Do you want to CLOSE more sales? For our WEALTHY RETAILERS, closing a sale will always begin with a great opening – the greeting!!
GREETING and ENGAGING customers effectively and appropriately is often our biggest challenge on the sales floor. For some reason we get lost in our own world and forget just how important getting past the customer’s first or opening objection really is.
How to Greet Customers
EVERY customer who enters your store deserves a verbal greeting – make sure it is energetic, socially welcoming and puts the customer at ease. Too often greetings can come off as intrusive, cold or all about YOU (the store) rather than the customer. Try saying “Hello, Welcome or Thank You for coming in”. DO NOT say “Can I help you” or “Have you been helped”. These are negative greetings that inadvertently take power away from where it belongs – with the customer.
Think about the customer and how they are feeling when they walk in your door. If you put yourself in their shoes would you change how you greet them? Remember to smile, be social and show yourself as friendly. People will buy from people they like! Customer engagement involves creating a trust that allows you to ask lots of personal questions about their tastes, wants & needs.
Using a social, welcoming greeting will allow you to transition to a first offer of assistance. You now need to ask an open-end question that brings your conversation to business. Try asking “what brings YOU in today” or what’s YOUR mission today”. Using the words YOU and YOUR shows you care about them and they will begin to see you as a person rather than a SALES person. 50% of customers will tell you why they are in the store if you greet this way.
If you want to hear how a WEALTHY RETAILER handles the other 50%, send us an email and we’ll hook you up.
Remember great closings come from great openings!
Dan Holman is a certified Winning@Retail™ consultant with twenty-plus years of success in diverse business development, new ventures, business expansion and strategic sales planning.
