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The success of any business is inextricably linked with the company’s personnel. It would be more accurate to say that every employee of the company must master the art of psychology of communicating with clients. In the article we will look at the basic principles of how staff should build communication with clients, how to motivate a person to make a purchase, and other subtleties.
It should be immediately noted that an employee’s sociability does not mean that he is proficient. The conversation should be structured in such a way that the consumer will certainly make a purchase, and most importantly, return to the company again. For this purpose, organizations periodically conduct training on the psychology of communication with customers.
Whether you're talking to a potential buyer over the phone or in person, remember that first impressions matter. The further course of the conversation depends on him. There are a number of rules used to build a successful dialogue. One of the most important - client management. You must manifest active position in a conversation, ask questions aimed at identifying the needs of a potential buyer, talk about the advantages and differences of the product from analogues offered by competitors.
Of great importance Feedback. Your speech should not look like a boring monologue; it is necessary to involve the client in the conversation, while controlling the flow of the conversation. A potential buyer will feel comfortable if you do not argue with him or put pressure on him, trying to sell the product quickly. The presentation needs to be done beautifully, describing in detail all the advantages that the client will receive by purchasing the product from you. Give your client business-like compliments, this will move the conversation in a positive direction. And most importantly, remember that openness and goodwill are...
The correct behavior of a company employee is very important. The client will be much more willing to make a purchase if the conversation is relaxed. It is important to smile at your interlocutor, look him in the eyes, and show interest. The main thing is to sincerely try to help the consumer solve his problem.
In the process of communication, you cannot speak monotonously and without emotion. A boring monologue will be interrupted by the client mid-sentence. Most likely, such a buyer will leave the company and make an acquisition where they can interest him. You can't speak too fast or slow. Try to find optimal speech rate. Enterprise employees should develop diction. Clarity of speech is important for understanding what you want to convey to the interlocutor. Specialists who are fluent in professional terminology and have a large vocabulary are much more trustworthy. The psychology of communication with clients is based on the importance of questions in conversation and the correct use of the consumer’s name. It is important to remember that a person must be addressed in a polite manner, by name and patronymic. During the conversation, you need to listen carefully to the client. If he wants to tell you about his personal problems, do not interrupt him. Just try to bring the conversation back to the subject of the transaction. Ask open-ended questions that will stimulate a person to give as detailed an answer as possible.
There are situations when an employee just begins to tell a client about the product or service offered, and he already becomes bored. How to correctly present a product and build a dialogue in order to turn a distrustful person into a permanent, loyal customer? The first task facing the seller is to attract attention and interest the client. Tell him about the arrival of a new model, promotions and discounts, then focus on the positive characteristics and advantages of the product being offered. If a person wants to buy a laptop, then he needs to find out what is his priority and how much he expects to spend on the purchase.
Having identified the client’s needs, focus only on those points that interest him. You should not bore him with a large amount of uninteresting information, if, of course, you want to make a deal. Last step - motivate a potential buyer to action, i.e., to make a purchase, and process objections. Even if you have not completed the task of selling a product or service, remain polite and friendly towards the client. If a person has a pleasant impression of the quality of service, he will definitely contact the company next time, and thus you will achieve your goal in the long term. Thus, it is very important not only to improve interpersonal relationships, but also for business development.
From this article you will learn:
- What you need to know about proper communication with a client
- How to turn communication with a client into your company's golden fund
- What are the best communication techniques to use with clients?
- What not to do when communicating with a client
Today, business relationships between people around the world are based mainly on trade. This can be not only the sale of goods, but also services, copyrights, etc. Thus, our society is divided into buyers and sellers who are in constant interaction with each other. And the success of all trade transactions depends on how high-quality this cooperation will be, how competent the communication with clients will be. Of course, this is not the only criterion for the success of a trading business; first of all, the quality of the product or service itself is important. But many shortcomings can be compensated with the help of proper communication. A buyer who is satisfied with the service will definitely come back to you again rather than go to competitors. And, conversely, if your staff is not attentive enough to visitors or is rude, the buyer will not cross the threshold of your store again, no matter how high the quality of the product. This article will touch on all the nuances of interaction with consumers, provide examples of correct communication, consider phrases that should not be used, and will also examine various techniques that are successful from a psychological point of view. The article will help you build a competent sequence when communicating with a client and attract new customers.
Regardless of how communication with the client is structured - via telephone or personal contact - it is the first impression that plays a fundamental role and ultimately influences the outcome of the conversation. Here it is important to follow a number of rules, as well as adhere to the sequence of stages when interacting with the consumer. The most important rule– directing the conversation in the direction you want and guiding the interlocutor. You need to not only be able to tell him about the advantages of your product and service and the benefits of cooperation with you, but also ask the right questions in a timely manner in order to identify the client’s needs and preferences.
