But, now there is something that the cutting edge companies are doing that is increasing sales at a LESSER cost of acquiring those sales.

It's a third method of using the phone for customer contact and sales: When Lee Van Vechten shared this concept with me a several years ago, I got so excited about it I told him I wanted to publish the management book he was writing on it. More about that in a minute.

It is not purely customer service, nor is it hard core outbound selling.

It is NOT simply cross-selling or upselling on the inbound call.

It is not taking your reactive customer service reps and having them place calls in their spare time (which, we all know means they mysteriously have less and less spare time).

It is NOT having your highly compensated and skilled outbound sales reps follow up on inbound price requests or call customers and say,

"How's it going?"

"Do you need anything this week?"

"How are your supplies doing?"

"Wanted to make sure everything is OK."

"Can I quote on anything?"

"Any projects coming up?"

"Can I help you in any way?"

In a nutshell, the concept is quite simple: 

Calling your regular customers on a regular basis. 

That, in and of itself is not necessarily new. But doing it in a planned, organized way, with the right people, managed and compensated in the right way, within a properly-designed departmental infrastructure, is a new concept.

Proactive Customer Service is an entirely new position or department within the organizational chart. It is method of selling over the phone that lies between proactive outbound selling and reactive customer service. It generates more sales, from existing customers, but at a lesser cost to the organization than proactive outbound selling.

By using Proactive Customer Service you have regular contact with customers, which means you maintain, build, and grow better relationships with them, while protecting them from the competition.

• Manage and grow accounts that previously received little or no contact.
  
  
• Take advantage of opportunities to cross sell and upsell so as to maximize revenue from accounts, while providing the ultimate in customer satisfaction
  
  
• Minimize customer attrition do to lack of attention. You build customer loyalty since they are being contacted more often by 'their' representative.
  
  
• Your customers have ONE point of regular contact, meaning greater satisfaction, and greater likelihood of buying from you regularly

Bottom line--this says it all--you can extend the lifetime value of your customers, while LOWERING overall sales costs. More sales for less money means more profits.

• Companies that now pay too much in compensation for simple tasks such as following up on inquiries, taking orders from customers--orders that the customers would have placed anyway!
  
  
• Companies that each year increasingly lose customers and sales volume due to lack of customer contact (or worse: who don't KNOW why they're losing customers and sales)
  
  
• Companies that have tried proactive telesales, but didn't have or couldn't find the personnel necessary to handle that role, but yet still desire to proactively contact their customers
  
  
• Companies that generate sales through direct marketing (mail, catalog, internet) but do not contact the customers personally afterward in order to get repeat and referral business and build the accounts
  
  
• Companies that know they could sell more to existing customers, yet don't have an effective proactive mechanism in place to contact them. (Perhaps they tried and failed in having their Customer Service Reps place calls)

• Specifically how to test Proactive Customer Service to determine how it will work for you. (Including a detailed fill-in-the-blanks worksheet and specific examples, facts, and figures)
  
  
• How Proactive Customer Service fits within the organizational chart
  
  
• How to reduce sales compensation expenses by 15% and increase revenue by 20%
  
  
• The Four-Step Solution to sales channel compensation conflict among Proactive Customer Service, Inside Sales, Outside Sales, Direct Marketing Sales, and any other department.
  

WHO SHOULD BE A PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP?

• Why a person who couldn't cut it in proactive inside sales might be the perfect Proactive Customer Service Rep
• The specific behavior styles you want to look for
• Product knowledge: how much is required for each function?
   

FINDING AND HIRING YOUR PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE STAFF

• When you need a hard core sales rep, and when a Proactive Customer Service Rep will do quite nicely
• Job Descriptions: what they are and are not. Specific examples you can model from.
• How to hire a manager
• The specific, step-by-step recruiting and hiring process for reps
• Want-Ad examples, and 10 Do's and Don'ts
• What to look for, and avoid, in resumes
• How to run the telephone and in-person interviews, including the Five Questions you need to ask
• A proven form for candidate evaluation
• Word-for-word examples of Employment Agreements

COMPENSATING YOUR PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS

• 21 compensation rules
• Three specific comp plans you can model, modify, and adopt
• How to present and sell a comp plan to upper management
• How many accounts you can realistically assign to a Proactive Customer Service Rep

… and MUCH more!!

You are not simply getting a book on management philosophy written by some academic management theorist. You get a field-tested, PROVEN process that has been field-tested to be plausible and profitable, and is working as you read this.

"Excellent! No one has stopped by here for three years."

"You mean I get to talk to the same person each time! So, you'll be there when I call? That's outstanding!"

"I gave my business to your competitor; we needed someone who could take care of us and you weren't doing the job in our opinion."

"I told him I needed to return two boxes of stuff and I haven't heard from our rep since."

"Some website you have … I emailed a question two weeks ago and I still don't have an answer. I'm not clear on how to actually talk to someone."

Would your customers be saying the same things?

Or, ARE they saying some of the same negative things right now?!

Or worse yet, are they simply saying 'YES' when your competitors call?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee R. Van Vechten was in the medium of teleservices from 1962 until his passing in 2003. He was president of F.G.I., a management consulting and sales training firm, specializing in turnkey telephone selling installations and repositioning for businesses. His client list of over 200 included Honeywell, General Electric, UPS, Peterbilt, AT&T Corporate, General Foods, Coca Cola, and Dun & Bradstreet. He was the cofounder of the American Teleservices Association. Lee received Teleprofessional Magazine's Top 10 Pros of the Year award, and the Direct Marketing Association's Telemarketing Council's Pioneer Award. Lee was an authoritative source for many publications, having been a regular featured writer for DM News, Teleprofessional Magazine, Operations and Fulfillment, Telephone Selling Report, and contributed the Compensation chapter for Prentice Hall's Encyclopedia of Telemarketing, as well as Dartnell's Marketing Manager's Handbook. He was the past publisher of the Van Vechten Report and Extensions, proactive telephone selling skills newsletters for management, and TSR Hotline, a training reinforcement program for Telephone Sales Representatives. He was a frequent speaker at trade conferences and seminars. When it comes to telephone sales department operation start-up and management, Lee Van Vechten knew what to do and what to avoid to ensure success. You will have the benefit of his vast experience and knowledge in this book.
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