According to a Gallup poll, as quoted in Shep Hyken’s article, “Five Ways Salespeople Can Contribute To A Great Experience,” salespeople are the lowest ranked profession outside of members of Congress. That there’s such a large negative sentiment to overcome for successful sales is a bitter pill to swallow. As Hyken explains, “The stereotype of the salesperson who talks too much, never listens, and pushes hard for a sale even when the customer isn’t interested exists for a good reason.” This is especially troublesome when you consider that “a customer’s first human contact with your company is often with a salesperson, the very person a customer is most pre-disposed to mistrust.” So, the only way to overcome this perception is to actually offer a different experience than the norm.
The best way to ensure your salespeople overcome these stereotypes is through training. They must be taught like they’re actually in customer service, taught to think of themselves as customer advocates and problem solvers rather than pushers. This makes sense when you stop to think about it: customers come to your business for products and services because they have specific needs or wants that aren’t being met by what they already have in their lives. Your products and services may solve that problem for them, but they might be mistrustful of your employees if they think they’re only in it to make a buck. Instead, you want your customers to know that your salespeople are there to help, that they have a vested interest in customer satisfaction.
And they should be interested in customer satisfaction, of course. The stereotypical salesperson is great at pushing one-time sales out the door using his or her charisma, but if the customers end up unhappy because they got talked into something that didn’t really fulfill their needs, you can bet you’ll never see their business again—and they’re certainly not going to recommend your company to their friends and family. Salesmanship shouldn’t just about the here and now, but also the future: repeat business and referrals are the rewards for salespeople who behave like allies.
Shep Hyken’s article goes over several great ideas for accomplishing this, including how employees should take the time to ask open-ended questions, understand needs, make reasonable promises, and so on. His last suggestion even says, “Sometimes, the best way to deliver a great [customer experience] is to not make a sale.” He goes on to explain that doing this “preserves the opportunity to revisit the customer at another time when either their needs or your offerings have changed.”
As with most things in life, consider how you want to be treated when you go shopping or dining. If your salespeople are using tactics that would make you uncomfortable, your customers are going to feel the same way. To create the best customer experience, you’re going to need to train your employees for it, and then test them again and again. This is the only way to break bad habits and develop good ones.
But you can’t do that unless you have an unbiased, outside perspective. Reach out to The Brandt Group today, and we’ll use our world-class training and mystery shopping services to help you improve your business. Let’s create a sales culture that your customers don’t resent, one that they celebrate!