Communication should be open and friendly: you should not raise your voice, argue, put pressure on the buyer, impose your product on him, or be overly annoying. But it is important to be the leader of the conversation and be able to keep everything under control. It is important to conduct a dialogue, involving the interlocutor in communication, and not just speak a memorized boring speech. You need to interest him in your product or service, as well as gain confidence and persuade him to interact with you.
How to properly clarify customer objections? Find out in the training program
The correct behavior of staff plays a big role. The likelihood of a purchase will increase significantly if the manager’s cooperation with the client is successful. It is important to show proper and at the same time unobtrusive attention to the buyer, showing him that you are interested in him being satisfied. To do this, you need to be able to win over your interlocutor using a smile and a friendly tone. Emotionality in communication is also very important: the buyer will not show interest in either you or the product if you speak in a monotone. If you use the right emotions during a conversation, this will help interest your interlocutor and make the dialogue more lively and relaxed.
Every salesperson needs to have good diction. It is important not only to know what exactly needs to be said to the buyer, but also to be able to do it clearly and correctly. The manager must not have a speech impediment. The buyer should see in front of him a real professional who knows how to talk about the product, answer all his questions, and with whom it is pleasant to have a conversation. No one is interested in an insecure employee who cannot put two words together. When communicating with a client, it is also important to get to know him and in the future address him by name. This psychological technique helps to win over the interlocutor, giving the communication a more personal character. It is very important to listen to the buyer and in no case interrupt him, but at the same time direct the conversation in the right direction if he begins to move away from the main topic.
Difficulties often arise when communicating with a sales client at the very first stage of the conversation - he is initially not interested in hearing about the product. How to advantageously present your product or service to the buyer? The main task is to interest him in the product and draw attention to your company. People love promotions and special offers, and you can’t help but take advantage of this to attract new customers, as well as retain existing ones. When communicating with the consumer, tell them about ongoing promotions, explain all the benefits of purchasing this particular product, and interest them in a new product that has recently entered the market. Find out the needs and interests of the client in order to offer a product that is suitable for him, meeting all his wishes and requirements.
Having decided on the buyer’s requirements, focus his attention exclusively on those details that interest him. There is no need to overload your interlocutor with an excessive amount of information in which he will only get confused. During communication, it will be sufficient to correctly place emphasis and describe the product precisely according to those parameters that are interesting to the client. The final stage is to work through all the potential buyer’s objections, thereby dispelling his doubts and encouraging him to make a purchase. Even if the consumer, after communicating with you, refuses to purchase a product or pay for a service, you need to remain friendly and polite towards him. Then there is a very high probability that the visitor will come to you in the future, remembering your professionalism and desire to help with the choice. Thus, following the correct sequence of stages when communicating with a client is very important if you want to grow your business.
There are many examples of successful sales when a person simply went into a store out of curiosity, and after talking with an employee of the sales floor, he came out with a purchase. This indicates the professionalism and high level of training of the seller. Many consumers need to be nudged into making a purchase. For this purpose, specialists in the field of trade and psychology have developed a number of rules. If sales managers follow them, the company's turnover will definitely increase.
There are several ways to show your interest:
- When talking with a buyer, your attention should be focused only on him. You cannot be distracted by extraneous matters;
- communication should be emotionally charged. It is important that the interlocutor sees a living person in front of him, and not a robot;
- when communicating, you need to look your interlocutor in the eyes;
- it is important to conduct a dialogue, encouraging the client not only to listen, but also to speak;
- It is necessary to provide as much information about the product as valuable to the buyer as possible, but at the same time be careful not to overload with unnecessary information.
When communicating with the buyer, try to speak in a language that is as understandable to him as possible. There is no need to delve into professional terminology that a person does not understand. If we are talking, for example, about a blender, it is not necessary to say that its power is 1500 watts. This information may be completely useless to the client. It will be much better if you list the main products that can be crushed with it. This way you will tell about the technical characteristics of the product, but they will be clear not only to you, but also to the buyer.
These five rules of communication will help you not only find the right approach and win over any buyer, but also bring him to the conclusion of the transaction.
Every self-respecting organization must develop internal regulations and standards for communication with the company’s clients. They are aimed at properly establishing a dialogue with the buyer and building a competent sequence of stages of communication with him. This article will describe the basic standards on the basis of which you can develop your own regulations.
1. Emotional attitude and openness to the client. The employees of the sales floor or sales office should look so that the visitor wants to contact them. Here we are not talking about the external characteristics of the staff, which, by the way, is also important, but specifically about the image of a friendly manager, ready to advise and help. Sellers, of course, are people too and have the right to be in a bad mood, but this should not in any way affect communication with clients. A bad mood should be left at home or on the street, and at the workplace an employee should be with a friendly smile, and not scare off visitors with a sour expression.
