David Heimer: Yea, so let’s talk about that, let’s talk about the quantifiable difference between a normal CSR and a great CSR. So you just mentioned, I think the key component of it is that the normal CSR has about a 60% conversion rate or booking rate, is that right?

Brigham Dickinson: Yea, but that’s more of a symptom, it’s one of the KPIs that we can look at. But our goal is to create an amazing experience for the customer over the phone. And so one of the only things we can look at is says, okay, where’s their call conversion at? To help us determine whether or not they’re having a great experience over the phone. But if it’s an existing customer that calls in, I mean, you can act as if you’re doing them a favor and still book that opportunity. So it’s not just about booking the call, it’s about creating an experience for that customer. Maybe the best thing to do David is to look at what a great customer service rep is, what they are. And let’s define what that is and that is somebody who is incredibly positive, somebody who’s very confident. What I mean by that is they’re very practiced and they listen to their own phone calls.

They have a coach that they’re working with on a regular basis. There’s a lot of groundwork that’s done before they get on the phones; they’re great listeners now, when you’re face to face, you don’t really need to talk to show that you’re listening. Over the phone, we don’t have that luxury. We’ve got to be able to show them that we’re listening by restating, rephrasing, reflecting the feelings that the customer’s feeling, being able to really show them that we have a true understanding of where they’re coming from with our voice, with what we say, our voice reflection and so on and so forth. We need to be very empathetic. CSR’s have a tendency to not be as empathetic as they should because they hear the same things over and over, and over again and then it becomes monotonous to them.

David Heimer: Yeah, I understand you’re hot today it’s not cooling let’s move on.

Brigham Dickinson: Exactly, you know, this happens once every five years for the customer and 20 million times a day for the CSR. So you’re exactly right. So there’s got to be great a empathy. The great CSR will focus on the things that they do as opposed to the things that they do not do. So a CSR who is not trained, they have a tendency to say, we don’t do this, we don’t do that. They say words like, unfortunately. Unfortunately, it’s just a really bad thing to say to a customer, what you’re saying is you’re not fortunate. In other words, we have the {inaudible 03:52} to say, they’re not lucky, they’re not lucky people. We shouldn’t be saying words like that and so a trained CSR will focus on what they can do. Here’s what we can do, and for example, if it’s after hours, you’re not going to say, yeah, we don’t charge the same fee at night. It’s going to be a whole lot more expensive for you tonight.

David Heimer: We don’t work at night.

Brigham Dickinson: Exactly, so we come out tonight at $169, we come out tomorrow at $69, which would you prefer? See, I just told you what I can do and never once said no. So it’s just a matter of being trained to the point where you’re always focused on what you can do. A trained CSR is asking the right questions. They’re finding out what’s missing and what’s the right answer and they’re responding accordingly and this is all based on practice and ongoing accountability. They create unique value for the customer, it’s not just, Hey you know what? We’re going to send out a trained technician, who’s certified {inaudible 04:43}. That’s all scripted stuff that a normal CSR would follow.

This fantastic CSR is so good that they take whatever the problem the customer described at the beginning and they rephrase that to the point where it’s completely about them, that this technician is going to come out and take care of this specific problem the customer described at the beginning of the phone call. And then lastly, they’re grateful, extremely grateful over the phone, and they say things like my pleasure and thank you. I mean, they’re very sincere and authentic throughout the entire process. That’s a phenomenal CSR. As a byproduct, they book more calls because of that experience. Of course, not only do they book more calls, but they’re selling service agreements left and right why the customer likes them.

David Heimer: All right and I agree with all that, but you know, I’m a numbers guy, love numbers. So 60% is the industry average for booking calls, right?

Brigham Dickinson: And that’s a high average, we’re been nice to the contractors.

David Heimer: A really top notch CSR, what would you say their booking rate is going to be?

Brigham Dickinson: 85 at least.

David Heimer: Okay, so the difference there, 25% roughly you multiply that times the number of calls that a CSR is going to get, you multiply that times, the average value of a call. And, you know, you could go a whole lot longer than that, the lifetime value of a customer, etcetera, etcetera. But just on that basis alone, when I ran the numbers years ago, the difference was about $300,000 a year. The difference between the average CSR and a top-notch CSR to the company’s top line, it’s about 300 to $350,000. That’s a lot of money.

Brigham Dickinson: Yes, it is a lot.

David Heimer: I mean, it’s that much difference you could afford to pay for some training for them, you could afford to pay them better couldn’t you?

Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, every company in this industry should be investing in their CSRs and training their CSRs. And the numbers that you’re providing are really conservative we found that you take your average ticket and say it’s 500 bucks. You’re taking 20 phone calls a day and you’re able to book one more call out of the 20 calls that you get. That’s an extra hundred $25,000 a year, just because you’re booking one more phone call a day. Well, when you go from 60% to 85%, that’s not just one more call. That’s probably seven, eight, maybe even nine calls a day. And if that’s true, now we’re talking about millions of dollars, not just hundreds of thousands. And we do have companies, for example, Russell’s Heating and Cooling, when they first started working with us, they were at 3 million, today they’re at 12 million and they use this as the primary thing they did. The primary thing that they changed in their business was the way their CSRs handled their phones. That’s a significant jump, three to 12 million just because you’re booking the calls that are already coming to your office. But it is the most neglected part of your business. That is a customer touch point with a few small changes, a little bit of accountability and training can make a significant difference in your business financially.

David Heimer: Talk to me a little bit about what the best practices of CSR training is because I know a lot of times people think, well, I’ll have someone come in and do some training, or I’ll have them watch a video, or I’ll have them read a book. But I think you alluded to it earlier and it’s true with sales training. Sales training is one of those things that needs to be reinforced over and over again. So talk to me about what you think some of the best practices are for CSR training.

Brigham Dickinson: I’ve been training my entire life, in fact, my mother owned a coaching company.

David Heimer: Oh I didn’t know that.

Brigham Dickinson: And I watched her, yeah, ever since I was young, I’ve been around coaching and learned a lot about it. In fact my first job out of college was Ascend marketing, the owner’s name is Jim Ackerman and I did a lot of marketing coaching then. So I’ve been coaching my entire life. The training industry is big. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. And without ongoing accountability, in my opinion, it’s a bit of a scam because you provide training and then you pat them on the back and say, good luck. And two weeks later, they go back to what they were doing before, which is even worse than the training that they had; without providing the trainee with some sort of result. For example, CSR is super easy. You have them listen to their own phone calls and then you have them listen to a best practice call, basically where the CSR demonstrates exactly what we’re looking for. And then they’re able to tell the difference between where their call is at, where their performance is currently at, and where it should be.

And then they realize for themselves, I’ve got some changes to make because what they do is they go, wow, I know what to do, but obviously I’m not doing it. Well, that’s not what you paid for. That’s not what anybody paid for. And then the question comes up, which is why you are paying for it in the first place. I wouldn’t do any training unless there was an ongoing accountability behind it. The goal is for them to actually do what they know. You invest in training so that they change behavior. If that behavior doesn’t change, why pay for it? So if you’re going to do training, you also want training that guarantees the result and the only way to get a result is to take a look at their performance over time and make sure those habits are being changed. So ongoing accountability is what’s great about coaching is so we have the ability to listen to the phone calls over time, take them through four levels of certification. And it’s not just one-on-one coaching twice a month. It’s also online course training where on the off weeks, they’re going through those online courses and taking tests and making sure that they’re moving along in the process and changing their habits.

David Heimer: How do you guys actually do this? You’ve got initial training and then there is some ongoing planned follow-up. How do you guys do that?

Brigham Dickinson: So we coached twice a month using their own phone calls and during that coaching session, we have a pre-structured lesson, and team that pre-structured lesson we talk about whatever it may be, whether it’s focusing on empathy or listening skills or overcoming customer objections, like price objections, or pushing back on the timing. And we teach them best practice, and then we demonstrate what that best practice is, either over the phone, or we’ve got a best practice call from CSR, that’s already been through power certification and we demonstrate that best practice. And then we have them listen to their own phone calls. So they’re able to see after we’ve gone over all of that, they’re able to see where they’re at compared to where we need them to be. At that point, when they realize for themselves that changes need to be made, we’d be in the practice with them over the phone.

David Heimer: Do you guys listen to the phone call with them, or is it something that they do on their own, or is it kind of a mix of both?

Brigham Dickinson: We played their calls during that coaching session, not in their entirety, just the parts that we want them to hear and the parts that we’re working on. And then on the off weeks, the weeks where we’re not coaching, we’re providing them with an assignment for an online course that reinforces what we just taught. So they go online, they go through that course; they take the test, they have to do 70 or better or they have to take the test over again. And their coach as well as their manager is notified, letting them know whether or not they passed it. The manager and the owner gets a report at the end of each month, telling them where each of their CSRs are at, in the certification process. So there’s four levels of certification that we take them through. And it’s a bit of a university, it takes about a year and a half to complete, but by the time they’re done, we guarantee they’ll book at least 85% of the phone calls, or we give them money back. We have over 800 trainees in the program; as we speak.

David Heimer: When I first met you, you and maybe one or two other people in the company, that’s a phenomenal growth way to go.

Brigham Dickinson: Thanks.

David Heimer: The proof is in the pudding, you wouldn’t have grown if it wasn’t working for people, right.

Brigham Dickinson: That’s right, and it continues to get better, we are constantly working on it.

David Heimer: There’s another component to this, there’s the recording, listening to phone calls. So is it a best practice just to record every call that comes in to the company?

Brigham Dickinson: I would record all the calls, but we don’t listen to all of them, we listened to enough.

David Heimer: Nobody has time for that.

