You also bring up a good point about taking pride in customer satisfaction - if service techs are rewarded and praised for their successful service, then they will be motivated to continue to deliver excellent service. This is also something that appears to be changing as post-sale service becomes more important. Thanks for commenting and please feel free to share more of your experiences with our readers!

The biggest issue I noted as I assumed my new job was that employees (everyone, not just the engineers) were not focused on customer satisfaction and literally took no pride in achieving positive customer feedback. Engineers were not adequately trained and viewed being sent off to training as a major inconvenience. Call slips (the note taken when a customer calls in with a problem) could be found on the floor, in the trash, etc. So I began a series of talks with my almost 60 employees about how I felt about our job and what I expected in the future.

I started with a VHS training tape from John Cleese (yes, of Monty Python fame). I believe it was entitled “Who sold you this then?” and demonstrated how an engineer can absolutely destroy customer satisfaction and confidence by convincing the customer he/she had bought the wrong product. After some discussion, the group decided the salesperson really had sold the wrong product but the engineer took entirely the wrong approach in addressing the problem. The consensus was that the engineer should talk to the salesperson about why the engineer believes the wrong product was sold and look for ways the engineer could help the salesperson get the customer to upgrade.

We continued to go through similar scenarios (no, not all John Cleese) in subsequent meetings with similar results. Ultimately, my goal (accomplished) was to get all of the branch staff to look for ways to help our customers be successful in their business. This also led to engineers more closely involving sales to sell additional products and services.

My point is simply that I don’t think it is entirely appropriate to saddle technicians and field engineers with sales related tasks and metrics. If they are motivated to always look for ways to improve the customers’ situation, the sales opportunities will surface.

(P.S. By the time I moved on, 2.5 years later, the branch was the most profitable in the district, had employee turnover of less than 5% per year and was in the top 1/3 of the nation in the customer survey.)