2. The client should not wait. There is hardly a person who dreams of sitting in line for an hour or two. Waiting is painful for anyone. Therefore, it is important to ensure that your customer service is structured in such a way that there are as few waiting visitors as possible. If there are such people, you need to show maximum care for those who are waiting in line. First, you need to apologize to the person and clarify how long it will take to serve him. Often this is important, since perhaps at this time he will be able to resolve some of his other matters. It is also necessary to keep the guest occupied with something if he is waiting for his turn in the hall: this could be magazines, catalogues, tea, coffee. The most important thing is that a situation does not arise: a visitor came in, but you did not pay attention to him because you were busy. It is important to meet the client and let him know that he will definitely be served.
3. Be able to conduct a dialogue. To win over your interlocutor and impress him, you need not only to be tactful with him, but also in relation to your competitors. You should not compare your product with someone else’s, pointing out the disadvantages of others and your advantages. You are unlikely to build trust if you discuss your competitors. There is also no need to engage in excessive self-promotion: this will look like boasting and exaggeration of existing advantages.
It is better to avoid large monologues, lengthy descriptions and explanations. It is worth remembering the main characteristics and advantages of a particular product and conveying the essence to the buyer without overloading him with unnecessary information. If you talk too much and for a long time, then, firstly, you can easily get confused yourself, and secondly, you can quickly tire the client. So that the visitor does not get tired of listening to you, you need to communicate with him in the form of dialogue, ask questions, and involve him in the conversation.
4. Be able to hear and listen. These similar concepts are somewhat different, because listening and hearing are different things, and a true professional in trading and in communicating with clients should know these differences. Listening is the ability to demonstrate to your interlocutor that you are listening. There is a special technique of active listening that anyone can master: you need to look into the eyes, nod, and do not interrupt.
The ability to hear is the ability not only to listen to a person, but also to understand everything that he wanted to convey to you. Understanding the buyer during communication with him is often very difficult. Many factors play a role here: people see the same things differently, a person does not always have sufficient knowledge to correctly express his thoughts and wishes. In such cases, you need to be able to unobtrusively get to the bottom of the truth, ask leading questions, and find out as many details and details as possible. Sometimes it’s enough just to put yourself in the shoes of your interlocutor and look at the question through his eyes. When you master the ability to listen to people, you will not only be able to quickly help the buyer solve his problem, but you will also be able to easily manipulate him, which is useful for the seller.
5. Address the client by name. How can you win over your interlocutor with just one word? Say his name. A banal truth that has great success in communicating with the client. When you address a person by name, it creates a more comfortable, inviting and trusting atmosphere for him, and also emphasizes the importance of this particular buyer to you.
6. Don't lie. Your reputation will be completely damaged if you are caught in a lie. Never exaggerate the merits of a product or say something that is not actually true. Even a small lie can cause irreparable harm and lead to loss of trust on the part of the client.
7. Always do a little more than required. A very simple, but at the same time effective technique. Exceeding consumer expectations is quite easy. You need to pay him a little more attention, provide an additional, even the most insignificant, service, pleasantly surprise him, and he will become your regular customer. The more you do for the buyer in the form of some kind of additional bonus, the more you will receive in return. He will be more willing and with great interest to talk to you about further cooperation if you charm him with your special attitude.
Any sale or transaction is impossible without this stage.
Goal: to attract the attention of a potential buyer to yourself and encourage further communication.
Before moving on to identifying the client’s needs, it is recommended to resort to communicating with him on abstract topics. There are a number of techniques for establishing contact with a visitor. You can offer tea, coffee, make a couple of compliments, etc.
It is very easy to understand whether you managed to establish contact with the buyer by his actions. If he actively enters into communication, reacts positively to the words and actions of the seller, behaves at ease and relaxed, we can conclude that a connection has been established. If the client is tense, tense, avoids communication, answers questions dryly and briefly, and looks away, this indicates that it was not possible to establish contact. In this case, the stage of making contact needs to be given more attention, using various techniques.
Goal: to identify the client’s preferences and wishes.
The more accurately the manager is able to identify the buyer’s preferences, the more favorable he will be able to present the product, which will ultimately lead to a purchase.
To find out the client’s needs, the manager must use the correct sequence when communicating with him, be able to ask the right questions, listen and understand the interlocutor.
Goal: to offer exactly what the buyer needs, based on his needs identified at the second stage of communication.
When presenting a product or service, the main thing is to convey to the client the benefits of purchasing the product. It is important here not to confuse the concepts of “benefit” and “advantage”.
