?=$, from Enquiry to Sales
When a customer calls (Phone or F2F) an organization seeking information about a product or service that they offer, it is an enquiry – rather a sales opportunity. Most organizations at the senior management level do understand the importance of converting every one of these calls or interactions into sales i.e money. Are the frontline teams trained and ready to translate ? = $
We are still not through with the recession and I decided to check how the front line staff (reservations) in hotels of different categories deal with telephone enquiries. I found the results of this exercise a bit disappointing even with some popular five star hotel chains and hence a gap between the senior management’s thinking and the reality with the front line teams.
Everyone of the calls had a similar opening and infact the same scenario. My friend made a call as a foreign national staying in a hotel where she was not at all happy with the service. She said that she was going to stay for 2 more days in chennai and that she was returning on the 19th September for a week. She was calling to make sure that her stay during that period was more comfortable in a better hotel. A couple of hotels asked her to send an e-mail requesting the hotel to make the booking and that they would reply to her mail. This I thought was utter nonsense. The agent could have very well said – “we dont need your business miss”. With a million choices out there, remember no customer is going to send you an e-mail request just because you want it that way.
In most cases, the agents did not seem motivated by the new business and just took the reservation down for the stay starting 19th September insisting on credit card details. This is good but just not good enough. I am not even talking about recommendations and upsells at this stage. Not a single hotel had a reservation agent who empathized and said “I am so sorry to hear that Madam. I understand you’ve had a bitter experience but you have just called the right place.” – despite the fact that she mentioned in the beginning of every call that the hotel in which she was right now staying was lousy. In fact there was no attempt to invite her to stay the last two days of this visit and make it better for her. She had two more days and that is pretty decent business.
Most of the agents were not trained to listen. This is exactly the gap and the reason for many enquiry calls not getting converted. Great reservations agents listen to their customers first. If you ask them they say, “We look at why they called and what they need, not what we have and what we offer”.
If you are a reservations / sales manager reading this blog, then I recommend that you close this gap by:
- Making agents realize how much of a difference they can make by handling these enquiries efficiently,
- Boost their confidence and train them to listen,
- Make random audits of not just your team but also of the competition
- Compare and review performance during these audits regularly with your team.
In my opinion, if you listen carefully – you can also sell why they need what you have.
There is an old saying – “Customers dont care how much you know until they know how much you care”.
