The 6 P’s of a decision

I was recently sitting at a restaurant speaking to a few friends of mine about why and how people decide to buy a certain product or service and it made me think, “Why do people decide to buy?”  One of my friends claimed that he doesn’t make any decisions based on emotion but rather he avoids any wasteful spending choices by making all his decisions with logic.  His claim of having all decisions being made by logic made me remember a professor I once had and the 6 P’s involved in any decision.  Even though logic can be a part of a decision, it still boils down to these 6 P’s or needs being satisfied in the decision process. 

The 6 P’s are pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power.  Every buying decision we make revolves around one of these P’s, or needs being met.  Think about the last buying decision you made and I can guarantee one of these needs is being met.  The advantage of knowing these needs in a person’s buying decision allows you as a business and as a sales person to find creative ways to address the needs of potential customers and encourage buying decisions.  These 6 intrinsic needs being met are the “So What’s in it for me” in the buying decision of the customer. 

I used these 6 P’s as a way to justify a question I had.  Recently  I was watching the Presidential debate.  I said to myself, “Who would want to be President at this point in history when the world seems to be a chaotic mess?”  Well, I decided to think about the 6 P’s and it became clear as to why someone would want to be President.  At the top of the list, the need of Power is being met.  After all, there is no more of a powerful person in the world once you become President.  The second P on the list that motivates someone to want to be President is Prestige.  The historical significance of becoming President of The United States is obvious.  You will be remembered in history until the end of days and the prestige or status associated with being President of the United States is unmatched.  Finally, there is a need that I wish wasn’t becoming so prevalent in the decision to become President, Profit.  According to a CNN analysis of 12 years of federal financial records, former President Bill Clinton had his most active and profitable year on the lecture circuit in 2012, delivering 73 speeches for $17 million from mid-January 2012 through mid-January 2013. That brought his total haul in speaking fees since leaving the White House to $106 million.  Bill Clinton is profiting from being President.

When you are selling your product or service to potential buyers, remember the 6 P’s and how those P’s impact why a customer buys.  If you can understand that, you will achieve all 6 P’s or needs being met for your business and for yourself.

Security with your texts and emails

All of us have the ability to communicate to anybody at any time utilizing many communication methods, including: texting, emailing, calling, tweeting and a variety of social network sites.  Communication is so easily done that we forget to remember about the hazards of utilizing so many communication methods.  The primary hazard is the lack of security in your communication.

Make sure your answering service protects your communication and your customer’s information by utilizing a cloud based app for texting and emailing communication.  This cloud based app stores all the information in email or text in the cloud, not on the phone which can be lost or on the computer that hackers can gain access.  Not only does our app protect you from possible liability but it can be an extra measure of protection to your customer’s privacy that surely will be appreciated.

The miSecure app that All City Communications utilizes will protect you and your clients while also providing an easy way to organize your communication in a mobile device environment.  The app will keep a history of all communication between our answering service and your on call staff in the password protected cloud, ensuring the privacy for all communications.

Since I am sure everybody that reads this blog locks their office and home when they leave for the evening, everybody should also secure their device and all the communications between you and your staff and your client.  Don’t leave it open to the public.  Do not wait until a security breach occurs and hurts your business.   

How to Maximize Your Marketing Dollars

Marketing campaigns such as: mailings, print advertising, social media, and radio commercials are a great way to generate new business.  Hopefully the marketing efforts cause a potential customer to move to action and contact your business for a product or service.  The marketing dollars spent to have the potential customer move to action is step 1 in the sales process but having a reliable answering service to ensure the benefit of the spent marketing dollars is essential to the growth of your business.

The only thing worse than spending marketing dollars and not generating any leads is spending marketing dollars and moving a customer to action and disappointing your potential customer by not being available to answer their call.  If the caller hears a voice mail or answering machine they immediately feel like their interest is trivial and not valued.  They get the impression that they are just a number and the company that they were interested in is too busy to help them with their product or service.  In that brief moment when they moved to action you need to be available. 

All City Communications allows you to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays.  We answer every call live, as your company, ensuring you will never miss a call from a prospective client.  Also, we can track where the potential customer heard about your service which will allow you to measure how effective your marketing efforts are so you can be more informed where to spend your marketing dollars.

All City Communications will allow you to be available to your current customers as well.  The ability of our operators to answer as for your company will greatly enhance the level of service you provide your customers and ensure that your customer needs will not be missed to a competitor that is available to answer their call.  If you are going to spend money on marketing efforts, ensure that you will never miss a call by having an answering service available.    

Tone and Inflection, Important and Essential to Effective Communication

Answering Services are not all built the same.  There are many qualities to consider when looking for an answering service.  You may consider qualities such as; experience in the industry, price, location, technological capabilities, or simply if the Account Representative you’re working with is responsive and friendly.   A quality that is typically overlooked when considering an answering service is the quality of the person answering your phone. 

Who the person is that is answering your phone isn’t too important, however, how the person is answering your phone and how the person answering your phone utilizes the correct tone and inflection when communicating with your clients is extremely important.  Inflection which is described as the modification of vocal speech patterns to express different grammatical categories such as volume, tone, pitch and/or cadence.  These speech patterns are even more important when dealing with clients or potential customers over the phone where non-verbal communication doesn’t exist.  Our operators understand that by changing their tones and cadence, they appear more engaged, excited, and interested in the caller.  Also, ending tones in a low pitch can give your customer the impression that you’re authoritative on a subject, or that you’re confident in your ability to help solve problems.  Voice inflection can be a major factor in how you and your message come across.  A few examples include:

•         Sounding monotone and/or flat can make you seem bored and uninterested in the       conversation subject or your customer
•         Having a slow cadence can make you seem depressed or unenthusiastic
•         Ending tones in a high pitch can make you seem unconfident, or unsure of yourself when speaking to the customer

In closing, when looking for an answering service, do your homework with how their people sound when answering the phone.  All City Communications trains our operators to be conscious of how they sound on the other end of the phone.  Even if tonal changes don’t come naturally, it’s something our operators train and practice to be effective communicators when dealing with your customers.  It is essential to communication.    