Advantage– this is the benefit of this particular product in comparison with analogues. Anyone who purchases this product will receive this benefit.
Benefit- this is a feature or characteristic of a product that can satisfy the specific need of this particular buyer.
Thus, knowing all the needs identified during communication with the visitor, all that remains is to correctly present the product, which in its characteristics corresponds to the client’s wishes. It turns out that any product parameters can be beneficial for a certain client.
Purpose: to dispel the buyer’s doubts about the quality of the product or its compliance with the requirements, as well as the need for the purchase.
The better the previous stages of interaction with the client are worked out, the fewer objections will follow. Perhaps the manager will conduct all communication so correctly that he will not encounter any objections at all.
Often objections are related to the fact that:
Every manager who wants to achieve success in sales should try to minimize the number of objections, because their excess is a signal of a poorly done job of interacting with the client.
It will not always be possible to completely avoid objections, so you need to learn to respond to them correctly and take appropriate measures.
Strictly adhere to the scheme for handling objections:
- listen to the buyer's objection;
- smooth out his emotions by using phrases of understanding (“I understand your indignation”, “Yes, I agree that it’s unpleasant...”, “I understand what it’s like...”, “I understand you”);
- obtain the necessary clarification through leading questions;
- offer an alternative solution to the problem.
Goal: to bring the buyer to make a purchase and confirm the correctness of his decision.
At the transaction completion stage, you need to make sure that the client is ready to make a purchase. The manager can judge this by his behavior:
Transaction completion methods:
- compliment method (“You made the right choice”);
- a method that sets a certain time frame (“If you make a purchase within three days, you will be given a 20% discount”);
- a win-win alternative (“Send measurers to you tomorrow or Friday?”).
The company's turnover directly depends on the professionalism of the customer service manager. The more skills and techniques he has, the more sales he will ultimately be able to make. Therefore, it is important to constantly train your staff and improve the skills of employees, send them to training sessions and lectures, develop and motivate them.
It is thanks to difficult clients that you can quickly identify and eliminate the shortcomings of your company, because such visitors will rush to point them out to you. The principle of working with such clients is to neutralize the pressure they exert, rather than ignore it, and at the same time be able to transform them into the status of loyal customers.
When communicating with a client, you should never become like him if he behaves unworthily. In response to rudeness, abuse, disrespectful statements and gestures, he should see only your friendliness and calmness. You can't let your interlocutor make you angry.
Rudeness is used in cases where there are no other ways to prove one’s innocence or defend one’s interests. When a person has tried all other methods, used all the arguments and lost patience, he begins to be rude. Therefore, such harshness does not express the strength of the interlocutor, but only indicates his helplessness.
When dealing with such customers, it is important to give them the opportunity to blow off steam and show them that you are ready to solve the problem. You need to listen to the client without interrupting him. The right thing to do is to put aside all emotions and, without paying attention to the presentation of information, get to the core of the issue. To do this, you need to show your interlocutor that you are ready to listen to him calmly, no matter how much he swears, that you do not intend to argue, but want to help in solving the problem.
In the event that a scandal occurs in front of other visitors, try to take the client away as quickly as possible in order to continue communication in private or as far as possible from strangers.
There are types of people who will not make contact themselves because they are shy, do not want to distract, or are very shy by nature. When a manager communicates with such clients, he needs to show as much gentleness as possible: no pressure, more of a smile, encouraging remarks, pushing him to make a decision. Such a buyer needs to be led and guided, helped to make a choice and at the same time be very tactful and unobtrusive.
Do not confuse indecisive people with soft ones. Indecisive customers are basically those who are afraid of making a mistake, and therefore cannot make a choice or decide whether they need a purchase in principle. Such buyers will constantly question the decision they have already made, clarify details, and seek advice again and again. It is difficult for them to choose just one thing. They will rush between different models of the same product and will not be able to select the one that suits them, because they will doubt that it is the best. When dealing with such clients, you need to intentionally narrow your choice. You shouldn’t offer them six options at once; it’s enough to focus their attention on two, and only if they refuse these options, offer the other two. This way you will help customers make the right choice, and the purchase will not drag on for several days.
Such clients should also not be put under pressure or rushed. In no case show that you are tired of their indecisiveness, but on the contrary, try to encourage and support their desire to make the right choice. When communicating with a buyer, you need to instill confidence in him, dispelling his every doubt.
To encourage an indecisive person to make a purchase, it is often not enough just to present the product correctly. Additional tools must be used. In this case, you need to point out the limited quantity of this product, the upcoming price increase, or something else that will make the buyer understand that they should not delay the purchase, but should hurry up and make a decision.
