Hello People... I was just thinking about something and a question came up in my mind... I'm a student of marketing and am eager to learn different views on a specific thing... Please help me with this one... I'm a marketer at an outsourcing services company. The company has some bad reputation in the market. My prospects talk to me about that. How do I handle such an issue? The above job profile doesn't really suit me... It's just a thought... Please pour in your views... Thanks & Regards
Not enough info to go on. What servcies does this company do? What kind of bad reputation? What did your prospects say?
How you answer all depends on whether the bad reputation is deserved or not. And the country you are in. The way to do business differs between cultures. just saw you are in India...
When people have bad things to say about a company you work for, it is customary to just listen to their gripes. EVERY company has some bad label associated with it. Good Luck!
Listen to them and then tell them you don't know enough about the situation to make an intelligent observation. If if really bothers you it might be time to look for another job. donrock
Ok... I guess, as Perry Rose wanted, I need to throw more light on the situation... Let's think... Hmm... Ok... I am in India... So, let's consider that the company is located in India... and the company provides outsourced web hosting technical support to hosting companies in the US... The bad reputation, let's say, lies with providing untimely service... E-mail Support Tickets are going unanswered for 2 hours or so, and that is obvious to make the clients go mad... How do I handle it when my prospect asks for an explanation?
Change things from the inside - make sure that those tickets are getting answered. No point in trying to make the company sound great when it plainly isn't. Be honest with your clients and tell them that you're working on the problem... Outsourcing generally has a bad name because it's taking work away from the country's inhabitants. You're going to have to do more than just save companies money these days - the service has to be top-notch too.
Great post... Would you like to add something else, to be used a rebuttal for that objection from the prospects?
The best way to overcome a 'lousy reputation for service' objection is to provide the prospect with 4-6 testimonials from delighted customers. You could have a testimonial document all drafted up and ready to be sent out whenever you encounter this objection. It is most impressive to have the permission of the happy customer and be able to list their contact information so that the prospect can follow up with them directly.
I had this in mind... How would I handle the objection if I had an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) with my happy clients (extremes of co-incidence)?
If you cannot provide references/testimonials to overcome this objection, then the task becomes harder. I would take these steps in such a situation: 1. Acknowledge past mistakes. if you do not own up to the problem that existed, it is not likely that you have fixed it. 2. Discuss in detail the steps that you and your company have taken to correct the problem(s). E.g., new QC people, new customer service platform and goals, etc. 3. Indicate that these new procedures have already been successful, but that you are under NDA with your new, happy clients. 4. Offer some sort of guarantee or way for the new prospect 'try before buy' to see for himself (herself) that this is the 'new and improved' company that will also make them a happy customer.
Fantastic... This post made this thread a case study (and I'm going to study this deeply)... With the 'new and improved' company, would you reccomend this company to announce a business relaunch? I'm just trying to see if a business relaunch could work as a great marketing support...
Hi Again, Glad that you liked my comments. I am not sure what you mean by a 'business relaunch'. If you mean a PR initiative to tell the world that you are starting over, I am not sure that I would recommend such action at this time. This is because you likely will have to tell the press why you are re-launching, thereby adding into the story a tale of your past problems and I see no reason why you would want more of the marketplace to know about your past troubles. I would want to approach new customers who do not know of your company's previous difficulties as fresh new prospects with no additional baggage that might come from a re-launch.
Well, since you are only going to present the 'new and improved' company to prospects that raise your past results as an objection, you should present your company to all others as you normally would. No need for a new and improved company for them. For the prospects who raise this specific objection to you, you should be prepared to explain, in detail, why you are new and improved. A new logo or new brochure won't help; instead, have a powerful sales pitch explaining the changes that your company made, the new quality controls in place, new people on board, etc., that help to explain why you are now delighting your customers. My point is that this is a sales issue because it is an important objection that you need to be prepared to overcome in great detail with each prospect that raises it. And, you must keep in mind that each prospect may have a different take on why your results were not so good (e.g., one prospect may have heard that you were consistently late in delivering, another may have heard that your actual work was substandard, yet another prospect may have heard both things, etc.) That is why this type of effort really lends itself more to a one-on-one sales effort and not a broad-based marketing campaign because you will need to understand the specific underpinnings of the objection before you can properly overcome it.