Michel Fortin tells a great story about using pressure to prevent procrastination. Oftentimes when salespeople (or online salesletters) are trying to sell something to a customer, they'll give these "deadlines" to buy - knowing that the deadline is not really a deadline. It's just a tactic to put pressure on the customer to buy right then and there. Michel shares his frustration regarding a furniture sales guy who was more concerned about making the sale rather than asking questions and determining the right solution for Michel's issue. However, the furniture store ended up not losing Michel as a customer...
"But I did want that particular set of furniture. My heart was set on it. So I took another chance, made another trip to the store and on what seemed to be the last-ditch attempt to get the furniture I really wanted, I met "Jim."Jim was truly the epitome of great customer service. And clearly the opposite of "Gerry."
The difference?
He truly empathized with me.
After learning about my previous, unsuccessful trip to the store, Jim was apologetic, and never once mentioned anything about himself, his store or his product (the conversation was entirely focused on me and my needs).
He asked a lot of questions to fully understand the reasons why I needed the lengthy layaway plan. He even asked me to pull out the floor plans so we can correctly measure the space and appropriate layout for the furniture."
The lesson to be learned here is that if you are going to put pressure on a customer to buy something, you need to explain why you are giving them a deadline. The other lesson to be learned: Ask questions! It won't kill you to talk to your customers, right?
I think Michel's post constitutes as a Good Customer Service Story! We need more Jim's in the world ;)
I can certainly understand what Michael has gone through and it is reflected in two schools of thought, product first (tditional and most popular)or customer first (new kid on he block). Each sales person was brought up in various organisations that used these in their pursuit of increased bottom lines.
In today's business environment when competition is so high it would seem to make more sense to favor the needs of the customer and yet businesses are in business to make money and move product.
Recent studies have shown that in recent years with the advent of the smarter, wiser buyer and increased competion that supporting customer need fullfilment not only moves a greater volume of product but becomes a maintstay in the arsinal for customer loyalty.
Posted by: Tim Whelan | November 28, 2006 9:05 AM | Permalink to Comment