More intermediate fixations mean more chances to reach an agreement as a whole. To prevent the client from changing his mind in the future, say that work on the agreed upon issues is already underway. Sometimes this is done on purpose so that the buyer does not return to this again. It’s better for him to be scared and refuse altogether than to endlessly deal with his doubts, wasting time and not being sure that the deal will go through.
There is a category of visitors who themselves have an excellent command of techniques for communicating with people and methods of manipulating them. They will behave overly friendly, trying to arouse your sympathy and thereby achieve a special favor towards themselves, in the hope of receiving some personal bonuses. The manager’s task when communicating with such clients is to show that he is also friendly and ready to cooperate, but adhere to a business style of communication, demonstrating professionalism and seriousness.
As in life, at work you can often encounter a chatty client. It is quite difficult to conduct a dialogue with such a person. Nevertheless, you need to try to focus his attention on your proposal and control the communication process. Here you need to have time to competently insert your lines into long monologues during pauses, without interrupting your interlocutor.
Ask leading questions that bring the buyer back to the topic of conversation, focus his attention on the product. Do not try to say more than the interlocutor, strive to say the most important thing. Your task is not to talk the client down, but to convey the essence to him.
A chatterbox can be contrasted with a silent visitor. The difficulty in communicating with such clients is that sometimes it is not easy to understand the person’s reaction to your words. Here it is important not to go into a long monologue, but to involve your interlocutor in dialogue, asking his opinion and encouraging him to communicate. It is best to provide information in portions, constantly monitoring the buyer’s reaction.
You need to ask as many questions as possible that identify the person’s needs, and in those rare moments when he speaks, listen carefully to him. The Echo method will work great here. The essence of it is repetition. last words interlocutor.
This buyer is well versed in your product and is familiar with its properties and characteristics. He will rush to demonstrate his knowledge during communication, considering this to be dignity and superiority. You need to be tactful and not try to compete with him, proving that you are more knowledgeable. Give him the opportunity to show off his knowledge. Try to have a casual conversation, ask questions and be an attentive listener.
If the buyer expresses his personal opinion about a specific product, clarify what exactly it is based on. To do this, use the following questions: “Why did you decide this?”, “What is the reason for this?” Try to translate the buyer’s personal attitude towards the product into a set of specific arguments. It will be much easier to respond to them than to try to convince your interlocutor.
If during communication with a client you notice that he is mistaken, you do not need to directly point out the mistake and try to correct him immediately, as this may cause a dispute. Remember that your task is to sell a product, not to impose your opinion.
Professional ethics of communication with clients includes the following rules:
When communicating with clients you cannot:
When communicating with a client on the phone, intonation plays the most important role. The impression of a conversation is formed in the first 20 seconds of communication. During this same time, the person decides whether he wants to continue the dialogue with you. Therefore, you need to pay attention to how you present information: your voice must be confident and your speech clear.
The structure of a telephone conversation is something like this:
Preparing for the conversation:
The telephone conversation itself:
There are many techniques for communicating with clients over the phone. One of them is based on identifying the interlocutor’s main sense organ for perceiving information. The fact is that to understand the world around us, we all use hearing, vision, touch, kinesthetics, and smell. But every person has a leading way of perceiving the world, by identifying which you can easily interest the client. You can determine the leading modality based on a conversation with him.
Examples of client statements indicating the predominance of one or another way of perceiving the world:
For many people, the priority way of receiving information is visual, and this is easy to understand by the use of verbs that define visualization: “see”, “imagine”, “seems”, “observe”, “appears”, “decorate”, “looks”, etc. etc. Such people perceive better what they see than what they hear. They prefer to watch rather than listen to descriptions, even the most detailed ones. During communication, clients will write down important points: they really like visual examples, draw up an action plan, take notes.
Auditory orientation is characteristic of a much smaller number of people. When communicating with such consumers, you will hear verbs related to hearing: “heard,” “sounds,” “pronounced,” “crackles,” “creaks,” etc. These interlocutors have good auditory memory and are able to remember most of the conversation without any notes or notes on paper. Such people love to communicate, but are also easily distracted by extraneous sounds.
A very small group of people are oriented towards a kinesthetic style of communication. When speaking, they often use verbs: “building”, “creating”, “using”, etc. Such people need to be constantly on the move; it is difficult for them to sit in one place. They show expression in communication, actively using facial expressions and gestures.
It is necessary to join the circle of your target audience and establish contact with them. To do this, they use various thematic blogs, pages that a person must subscribe to, all kinds of mailings and subscriptions. Create a team of like-minded people and actively communicate with their leaders.
