Perry Mason, the attorney character created by Earl Stanley Gardner, was noted for proclaiming “Objection! Immaterial! Irrelevant! Incompetent!”
Younger readers might connect with the word “Objection,” shown in over sized red letters and shouted by Phoenix Wright.
Either way, when it comes to objections, they are all immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent! Exclamation point used with purpose and intent.
“If we don’t take care of the customer… somebody else will.” — Source unknown.
There are many reasons for not doing SNAP — or so others will tell you. I have been teaching others about SNAP (or a version of SNAP) for over 10 years.
Here are some of the more commonly mentioned reasons for not doing SNAP.
Read through these objections. Do any of them sound familiar; have you heard these before from anyone? What thoughts or reaction do you have to these objections?
Some reasons mentioned for not doing SNAP:
“I don’t have enough time.” This is my favorite. The person who says this is saying they don’t have time for their customer. With some coaching, we can help this person know that taking time for the customer is critical to success; and, for the selfish person — the one who doesn’t care that much about the customer — we can help them understand that using SNAP will actually save them time.
“It takes too long.” It is true that doing something new will take some extra time. However, using SNAP in plug and play mode is almost effortless. As you use SNAP, and find that you have bought back time, you will have extra time to invest in making SNAP more effective for you. SNAP takes 30 to 60 seconds. Those who say it takes too long don’t know what they are talking about.
“I don’t know what the status of things are.” Well, if you don’t know the status of things, then what does your customer know? You know more than your customer. Power users of SNAP will toss out multiple SNAP messages; this is especially true when the status of things are uncertain or change quickly.
“Things change too fast for me to accurately inform customers.” Those who say this may be afraid to make simple decisions. Of course, things change. That does not mean we can’t know what is happening now — in terms of status or timing. Go ahead, and make a commitment, let your customer know what is going on — and if things truly change quickly, then promise your customer a follow up SNAP. The amount of time it takes to do this is much less than the time it takes for you to react to customers and their questions.
“They already know, why tell them again.” This is usually said of repeat customers or internal customers. They know what we do, so why take time to tell them? Whether you think your customers know what is going on or not, your work for them is still part of a workflow. Add SNAPs into your workflows. Go ahead, tell them what they already know. The whole idea is to connect with your customers. If you are focused on connecting with customers, then so what if they know or think they know what you are doing for them. Go ahead and tell them with a careful, thoughtful, conversational SNAP.
“Ok, I’ll do it; I save my SNAPs for the end of the day.” This person is basically saying that they give up — other objections having failed, you will likely hear this one. Don’t accept it. This is a bad compromise. Recall our earlier thoughts on real time. End of the day is not real time. Go for real time.
“I don’t understand.” This objection is from someone who does not want to take time to think. SNAP does not require hours and hours of thinking, it does take some investment, but that investment is easy to make. The person who says they don’t understand may need your assistance to better understand who the customer is and how important the customer is to your business.
“What difference does it make?” This person is similar to the prior one; they need to know how important the customer is. Perhaps you have an opportunity to align incentives. Usually employees or customer service providers who don’t connect what they are doing to customer outcomes have some form of misaligned incentive.
They don’t get the WIIFM of the proposition — WIIFM = What’s In It For Me.
“They will just ask more questions.”
“It’s too much information.”
“If they really want to know, they will ask.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
You will hear these and many other objections. Listen to them and respond with care. Objections are a way for the other person to tell you:
1. They don’t get it.
2. They don’t care.
3. They truly don’t understand.
4. They are resisting for some reason.
Use workshop opportunities to identify objections, the reasons for the objections and work through bringing others to a greater understanding of the importance of your customers.
When working SNAP with a team or small group, an excellent educational exercise is to hold small group discussions using these and other obstacles as topics. You will quickly know who gets it and who doesn’t. Seeing these different positions with members of your team or your leaders, or your business partners, allows you to more easily hone in on any customer service communication gaps.
Make a point of discussing WIIFM with your team. You can do this by asking some questions focused of individual team members. Feel free to customize or add other questions based on your team, your industry or the specific WIIFM challenge you need to solve. Some questions to ask:
Have you ever struggled to get the customer to understand that you are really working on ____ for them?
Have you ever wondered why your customer’s ask such silly questions?
Have you ever wished your customers would stop interrupting what you are doing so you can just get your work done?
Have you ever wished you had more time available to you during the day?
Have you ever wished your customers had a better understanding of what was going on with ___ ?
Have you ever wished your customers saw you and your co-workers as a more integrated team?
Have you ever wondered what you can do to get better customer service scores?
These and other similar questions are great ones to use when working with your team or co-workers. Use them with yourself, as well. What can you do to improve your relationship with your customers? There are probably many options that will come to mind as these questions get answered.
One absolutely great, fantastic option is SNAP.
Insight: As you consider SNAP and work through objections, start by just looking at your use of time. Most likely you will find two things:
1. Objecting to and avoiding the use of SNAP on a regular basis takes more time than adopting SNAP. We all don’t need to become level five masters. Avoiding the most basic use of SNAP takes more time than just using it.
2. Not using SNAP and dealing with customer questions, research, investigations, follow up, complaints, criticisms, less than desirable customer service scores all takes significantly more time than just pushing SNAP out of the box and doing a plug and play. Know that SNAP all by itself does not eliminate service failures or the need to deal with customer issues. However, it can dramatically reduce service failure occurrences. Let’s understand that many customer complaints are not related to errors or processes that break or products not delivered or service not performed. Too many are directly related to a gap in expectations. If you have investigated customer complaints, the worst ones to quantify and correct for the customer are related to expectation gaps.
“I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.” Quote attributed to James Cash Penney, founder of J. C. Penney Company.
While there are most certainly 10,000 reasons not to do something, focus on the one or two really good reasons out there to actually engage, initiate, implement.
“What a concept! I’ve often been frustrated with balancing the desire for constant updates on projects, yet challenged with not wanting to waste valuable time or provide unnecessary emails too soon before projects are completed. What a difference it’s made by proactively applying this simple technique to diminish any concerns that all is being taken care of,” says Monica Treacy, retail marketing consultant.
Be material! Be relevant! Be competent!
Use SNAP to attack the Gap. Be a doer. Make SNAP happen. Run past the objections as fast as possible and take others with you.
© 2012, Philip Espinosa. All rights reserved.
