laughter after that! I dismissed the temptation to look in the mirror and go buy something funkier to wear on the way home!

Something she saw in me in a split nano-second sent her a message that reminded her of her mum, which led her to make a favourable judgement about me and even my values - being an 'open' person. And that's what often happens. We make unconscious deep rooted links about things and people and most of our responses and actions from that point are based on these judgements - however accurate or inaccurate they might be!

So how can you use this very natural, internal 'communication system' more consciously to your benefit?

One way is to subtly 'mirror' aspects of the person you want to influence. Pay acute attention to their communication system of gestures, nods, shakes of the head, the little key words that act as verbal 'hooks' like 'absolutely' (my personal favourite). or 'sounds good to me'. More about working with sensory based language next month.

Mirroring means that you observe how the other person communicates and just a few moments or a minute after they do something, you do something to 'mirror' the action. Mirroring is not copying remember.

Also, don't assume that a person's words hold the same meaning for them as they do for you. Words are only labels to describe a feeling or give meaning. When you are in sales or having other important conversations, use questions like ' what does 'challenge' mean to you?' or what does 'doing a great job' mean to you?. Notice how the meaning behind words differs from one person to another, and then you use this greater understanding to your advantage. Feeding these meanings and responding to them directly will increase your influence, heighten motivation towards you and improve relationships generally.

The strategy you choose to get your product or service to its target market will determine how big or small your market is, how quickly you can access it and how much profit you will make.

Simple I know, but it's amazing how many small businesses get it wrong from day one. 

Here's a true story.....

This week I was approached by the owner of a young business who needed help. We'll call her Jo. Jo made music recordings for a niche market. A great start for any business - a niche product for a niche market.

Jo told me that her business was less than a year old and although she really believed in the product which 'sold itself', she was struggling with sales and not earning enough money. Getting through the door was the problem she said, she felt stressed out and stuck - could we help her?

Very quickly I understood why she had the problem. Jo had chosen the wrong strategy for her great product.  She had chosen a conventional route to market that limited her and her income and eroded most of the profitability of her relatively few sales.

She had bought a database, cold called everyone on it (which she hated doing) including all follow up calls and time it takes to persuade people to meet these days - which she then had to travel to get to at her own cost - and then on a good roll she would close maybe 1 in 7 sales!

Even if she sold her high end product at £350, how much profit do you think she was making using this strategy?

Although the solution was simple and we could help her business immediately, there was a secondary problem.  She was now so cash strapped from months of inadequate sales that she didn't have the money to invest to put it right! So that was the first thing we had sort.

If she had come to us earlier, ideally before she launched her product, this could have been avoided and instead getting stressed out she could have beeen enjoying making her music and earning in her sleep. 

If you have a product or service and you want to increase sales call us on 0845 330 7884  or if we are online chat Live - simply click the button on the left.  You may qualify for a 1 hour free assessment and consultation.

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