Use your data, prepare for meetings with your team:
Communication via e-mail:
1. Incoming call (external/internal).
2. Outgoing call to a new client.
3. Outgoing call to the current client.
4. Outgoing call to an old client who needs to be returned.
5. The client came to the office.
6. Meeting at the client's office.
7. Ending the conversation.
Have you ever had a strange feeling when you go to Foxtrot, Eldorado or any other electronics supermarket, and sales consultants swarm from all sides, trying to advise, answer questions, help you choose, help you decide on a model (underline as appropriate).
Have you also felt the desire to run away from there, away from the intrusive service, and simply order equipment with delivery from some well-known online store?
Don't be alarmed. You are not a sociopath. It’s just that the realities of Ukrainian sales in the mentioned networks (and not only in them) in recent years, with their excessive activity and standardization, really force the unprepared consumer to consider them intrusive.
And even our opinion is just an opinion. After all, reputable companies are free to work as they want. Moreover, if you sell something and want to have a “less intrusive” service in your business, everything is in your hands.
The beginning of a conversation with the buyer is the first and very important one, which determines the further course of events. This article contains some tips, how to start a conversation with a buyer correctly so as not to seem intrusive.
When it comes to developing an internal standard for greeting a customer, sales managers take one of 2 paths:
At the same time, the first is closer to unique small businesses where the owner is the ROP. The second is the lot of seasoned sales people who put sales figures above aesthetics.
Once, the sales trainers of the Result Factory spent more than 2 weeks fighting against the wall of misunderstanding of the owner, who wanted “it to be like this, and to sound like this, because this expresses our philosophy and uniqueness,” although very specific requests for improvement were voiced sales, and for whom the first thing to do was to change too unselling, aimless phrases in the standards. That is, the situation was: I want an apple, but I don’t want an apple.
And don't worry about said lady. We sorted everything out and came to an agreement with everyone. And everything ended well.
The best way to start a conversation with a client is one that both satisfies the seller's goals and remains within what is emotionally acceptable to the buyer.
The very first step is to decide what do you want to get out of the conversation?. It can be:
Accept that there are situations that are mutually exclusive. You can't sell without offering. You can't be remembered without standing out.
When you clearly understand the goals of prescribing standards for starting a conversation, you can move on to formalizing them in the form of specific phrases.
The most important rule is that it shouldn’t be like that joke when the seller’s phrase “can I help you with something” was answered with “help me financially.”
There are 7 rules for composing greeting phrases that business sales trainers in the Results Factory follow. One of them is that the standard can be implemented only after checking the matrix in 4 planes - in relation to the manager, the seller, the potential client, and the competitor.
You should also take into account the specifics of whether you understand how to properly start a conversation with a buyer on the phone or on the sales floor.
By the way, the job of a sales consultant is not to give you beautifully structured lists of offers, but to understand your product, structure and sales funnel, and, based on their specifics, offer one or another solution.
Any standard must not only be “good”, but also appropriate. This is called the principle of congruence. Take note.
There are no universal phrases for starting a conversation between a seller and a buyer - there are speech structures that solve certain problems. For example:
If you need to attract attention, talk:
When you need to show your client “corporate spirit” and high standards of work from the very beginning:
And so on and so forth. There are special speech structures that identify a need, or inform about promotions, or help, or, or, or even force non-target clients to leave quickly. We hope you understand the logic.
Since the purpose of this article is to analyze application tools (which you could use immediately after reading), let’s also formulate the basic rules that need to be taken into account when standardizing the beginning of a conversation between a seller and a client.
In one article, instead of presenting a list of phrases on how to properly start a conversation with a buyer on the phone or in the sales area, we decided to convey the basic rules, principles and concepts. They even showed several examples.
This will help you draw valuable conclusions and generate useful ideas that will form the basis of your highest quality standards for starting a conversation with the buyer.
If you still have questions, ask and we will answer for free, because we want the beginning of a conversation with a buyer in Ukraine to be more humane, and at the same time professional.
If you need help developing sales scripts, or need to write turnkey scripts, .
Communication with a client is a delicate science; contact personnel leave the client’s most important impression of the company. If communication with your staff brought pleasure to the client, this can eliminate many of the disadvantages in your company or product. Conversely, one wrong word or intonation can deprive you of a client forever. Today we will talk about how to properly conduct a conversation with a client.
To begin with, I would like to say that there is no more valuable competency in life than the ability to speak correctly with people. Communication skills will help a person in any life situation. Unfortunately, society has now moved very much into online life and because of this, many people communicate little with each other. This prevents them from improving and developing their communication skills. Only true geniuses of their craft, whose work is so perfect that anyone can appreciate it, can achieve heights without this skill. The rest need to be able to build relationships with people, be able to make friends and be able to defend their point of view. History knows many examples when a genius could not gain the favor of society and his works were recognized years after his death. Unfortunately, even the most best idea you need to be able to present it beautifully to the public.
