Sales and Customer Service Standards

"Could you imagine the Fed-Ex guy showing up in brown shorts and a brown shirt?"

By Brad Huisken -- JCK Online, 6/1/2009 2:00:00 AM

What do Fed-Ex, The Ritz-Carlton, McDonald's, Disney, Hertz, IBM, and Nordstrom have in common? They all have non-negotiable sales and customer service standards. Could you imagine the Fed-Ex guy showing up in brown shorts and a brown shirt? What do you think would happen if the McDonald's employee refused to say, "Would you like fries with that?"

Jewelry stores should have non-negotiable sales and customer service standards. Standards are those policies and directives that must never be compromised. Standards are non-negotiable. They should be considered a minimum requirement for sales employees to maintain their positions. If you allow people to disregard standards, you won't be as effective as you should be.

Sales standards are policies that have a direct effect on sales. For example, salespeople should be required to try to close every sale and sell additional items. There are many others. You have to establish and instill these standards in your salespeople.

You also must have a set of customer service standards that, again, cannot be compromised. These standards ensure that customers receive either exchange in abundance or complete satisfaction. Are they leaving your store with a positive impression that will motivate them to return? Are they leaving with an indifferent impression? Or are they leaving thinking the store is so terrible they'll tell others to stay away?

Author Information

Author, trainer, consultant, and speaker Brad Huisken is president of IAS Training and the author of the books I'm a Salesman! Not a Ph.D. and Munchies for Salespeople: Sales Tips You Can Sink Your Teeth Into! He developed the PMSA Relationship Selling Program, the Professional Sales Management Course, The Mystery Shoppers Kit, and The Weekly Sales Training Meeting video series, as well as aptitude tests and proficiency exams for new hires, current sales staff, and sales managers. Huisken and his staff of trained professionals conduct in-house training and consulting all over North America on an ongoing basis. He also publishes a free weekly newsletter called "Sales Insight." For a free subscription or more information, contact IAS Training at (800) 248-7703, fax (303) 936-9581, e-mail: info@iastraining.com, or visit www.iastraining.com.

Here are tips for setting and maintaining standards:

Make sure salespeople understand the philosophy behind the standards you set.
Write down and post standards.
Managers should constantly reinforce sales and customer service standards.
Managers must be willing to write up and eventually terminate people for violations of standards.
Managers should instill and reinforce only a few sales and customer service standards at a time (but, eventually, instill and drive home all of them).