How confident are ALL your staff in talking about your services? The key word here is ‘confident’. Whilst you may ask your staff the question ‘Do you know what we do here?’, it’s not until you ask them to talk about your services that you get closer to the truth. If your staff are not confident to talk about what your practice does, they are less likely to spot opportunities or to pass on enquiries to the relevant Partner or member of staff.
So, what can you do to enable your staff to generate new sales or spot cross-selling opportunities with existing clients?
- Staff survey – list all your services and ask staff to state whether they are ‘confident’ or ‘not confident’ to talk about this. The first time you do a survey like this it is common to find that most of your staff are not confident to talk about what you do. It doesn’t matter if they are in a client-facing role or not, it’s important that your staff are happy to talk about your practice, even if it’s just with they’re friends or family, as they could be potential clients.
- If lack of service knowledge is a problem, you need to spend time training your staff on what you offer and the features and benefits of what you do. You don’t need to make everyone experts on what you do, but they should at least have an appreciation of what the practice does and know who in the organisation to refer enquiries to. Training could be done via group presentations, quizzes based on the products and services listed on your website, or company-wide discussions. Choose the format that best works for your practice, but make it happen and do regular updates.
- Staff updates – to really engage your staff in your business, make them see how their role fits in with the business strategy and, in particular, fee targets. Throughout the year, give feedback on how well the practice is doing against its set objectives, and if appropriate, ask for their input on how to ensure targets are achieved.
- Use different methods to communicate company news and updates – notice boards, staff newsletters, intranet, meetings etc.
- Set up an ideas scheme whereby staff are encouraged to submit their suggestions once a quarter for how the company can attract more clients, cross-sell to existing clients, run more efficiently, or save money.
The more staff understand what your practice does, the more likely they are to take an active role in helping you win new business and retain existing clients, which will help to increase your fees.