You can learn to speak correctly and beautifully only by constantly communicating with other people. This skill only develops through process. This article outlines tips and recommendations on what you should pay attention to first of all. But just reading the article will not force you to change your behavior; it is you who must do this. If you are a manager or business owner and want to influence the behavior of subordinates. Then only a clearly defined system will help you, it is usually called standards of communication with the client. And most importantly, these standards. The system itself will not force people to change their behavior.
Any self-respecting company should have a set of rules for communicating with clients. Which clearly states how dialogue can and cannot be conducted. For salespeople and contact personnel who solve the same problems, the easiest way is to write scripts and dialogue scripts. We have already talked about this, so we will discuss the general standards of communication with the client. In fact, using the criteria described below, you can immediately determine whether a person knows how to speak correctly with a client.
Often the seller is in a bad mood and shows it to the client with all his appearance. Some employees have such an expression on their face that the client is simply afraid to approach them. There have been cases in my practice that the seller was minding his own business and did not pay attention to the client, and the client did not want to distract the seller, seeing that he was busy. It doesn’t matter who initiates the contact, it is important that the seller demonstrates that he is ready to help the client.
Absolutely everyone is annoyed by waiting and the uncertainty associated with it. Often, for good reasons, we cannot promptly answer a client’s question; unfortunately, such situations cannot be avoided. The task of the contact staff is to help the client as quickly as possible. But if the client has to wait for a consultation, then it is important to show concern: say how long he will have to wait, offer options for how the client will spend this time, and apologize in advance about what happened. This applies not only to live communication, but also by phone or email.
Often companies do not think about who should initiate the contact, from the client or from the employee. Although this is an important criterion when drawing up communication scripts. In addition, these are fundamentally different customer service strategies. You've probably noticed that in some stores, sellers actively approach you and immediately offer their help (Euroset, Eldorado, Tekhnosila), and in some, on the contrary, sellers stand and wait for you to call them (mediamarkt, Mvideo). Each strategy is good in its own way and has a right to exist.
There is no sound sweeter than your own name. This simple truth should be hammered home to all employees. The ability to call by name should be brought to complete automaticity. This will not happen quickly, but overall it will serve any person well.
If you need to explain something to a deaf-mute person, you will probably use sign language, take a pen and paper, or type on a computer or phone. But you are unlikely to explain in words; I have often encountered deaf-mute people, there are many of them, and I know what I am talking about. But unfortunately, when communicating with a client, an employee often chooses a language of terms and slang words that the client does not understand. This is a big mistake, the only language worth using is . Every organization should have a list of properties and benefits, and how to tell all this to the client.
The worst thing an employee can do to a client is lie. You lose all the client’s trust in one moment and you will never get it back. Many times I have had to communicate with clients who were lied to by employees and the labor costs to return such a client to the company are very large.
For one reason or another, an employee may encounter various difficulties that hinder him. Remember that you should not tell the client about all the problems you encountered. At first, the client doesn’t care (if he does, he’ll ask himself), then big difficulties can scare the client away. I have often heard the phrase “well, if everything is so complicated, then I don’t need it.” All you have to do is apologize for the delay and, if possible, somehow compensate for the client’s losses.
If a person receives more than he expected, then he becomes happy. This simple rule should be your motto. I read several articles on this topic. For example, vending machines selling hawthorn tincture have now become popular; for those who are not in the know, this is a cheap substitute for vodka. So, these machines are configured so that sometimes they dispense 2 bottles instead of one, this allows you to create a stir and start word of mouth among the target audience.
Also in the states, studies were conducted on the relationship between the size of a waiter's tip and the gift he gave to the client. If the waiter gave a small gift to the client in the form of candy, the tip size on average doubled.
Few people think about how important it is to say goodbye to a person correctly. There are actually two good reasons do it right:
Saying goodbye is not as difficult as it seems. For example, I always wish everyone Have a good day or evenings. If you do this sincerely, then the person is grateful to you and is pleased that you are thinking about his future fate. If there were unpleasant moments in the dialogue, you can apologize again. For example: for the time spent, for the work of another employee, or simply for the current situation. It is important to demonstrate to the client that the client is dear to you personally and is pleasant as an interlocutor.
Unfortunately, the culture of our society is not as high as we would like. Working in the service sector, you will often encounter arrogance, rudeness, inappropriate behavior, and sometimes aggression. First you need to learn to take this for granted and stop being surprised by this behavior. This will give you the opportunity to learn to demonstrate to your interlocutor that you are not affected by his behavior. The roots of rudeness and arrogance go back to a person’s childhood and upbringing; it is impossible to change his behavior pattern. The most correct behavior would be to demonstrate that this behavior does not work with you and that the person himself will reorganize the dialogue with you in a constructive manner. How to do it? There are several options that can be used depending on the situation.
