Appearing busy: The right thing to do?

So today, after re-establishing myself as a private music tutor, I took a trip down memory lane remembering all of the experiences I had talking to other teachers about their experiences, what to look out for, all the usual and I clearly remembered one thing I was told: "Always appear to be busy".

My interpretation is that the purpose of doing this would be to exemplify the busy schedule you've created by being a fantastic teacher. This makes a lot of sense. If you're the owner of a business, especially a service based business, you don't ever want to come across desperate by offering any time under the sun. Your customers will lose faith in a service provider who is clearly not servicing any one.. possibly because the service is bad? No. Probably because the service is bad. 

The real problem with phrases like this (always appear busy) is that they don't outline the course of action you can take. In one extreme you could simply turn away "sales" by pretending to be so busy that it constricts  your availability and leads to inflexibility that looses you the sale. On the other hand, you could pretend to be really busy but then under questioning actually be available any time day or night for this person:

"Chris speaking"
"Hi, yes, I'm wondering if you have any time available for another singing pupil?"
"Ah, well, the thing is I'm pretty much booked up at the moment except for ... Wednesday at 7pm for an hour. How does that suit you?"
"Hmmm, not so good. Are there no other days you can do?"
"Well, I don't really like doing this but I could do Thursday at 8pm?"
"No good either. What about Monday at 7?"
"Yep that's absolutely fine! See you then.."

*20 minutes later*

"Chris speaking.."
"Hi Chris, sorry we can't do Monday actually, can we make that Tuesday at 7pm instead?"
"Sure, sure that's no problem."

*Monday night*

"Chris speaking.."
"Chris, I'm so sorry, can we reschedule tomorrow to Friday at 3am?"
"Yep absolutely that's fine. See you then."
and so on...

So although they've got what they want, your credibility has gone right out the window and it also makes you look a bit arrogant. Hopefully the customer will be too happy about the prospect of getting your service when they wanted it, even when you said you were totally inflexible.

The OTHER downside of appearing too busy is that you make yourself inaccessible and almost give off the impression that it's a privilege to have your service - something no customer should ever feel...

I called a service provider and asked them if they could do a certain day and time. They then said to me they'd have to phone me back once they'd checked... I didn't get a return call in about 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Here I am, in the process of calling a list of service providers, I'm not going to put all my hopes on just one, and this one has actually put the phone down on me. It's not insulting, it's stupid. The customer is on the phone saying "When can you take my money?" and the service provider is saying "Let's not speak for a while until I'm ready". So yes, the inevitable happened. As I was waiting for a call back I had spoken to another service provider who I quite liked the sound of and I booked with them.

If you're a service provider, make sure you can take a booking at any time, otherwise, you'll lose customers and possibly provide bad customer service.

So is appearing busy right or wrong? It would be good to see a discussion about it below, but my opinion is that it's wrong to appear busy if you're not actually busy. Basically, it's wrong to lie. If you're not busy then phrase it in a positive way for the customer. You don't have to say "I have absolutely no customers and haven't for the past few months so you can pick any time you want!" You could say "Luckily I've got a free spell coming up in the next few weeks." Or something like that anyway. Remember, phrasing it so you're telling your customer your free availability is good for them is the key.

I personally operate with a few days in mind of when I'd like to teach and the hours I want to teach in and try to stick to those. When I started out last time I would regularly say "I teach on Xday, Yday and Zday between 4pm and 8pm, would a time in those slots suit you?" So already I tell them I'm professional with a clear structure... and so on.

Sure, this isn't a black and white topic, but what do you think? Right or wrong?

Push? Expect push back!

In my wanderings through life, space and time, I’ve learnt a few things. Some of them about physics! Where physics seems to directly apply to customer service is Newton’s 3rd law:

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” - If you push, expect push back!

One of the terrible things about pushy sales people is their inability to see that the potential customer is not interested. The whole process of trying to sell stops becoming about what the customer needs and becomes motivated entirely by selfish affirmation. Affirming that the sales person has the power or ability to make that person buy. This strategy might work for one off purchases, but it leaves the customer feeling hollow. They never really wanted the product, so although at the time the sales person did a good job of explaining why they should want it, that customer will eventually revert back to feeling that it was an unnecessary purchase as all the same doubts come back in.

I’d compare this experience to a salesperson trying to sell a ship. The customer doesn’t want it and for every negative reason the customer gives for not wanting it, the ship gets a hole. Sure a salesperson can plug 1 hole, maybe 2, but eventually you’ll just run out of fingers. The salesperson then demonstrates a clear disinterest in what the customer actually wants and the whole customer service situation flips. Suddenly, the salesperson is the one demanding something from the customer.

Most customers aren’t stupid and they’ll spot this shift. Suddenly the customer will feel uncomfortable and depending on the person, they may become aggressive, defensive or passive leading to a shallow sale. A business does not want any of their customers feeling any of those things. They need to feel positive about buying the item, then they’ll feel positive about your brand.

How do you make someone positive about the product? Is that the question you’re asking? If so, who benefits from the answer to that question? You or the customer?

Every question you ask and every answer you find should always lead to the customer having a better experience. This then leads to your business becoming trusted because people know you’re out to enrich their lives through the products you sell, not just enrich your own. Now of course the answer has to work out financially. A business can’t just give all their customers free products, that clearly doesn’t make sense. But what does make sense is the attitude being about enriching the customer experience.

The question I always ask myself is this: “How, with the range of products I sell, can I make this customers life better?” To answer this, you need to have paid attention to your customer. Asked them what they want, what they want from the product they want. If it’s a lifestyle product, understanding their emotional response to products is important, so ask them questions around that. A lifestyle product is all about feeling like you’ve achieved the aspiration, so get to understanding what they want. If you’re trying to hard-sell a lifestyle product, then you have just failed. They must feel good about it because that is how they’re aspiring to feel. If they don’t want it, convert your energies into selling something they do want.

In conclusion, hard selling, whilst sometimes good for the immediate figures work out disastrously in the long term. It only serves to build the wall between you and your customer. Break down the wall, get on their side and guide them to the best product you offer which suits their needs. That is good customer service.