Faster, better…

In my personal journey toward faster and better, I discovered that telling a customer what you can do for them is far more successful than telling a customer what you cannot do for them. A positive can-do message even if it does not entirely meet the customer’s expectations builds on your honesty and integrity and that of the company.

Inexperienced sales clerks, tech support or customer service staff, supervisors, managers, and even owners often start a sentence with “We can’t” or “That isn’t possible” or We don’t do that, or a curt “That isn’t what we do here.” The first message the customer hears is NEGATIVE not the least bit positive. The first negative message sets the tone for the rest of the customer’s personal experience.

The primary responsibility of any staff member serving a customer is to create a positive experience. That customer’s experience should be one where the sale is closed, where an alternative product referral is made, and in the absence of the best option a positive discussion about the customer’s requirements demonstrating the company’s and your personal interest. You want that customer to return someday. Return business is likely when the customer believes you truly care – even if you did not have exactly what the customer needed.

Negative messages send customers out the door scratching their heads. They are wondering why they visited the store, signed up for that service contract, or took a chance with your product or establishment in the first place.

When a customer presents you with a need, fear, want, or desire and you cannot help that customer you have to ask yourself what you CAN do for them before you respond. Perhaps the simplest example occurs most frequently at the retail store. Let’s say a customer visits your hardware store to purchase a two-inch metal pipe used to route electrical wires. You know that your hardware store carries several sizes of the plastic type of conduit. You even have everything the customer would need in smaller diameter sizes of metal conduit. The larger size conduit ius typically used in new construction of business buildings and not homes. Your business serves primarily the local homeowner.

Your mission is not to use a negative message and not to use the word ONLY. As an example, “We only have one-half inch pipe” or “You’re in the wrong place for that.”

Using the words ONLY suggests to the customer that even YOU are disappointed you do not have what he or she needs. That’s not just a negative message it’s a downer from which it is hard to recover. Your can do message is developed in conversation by first taking the time to qualify the customer’s needs. Ask questions about the work the customer is doing that requires this product. Use those answers to determine if you have an in-house solution that meets the customer’s needs. I cannot even count the number of times I have made a sale when the customer came to me absolutely convinced they understood what they needed. They either were not completely informed or they were ready to hear about alternative methods or products.

Your product knowledge and experience gives you the clout to ask intelligent questions and at a minimum to locate a person in your company that can ask the right questions. Once you have clearly understoood the customer’s needs you make positive suggestions or internal and external referrals. You make the effort to describe what you do have and what you can do or sell to the customer under similar circumstances. Ask yourself, “What do I have here that can fulfill the customer’s need?”

The positive message may even be that you would like to help the customer find what he needs elsewhere because you know the best positive message may be an external referral. “I understand what you need the larger metal conduit for. That is the best choice, There is a company right here on Main Street that sells products like this to local electrical contractors. They have a retail desk. Would you like me to call them for you to see if that product is in stock?” You have not wasted your time. That positive message speaks highly of your product knowledge, your experience, the integrity of the company and it’s mission to serve it’s customers.

While you are serving this customer it probably doesn’t hurt to make a product suggestion from your store. You may even suggest that you have all the tools he or she needs to install the conduit or do any other work associated with the project.

Your marketing message, your store front, the way in which you greet customers in person or on the telephone should reveal your company’s pleasure that this customer visited or telephoned to ask their question.

Positive messages lead to sales, sales lead to profits, and profits lead to continued employment and the success of the company. Positive messages also build on the community perceptions of the company that it is more than a company that builds a good widget or one that carries brand name products.

Positive messages are made possible by training, product knowledge, personal experience, and company empowerment. Positive messages are not an accident. Companies that allow negative messages are missing out. Negative messages marginalize possibilities, minimize revenue, and reflect a company with a less-than-successful organizational attitude.

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