Beware Sales Through Service

Sales through service is a seductive little term that’s been around for a while which is about to get a big ‘heave-ho’ up the hype cycle. Its rise in the customer relationship lexicon comes from contact centres eager to become profit centres, but beware it’s simplicity,  the emphasis is on service not sales.

We were amazed to see that 9 in 10 call centres have introduced this practice, are in the process of doing so, or are currently considering making this shift. - CSO Insights, 2007 Survey on Call Centres

Sales through service revolves around a ‘conversation’, even if that is machine to human. That conversation can be kicked off by the company, but the approach is more often made by the customer when looking for a service.

Examples of StS are:-

• Key account managemers, whose role is to understand client’s needs and find solutions from his company. The best do this through personal conversation, like the IBM client manager for an airline who spends most of his time talking in the airline’s staff canteen.

• The Dyson field service team, who, whilst carrying out servicing in the customer’s home find out through conversation what issues and needs the customer has. They are well versed in all the products and connected to operations to put right any issues. Customers have been highly delighted with this ‘time saving’ service.

• John Lewis, who thought that leaving customers to browse was what they wanted, but customers thought staff were being aloof and unfriendly. After a 5 year sales through service programme, staff now acknowledge the customer, open up conversations, and close sales by matching product to need as closely as possible – even if it means selling a lower priced product than the customer had intended to buy.

• Amazon, who were founded on a sales through service philosophy.

• O2, who supply service contact centre staff with information on the customer’s risk of attrition, and the three best offers (sales or service) to make to that customer based on propensity modelling and the content of the call. Around 6% of their 50million annual calls now generate revenue, and customer satisfaction is reported to have risen.

All the examples emphasise that StS is not just about revenue generating sales, it is about exchanging value. That may be free upgrades, helpful advice, or customer care, in exchange for customer engagement, recommendations, valuable data – and yes, at some point sales.