A client of mine has a very important customer who had never visited his office before. They'd always met at the customer's headquarters.
My client's company has two floors in an office building, and reception is on the 3rd floor. His customer decided she'd like to see where her millions of dollars in purchases are going, so she made an appointment to visit. She went directly to the floor my client is on, the 2nd floor. When she arrived, there was no receptionist, because she was on the wrong floor (even though my client instructed her to go to reception on the 3rd floor. ) She roamed the halls and cubicles. No one got up from their desk to say, "May I help you?" It wasn't their job. Needless to say, this million-dollar customer wasn't very happy when she finally tracked down my client.
As some politicos like to say, never let a disaster go to waste. (That may sound a bit extreme, but so is losing a million dollar customer.) Here are seven quick tips for making sure your workplace sells for you.
- Train all employees that all visitors are their personal customers, even if they do not have a functional role with that visitor. This means making eye contact, smiling, saying hello and asking if they can help.
- Have a lobby board that says, "Welcome, Joe Smith from XYZ Company" -- this shows visitors you thought about them.
- Maintain a clean workplace in every area a visitor can see -- especially the entrance. Have someone other than yourself look at your work entrance and critique it from the point of view of a valued customer who visits. Is the paint chipped? Carpet worn? Are two-year-old tattered magazines strewn around the visitor lobby? Make it part of someone's job to assure that the optics of your workplace shine.
- The most important person in the office is the receptionist. What is he or she communicating when someone walks in? Even if he's busy answering phones, he can still make eye contact and hand gestures to indicate he'll be right with the visitor.
- Offer self-serve refreshments: Invest in a really nice coffee and water system that isn't buried in the kitchen area. Put it where customers can find it. Have some fresh fruit or fresh, healthy, wrapped snacks available (not cheap, stale candy).
- Offer today's newspapers in the lobby with a sticker that says, "Please feel free to take this newspaper with you, courtesy of XYZ Co."
- If the company has a mission or guiding principles statement, post it in many places, where customers will see, and make sure everyone lives up to it.
Remember: whether your company is large or small, every one of your employees is selling, all the time.