Brigham Dickinson: Yea, we saved certain calls for coaching purposes. We’re looking for specific things based on the pre-structured lessons that we have. And then once we find what we’re looking for in those calls, we save those calls, we put them in a file and then the coach uses them during the coaching session. I’m not sure if that answers your question, David.

David Heimer: No, it does, it’s a best practice to record the calls that come in. You can’t possibly expect to listen to all of them. But you can listen to some of them get a sense of what’s going on. And then you guys are going to use those to coach, it makes perfect sense.

Brigham Dickinson: Yea.

David Heimer: Is there any AI that’s associated with this at this point? Are there, are there systems that will listen for certain things and say, okay, here’s one that you should probably listen to.

Brigham Dickinson: Yea, there are definitely algorithms out there that, and it’s still work in progress, but they’re looking for specific things.

David Heimer: {Cross talk 13:11}.

Brigham Dickinson: Not yet, we’ve been testing a few over the years. But they’re getting there and of course it’s important to us because we have a team of call monitors that we’re paying to save certain calls. So when we get to the point where we have technology that will help with that, as we grow, that’s very cost effective for us to kind of narrow it down. But the AI that we’ve tested so far, it’s about 75% accurate, and sometimes with that 25% you get calls that just are totally random. So it’s a work in progress and it’s definitely not something we want to advertise until it’s perfected.

David Heimer: What else should I know about CSR training?

Brigham Dickinson: In general, you’ve got to ask yourself, what’s the big deal? Why is this so important? I wonder if I could just do this in the office myself, and if it’s all you did, you probably could. The fact of the matter is, it’s not all you do I mean, even if you’re a call monitoring manager, it’s still not all you do. You can get sucked into that department very quickly, listening to phone calls, recruiting new CSRs, coaching CSRs, and you find yourself incredibly busy and not knowing which way is up very quickly. And so when we come in, we have a team of call monitors. We have a team of coaches. I mean, we have coaching mentors that listen to our coaches and provide coaching to them based on their coaching calls every week. So even your coaches are being coached. It is a well-oiled machine that gives CSR managers and owners the ability to work on that department as opposed to getting sucked up into it.

And the other thought is this, you might think to yourself, okay, being positive, confident, listening, caring, okay great. Those are all great things, again, there are things that we know, things that we also do not do. It’s psychology, we focus way too much on economics and tech, not just in our industry, but in the American market and Canadian market we focus a lot on economics and a lot on tech. But we tend to forget that we’re working with people and just by focusing on the people, it’s amazing how economics tends to fall into place.

And that’s how we’ve run our business. We focused on people, not just towards our consumers, but towards each other. I mean, we don’t have a brick-and-mortar building, that’s what’s amazing about this company. I’ve got 35 people in this company and we all get together on Google Hangouts. Everybody’s responsible for a specific number, and from an entrepreneurial standpoint, they own that number. We all have a consistent vision. We’re all on the same page while working towards the same thing. And it’s about people, we put people first and as we teach people to do what we’re doing, it’s amazing the results they have and as well as the results that we’re having because of that focus. So if nothing else remember that you’re working with people that it’s really about psychology before economics or tech and if nothing else, put psychology up there as high as economics and tech, put them on a level playing field. And I promise you, you’re going to see the results because that’s who you’re working with, you’re working with people.

David Heimer: Yeah, and at the end of the day, it is a people business, and it’s about treating people the right way, making them feel happy, making them feel good, making them feel like you’re going to take really good care of them. That’s what we want, I think every company, once such as some, do a really good job of communicating that and a lot of them don’t.

Brigham Dickinson: Yeah, the owner says hey, provide great customer service; okay so what does that mean? How do I do that? And then the next question you’ve got to ask is, is the leader providing great customer service to the CSR, to the technician, to the installers? Is he treating them like his consumer? And when he does, when he makes that transition and he, or she shows them by his or her example, what great customer service looks like by the way he treats them, it’s going to make all the difference. In fact, our most successful businesses are the ones where the leader shows them by example what great customer service looks like as opposed to just lip service, hey, take care of that customer, there’s a difference.

David Heimer: Brigham, this has been fantastic, really interesting talking with you. You guys have done such a fabulous job, your reputation is so great. I always learn something when I talk with you. If somebody wanted to reach you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Brigham Dickinson: Well, you can always go to powersellingpros.com. But if you want to skip that and just call us, you can also call us at 801-253-1004.

David Heimer: So, powersellingpros.com.

Brigham Dickinson: And then, powersellingpros.com. Or email brigham@powersellingpros.com.

David Heimer: Thank you so much for doing this. This has been great.

Brigham Dickinson: Thank you.

Outro: We’re always looking for good ideas and interviews for our podcasts. If you have an idea or maybe you think you should be interviewed, just shoot an email to profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. That’s profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. If you think what we’re doing has any value, it would be very helpful if you would give us a great rating on iTunes. Thanks for your support. Hope to see you again soon. Bye.