Healthy Eating and Exercise Increases Employee Performance

My father who is close to turning 76 years old always told me that exercise and eating right directly affects your job performance.  Every day after working many hours as the Sales Manager for Kraft Foods in Chicago, he would make sure, no matter how his day went, to go to the gym and workout.  As a younger person I thought he was foolish for wasting his precious time doing that.  As I grew older, I discovered he was exactly right and I wished I would have listened to him. 

Now in my 40’s I have made many changes in my life, including correct eating habits and regular exercise.  I have personally seen an increase in productivity and an increase in happiness while at work.  My energy level is extremely high, getting sick is non-existent, and even my sleep is generally more restful requiring less sleep during the night.  This is the magic that my father spoke to me about 20 years ago.  He was absolutely right.

Research from Brigham Young University shows that employees who eat healthy all day were 25 percent more likely to have higher job performance and employees who eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables at least four times a week were 20 percent more likely to be more productive.   In addition, employees who exercise for at least 30 minutes, three times a week, were 15 percent more likely to have higher job performance.  Overweight workers experienced lower job performance and higher absenteeism, compared to those employees who suffer from depression and other chronic diseases or conditions.  The study was based on data from three geographically dispersed U.S. companies, representing 20,114 employees who completed a work-related survey each year from 2008 through 2010.  I would have never believed this to be true but I have personally seen the correlation between a healthier me and my increased job performance and increased job satisfaction.

The benefit to the company is obvious, but the benefit to the employee is even greater.  A healthier person that is more productive and happier at work will positively impact the workers family life, economic life and self-esteem. 

If you can help guide your employees to a healthier lifestyle: your business will benefit by less employee sick days, increased production, happier clients through positive customer service and an overall upbeat and optimistic workforce. 

An Answering Service Is Perfect For a Smaller Company As Well

There is one advantage that a larger company has versus a smaller company.  The advantage is available resources, especially in regards to people.  Even the playing field and trust All City Communications to provide highly trained and professional people to answer your phones as a daytime receptionist or as an emergency dispatcher for after hours and weekend calls.  Trust All City Communications to schedule appointments for your business.  We will answer the phones as you would answer it without your caller knowing we are not in your office. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you are busy with a job and suddenly the phone rings.  You know how important it is to not miss any calls, especially in today’s highly competitive environment so you may stop doing what you should be doing to handle a phone call.  Sometimes it is a caller needing your services but other times it is a telemarketer trying to sell you something.  We can make sure only calls that you want are sent immediately over to you.  Any calls that are not considered service related we can email those calls over to you so you can return the call when it is convenient for you.   

Imagine if you could capture every potential customer calling into your office?  Our operators will make sure that every call is answered professionally and live that will make your potential or current clients feel secure that their message will be returned since one of our operators will be acknowledging their call.   In today’s world, nobody likes leaving messages on voice mail.  Voice mail makes the customer feel not important and typically the caller will not stop trying to find a solution to their problem until they speak to somebody.  That person who does get the call may be your competitor that happens to be available to speak to the potential customer.  You will never miss a call with All City Communications.

Even the playing field with your competitors that may have more employees than you without the payroll expense, the time to find a new employee and the training time that hiring a new employee entails.  All City Communications pricing is very competitive and will outweigh, by a large margin, the cost of hiring a new employee.  Let us answer your phones and dispatch important calls via text, email or phone until a message is delivered.  An answering service is a small cost versus the value of having more new customers and happier current customers an answering service provides. 

An answering service is as important as a tow truck for towing companies

The need for a tow truck can be in high demand during weather disasters, and that is especially true here in Wisconsin during a snowstorm.  How many calls especially valuable police calls are missed during those busy situations?  How much revenue is being lost by a busy phone line or if the drivers are out on the road, away from their phone and the call is unanswered?  There is an affordable option for towing companies versus hiring more people in their office or hiring more drivers, an answering service.  All City Communications’ phone lines will never be busy ensuring you will never miss a call and no driver can ever refuse a towing call without your knowledge. 

All City Communications has a wonderful group of trained operators available to answer the calls, no matter the time or the day.  We will make sure every call is answered and every call is dispatched, ensuring you will never miss a valuable service call or ensuring the police calls are treated as a priority.

The phone is essential to a successful towing business.  Make sure there are no obstacles to your customers contacting you.  During the day, we can act as your receptionist or at the very minimum, a back-up receptionist.  During after-hours or weekends when somebody may not be in the office we can be your dispatch center.  During the day, if the phone line is busy or if nobody answers your phone at your office in 3 or 4 rings, the call can get routed to our call center and handled as if we were in your office.  After-hours we can answer the call on the first ring and dispatch the call to your drivers via cell, text or email while also creating a report that allows you to manage your people.  We can tell you on the report when the call came in, when the call was dispatched and how many attempts it took for us to dispatch that call.  Also, since we record all of our calls, we can tell you if any of your drivers are refusing calls. 

If you don’t have a call center for your towing callers, you need one.  Enhance the availability of your business to potential clients without having the payroll expense of new employees.  Answering every call is as essential to your business as the tow truck being available to tow the vehicles.  You wouldn’t allow your tow truck to only be available some of the time to your customers.