American Express

Archive for August, 2009

Don’t oversell. This is another extremely irritating habit of poor sales people. They talk about the features of a product that are not of interest to you and in many cases get too technical and want to blind you with their knowledge and jargon. I personally am not a petrol head, but unfortunately I have to change my car from time to time and find it so irritating when sales people want to tell me about brake horsepower and engine torque. I am more interested in fuel economy, comfort, appearance and the sound system. But there are numerous car buyers who are deeply interested in
engine torque, brake horsepower and 0 to 60 in five seconds.

So find out by asking the right questions. It is perfectly correct, thoroughly professional and in most cases in the customers’ best interests to offer the add-on. But this must only be offered or suggested when the first sale is complete. What I mean by the add-on is an item that customers often don’t think about, for example the shoe trees and polish that could go with a new pair of shoes, the extended warranty for a white-goods purchase, the paper to go with a new photocopier, or the printer to go with the digital camera. The list here is endless. The good sales person will always think on behalf of the customer. This is not pressurised selling but is giving your customers the chance to make the decision for themselves on items that perhaps they had not thought of or did not know existed.

These calls come from a variety of sources. They can be via advertising, recommendations, websites, PR, directories and mailshots. It is therefore important to know that your customers have choice and that their call to you may be one of a number of enquiries that they are making. Statistically, 85 percent of calls coming into a business are customer related. The others are a mixture of personal calls and calls from supply companies. Therefore, it is essential to answer the phone quickly, ideally by the third ring.

The greeting should be welcoming. Answer the phone with your company’s name. Smile when you answer the phone, as this alters your tone of voice. A smile can be heard over the phone. Enquire as to the person’s name, but please don’t say ‘Who’s calling?’ It is far better to say ‘May I have your name, please?’ Best of all, if the call is from an existing customer, is to recognise the voice and use the customer’s name immediately.Once you have the person’s name, introduce yourself. It is so much easier and nicer for customers to have the name of the person that they are talking to. Do listen carefully to the enquiry.

If you are in any doubt, ask again, for example ‘Do I understand correctly? Are you looking for…?’ If you then have to pass callers to someone else, always give the name of the person you are putting them through to and make sure that they are connected. If there is any difficulty in connecting callers, get their telephone number, promise to call back and state when the return call will be made. Now if you are able to handle the enquiry yourself and can complete the sale over the phone it is just as important and in many cases more so to offer the add-on, as described in the previous section on retail selling. In many cases customers can be so focused on the one product that they forget or are not aware of the add-ons. There are of course occasions when there is an opportunity to ‘up-sell’. This basically means offering a better product than the one the customer was enquiring about. There also may be an opportunity to cross-sell by offering a new or different product that you may have available. For example, ‘Mr/Ms Customer, you may or may not be aware that we also do…’

where it is agreed to put forward a proposal or similar,ask your prospective customer exactly what he or she wants. Ask and find out how much detail is wanted. Does the prospective customer want an outline as well as a more detailed document? This will not only save a great deal of wasted time on your part but will also give the customer a document or e-mail to read rather than skim through or be bored with.Then, before you conclude your meeting, agree a day, date and time to return with your proposal – more on this later.

Written proposals really need to meet two most important criteria:
first, they should have a good and logical structure and, second, they should be written in good English, in other words in jargon-free, easy-to-read sentences. Please don’t be verbose. A sales proposal will have a clear structure only if there is clarity of thought, which is why it is so important for you to find out exactly what your prospective customer wants to have included. So what should be included in a proposal? This will be very general, but how about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes? What do you require in that document to help you make the right and best decision? Did you find out before you left the meeting that your prospective customer might be showing the proposal to and discussing it with another person – maybe even a board of directors? It is important to be aware, if there are people you will not be speaking to who are going to be involved in the decision-making process, that your only chance of giving them the best selling information is in that proposal document.