Modern business is built on ensuring that customers purchase those goods or services that are offered by the company. Communication with clients is the main link when a client contacts a company and when he enters into an agreement with it. Here you should follow certain techniques, rules, etiquette, which are based on human psychology at the time of making an important decision.
Since communication with the client aims to encourage the consumer to purchase products and decide whether he will agree to the offer, this contact can be:
We should talk about ways to influence and effectively contact a company with a client when it is clearly clear what services/products it provides and in what conditions events unfold.
When a person communicates with people in everyday situations, he does not particularly think about the intonation of his voice, the phrases he utters, or the mood he displays. A person chooses who to communicate with and how to talk to them. When it comes to work and professional skills, then it becomes important how a person can achieve his goal through communication with clients.
Communication with clients is a purposeful interaction that involves certain etiquette and rules of communication and requires the achievement of a set goal. The salesperson communicates with customers for a reason. He wants to establish contact with them, win them over to his products, sell them to them and, possibly, get regular customers.
Communication at work requires certain knowledge. Here it no longer matters what mood the employee is in, what he thinks about other people, how he relates to the world, etc. He must do his job, and accordingly, his communication must be specially structured so that the seller ultimately achieves his goal.
The task of concluding a deal with a client is perhaps the most important one both for an ordinary employee and for the businessman himself. If the customer has agreed to purchase your company's product or service, then you will make a profit. But this is precisely why all organizations and companies are created - to sell and make a profit.
How to make a deal with a client? This is sometimes difficult to do, since customers can be picky, and the competition of your product or service in the market is high. The client can turn to other sellers of the same product or service, but who will give him other terms of cooperation: a lower price, acceptable forms of payment, delivery, etc. To conclude a deal with a client and make him a regular consumer, you need to do more than just sell to him their products, but also take into account his interests and wishes.
The client does not close the deal. Why? Perhaps he doubts something. Perhaps he is dissatisfied with some clauses of the contract, they are inconvenient for him or do not correspond to his capabilities. Sometimes clients are simply not ready to make a final decision. And quite often, the one with whom you want to make a deal would like to bring some of his proposals into the clauses of the contract that you will fulfill.
In all cases, you need to talk to the client if it is important for you to conclude a deal with him. Talk openly about what your partner is unhappy with or doubts. Let him express his thoughts so that you can make concessions. If the client needs to think, then ask what you can do on your part so that he makes a decision in your favor. Don't be afraid to be open. Don't be categorical and strict. You should not force your product or service onto the client. If you want to conclude a deal and make your client a regular consumer, then you need to be interested in his opinion, wishes, conditions.
This will allow you not only to make all the desired clients your consumers, but also to look at your product or service, contract clauses, conditions, etc. from a different point of view. If you have just started concluding transactions, then you probably have points where there are restrictions or strict boundaries. And clients, if you take their wishes into account, will help you expand, soften and make them more attractive to them.
A salesperson is a job where each representative wants to have as many clients as possible. Communication becomes the only tool that can influence the opinions and wishes of consumers. This is why communication techniques that take into account people’s psychology become important here:
To achieve this goal, a manager or seller must adhere to some rules of communication with clients:
There are companies that provide ongoing services to clients. Here complaints become inevitable, from which no company can escape. There will always be customers for whom something breaks or who cannot use the purchased products. What is important here is how the manager behaves when communicating with a client who is complaining.
The hour is not far off when the most sought-after profession in the service and sales sectors will be a customer complaints manager, or director of customer focus. In simple terms, this specialty can be called “director of hospitality and comfort.” What kind of profession is this and why is it needed?
Thus, the level of service in in public places is one of the main priorities and tasks of these institutions. You cannot please all clients, so we need specialists who will skillfully and cost-effectively resolve any problems. That's what a customer complaints manager, or director of customer centricity, is for. These specialists will play an important role in ensuring that there are fewer negative reviews about their level of service on the Internet and simply on people’s lips, which will, accordingly, increase the number of visitors to a particular public institution.
Study the science of hospitality and creating comfort, resolving issues and reducing the level of dissatisfaction among other people. This will allow you to become in demand in the labor market in the future.
Every person is pleased when they communicate with him kindly and respectfully, which should not depend on what question he addressed to the seller or manager. Even regular customers need attention. Ethics involves polite communication with customers, when the following rules are observed:
Let’s not say that the client is always right in everything. Let us pay attention to the fact that the client also requires respect and understanding of his desires, which is why he turns to a company that can solve them. Here you need to understand that each client has his own mood. But it is in no way connected with the personality of the seller, but is aimed only at the product or service that the company offers.