DON'T SEND THEM TO THE OTHER STORE!

As you may know by now, I have been on the indirect side of the wireless business for many years now. For those who don’t understand the difference, here is a quick definition:

Direct- Carrier owned and operated sales channels (corporate stores, corporate B2B teams, etc.).

Indirect- Privately owned wireless business that represents the carrier or carriers (carrier store not owned by the carrier, multi-carrier stores, and wholesalers).

Now that we have that out of the way..... The topic today is something I truly hate that Indirect dealers do and this is coming from an indirect guy. This thing burns me up because it’s not good for your business OR your reputation.

....STOP SENDING CUSTOMERS TO THE CORPORATE STORE.

Now, before I get multiple e-mails telling me that you have no choice, let me tell my side here. I know there are instances where there is no way around having a customer do some sort of function at a carrier operated store, I get it. What I am saying is 98% of the time customers are sent there because we just don’t want to deal with the problem. Ask any employee at a corporate store what they hate most and you will probably hear something like “The dealers keep sending their problems to me and most of the time I need to send them back to the original store".

My fellow indirect peeps.... STOP THE MADNESS. Any time you send an "issue" away to another store, you are in essence losing a customer. You have lost all credibility you created at the point of sale. You advertise "One stop shop" or "Best Customer service" only to turn away most of your customers and send them packing to the competition. I know this is one of the hardest things to get sales representatives to do. I have heard every excuse in the book.... "I get paid for selling, not dealing with problems", or "I will miss a sales if I help that person". It makes me ill and it should make you ill also if you are in a leadership role. The only way to stop it is to hit it right between the eyes. Here are some examples of what you should explain to them and practice yourself.


Here is why you should NOT send them to the carrier store.

• They are your customer! Even if you didn’t originally sell them their handset they walked in to see you. If you did sell them their handset/service, I am SURE that you said something like “If you have any problems just give me a call or stop by". I have seen hundreds of examples of this right in front of me.

• It IS your issue. Customer comes in and has a billing issue (this is common) and you say something like this "You will have to call customer service or stop by the XYZ corporate store to get it fixed". Why would you ever let your sales people or yourself say something like this? It’s like your saying "I didn’t make the mistake on your bill, go to the people that did, I’m not xyz carrier". The problem is you ARE XYX carrier. You represent their product and service and you need to take responsibility of an issue. Do everything you can to help them through it. If you can’t get customer care to help, use your resources! I’m sure you all have some sort of carrier representation you can call to help.

• Problems = Sales. You read that correct. Some of my best clients over the years have been people that came to me or my managers to COMPLAIN. Some didn’t just complain they were flipping out. I had one customer who had 3 phones with us. She called the night prior and spoke to one of my sales reps. The rep never gave me a message that this woman needed help. Next day I get the call and she was YELLING AT ME like I was a 12 year old that caught stealing from church (that’s not a real life example by the way). After listening to her for about 30 minutes tell me how horrible I was, she agreed to come to the store and see me. 20 minutes later she was fixed up. It was a simple service issue and my tech was able to fix it in minutes. She now has 10 phones with us. She saw that even though we couldn’t wave a magic wand and that we made a communication error that inconvenienced her....that we went the extra mile to help her out. We didn’t send her somewhere else or have her call Sprint customer care. She trusted us for her future needs and won’t go anywhere else. There have been many examples like this in my career.

• You just lost an OPPORTUNITY. So you sent them to the corporate store and they get help there. Do you think that perhaps the corporate trainers may teach them something like this..."Have you seen the latest accessories for the ABC phone your have, let me show you quickly", or "We are having a sales on Bluetooth headsets, have you heard the new laws?, let me show you how easy they are to use", or maybe "I see you have the $39.99 plan and like to text message, I can save you money by ADDING the $4.99 / month text feature to your plan". Your damn right they are trained to do that as your people should be. Not only we are we creating revenue, we are adding to the customers overall experience with their handset.

The ONLY time you should send someone to the corporate owned store is if one of the following happen.

• Customer care helped you solve a handset issue and they are directing you to send the customer to a corp. store. This would include warranty exchanges that are out of your return period.

• A direct carrier rule on a process that you’re just not allowed to do.

THAT’S IT. And by the way, it still hurts to send them there no matter what the issue. The most important thing you can do is CREATE A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR LOCAL CARRIER STORE. They don’t WANT to hate you. Go to the store and introduce yourself to the manager. Explain to them who you are and how you do business. Get to know them. Explain that you don’t want to send ANY PROBLEMS to them, that you handle things because you are that type of business. Most importantly make sure you ARE that type of business! Check in once in a while to make sure they are not seeing any issues directed from your business.

You will find that handling things at your place of business will create repeat business and a real trust with your customers. They will add features, upgrade phones, buy accessories, and refer people to you. These are all important parts of our business.


CS