Welcome home, Sherry. Meet Sherry Howell who has worked behind the scenes for TrainerTainment since 2008. Sherry and her groom are back in the USA after several years of teaching English as second language in Peru, Costa Rica and Viet Nam! We are thrilled to have her physically back with the team and wanted to introduce you to her. You’ll see Sherry out training and teaching in that “Fun Training-Serious Results” style you’ve come to depend on from our company. You can welcome Sherry home and comment on her article by emailing her at: sherry@trainertainment.net or leaving a comment on our blog. As always, thanks for taking time to read and share our newsletter each week!
Beth
When I started working with Beth five years ago, I decided that my favorite selling tip was: Find out what the customer wants and sell them that. Of course! It seems so simple, but I really just can’t tell you how knowing that one phrase can help not only with selling, but with customer service, staff meetings, training sessions, and really with so many situations in life.
As you know, I’ve just recently moved back to the USA and have bought a house. In our area, the only internet service provider is Comcast. Did I just hear a collective groan? When I tell people that I have been working with Comcast, I hear things like, “they’re terrible. They’ve got the worst customer service ever.” Pretty sad isn’t it? I guess they don’t know reputation is everything nor do they care because, in my area, they’re the only option.
After several attempts to get the installation ordered online, I called their customer service center to get some personal help. When the representative answered, I explained to her that I was trying to order internet and that Comcast was not delivering quality customer service. I explained that Comcast kept calling us, then placing us on hold for 9 or more minutes and that when someone finally came back on the line, they asked why WE had called.
I told her that so far I was very unhappy and really hoped that she could turn this negative experience into a more positive one. I gave her everything she needed to know in order to make me a happy, paying customer. Instead of listening to the customer and selling me what I wanted, however, she decided to push her own agenda first. She literally said, “before I do that, I see that you’ve only ordered internet service. Can I interest you in other services such as cable or…”
I did NOT let her finish the sentence. She hadn’t listened to anything I said. Basically, she was telling me that that before she addressed my needs, she needed to push her product. This doesn’t work, at least NOT on me! Now, I love love love selling, and upselling our products, but I think the conversation should have gone something like this:
“Oh! I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had a rough time of it, Mrs. Howell! I can absolutely help you with that. Ok, I see that you’ve ordered X, for which I can have someone out to your house by X date. How does that sound? I also noticed that you’ve only ordered our internet services, and if you’re interested, I can save you X dollars by adding on a cable package. I can make adding cable easy and affordable for you at this time as we are straightening out the internet issues? Is that something you would like me to take care of now?”
If she had said something like the latter, she would have addressed all my needs AND made me a happy customer potentially willing to spend a little more. As we do our jobs in sales and customer service, we need to make sure we are listening to what our customers are telling us. They always tell us what it takes to make them happy!
So find out what they want, and sell them that. Plus maybe some more, if we’re good.
Thanks for reading,
Sherry Howell
