If you think it’s because they are more polite and courteous… you would be wrong.
As a specialist in mystery shopping and sales training, Creative Sales Solutions (CSS) has mystery shopped thousands of parts, service, and rental employees representing every major manufacturer. They have found, without question, that the employees who were most successful consistently used a unique set of customer service and selling skills to uncover and solve their customer’s problems.

The top people they mystery shopped were not necessarily more polite or courteous. In fact, CSS found that almost all of the people they mystery shopped were polite and courteous. What separated the most successful employees from the rest of the pack were the techniques they used to uncover and solve the customer’s problems. Some examples of proven techniques used by the top employees include:

• asking good diagnostic questions in order to uncover the problem
• offering the customer additional parts and repairs needed for the job
• solving the customer’s problem and then asking for the order

CSS has created an extremely novel training program that not only teaches the techniques utilized by the most successful parts and service people, but also motivates the employees to adopt and implement these proven concepts. Think about the last great training class you went to. You left the program excited by the new knowledge and skills you had acquired. You were excited and ready to put them to use. Then you returned to your office. You had e-mails to read, voice mails to return, and a stack of work on your desk. Within 24 hours you had forgotten more than 65% of what you learned. Within a week 95% was lost.

Why does this happen? Because there is nothing to motivate you to review, adopt, and implement the training. Jim Facente, President of Creative Sales Solutions, says training without motivation to implement what was learned is the basic fundamental flaw common to almost all training programs.

So how does CSS solve this problem? During their training sessions, CSS informs each employee that they will be mystery shopped again after their training is complete. They are told that the intent is to measure how much of the proven concepts presented in the training they have adopted on a day to day basis. Mr. Facente points out that by combining mystery shopping with the training program the dealer reaps three major benefits:

• it motivates the employee to review, practice, and adopt what was learned
• it provides the dealer with a quantifiable measure of the effectiveness of the training
• it provides valuable insight into the commitment of the employee in the event they fail to adopt these proven techniques

Kevin Langer of Langer Material Handling, a Caterpillar dealer in Pittsburgh offered this comment, “One of the best parts of the CSS program is that it increases sales and you don’t have to advertise, hire more sales people, or find new customers.”

For more information about the Creative Sales Solutions program you can contact CSS at 800-539-1075 or visit their website at www.cssmysteryshop.com