What kind of music should you listen to while fishing?
Something catchy!
Okay all jokes aside, today we want to tell you a story about a dive shop, a customer and a completely awesome sales journey. We know that still sounds like the first line of our next joke but let us lay it all out for you.
Once upon a time…
It was a bright and beautiful day in Townsville. Fueled by the knowledge of an impending birthday, our customer walks into a dive shop. The dive shop is bright, colorful and well stocked.
Then an unfortunate realization for our customer, as she realizes she has a general idea of what she wants, but no specifics. The prospect of narrowing down her search to just one choice, feels like a monumental task.
Enter stage right, our dive shop, sales assistant, Lucy. Lucy can see that our customer is looking at the spearguns.
Lucy takes action, she asks:
Who is the customer shopping for? Her husband.
Has he done a lot of spear gun fishing before? No, but he has used one a couple of times.
Taking two spear guns off the wall and placing them in either hand she gives our customer the detailed pros and cons of each, but focuses strongly on the one in the left hand, focused on the functional benefits and then finishing with her own personal l recommendation.
The customer is blown away. She makes the purchase on the spot and leaves the store happy in the knowledge she made the correct purchase choice.
This whole interaction probably took about five minutes total. Now that's what we call nailing a sales opportunity in retail!
What made this a completely awesome sales experience?
While we’ve added our own creative flair, this story is 100% a real customer interaction one of our team members had recently.
There are a couple of techniques at play here in this interaction that made it such an awesome sales journey for our team members and the customer.
The Sales Assistant asked Direct Questions
By using just two really pointed and direct questions the sales assistant was able to identify: Who the customer was shopping for, i.e. her husband. And his level of expertise i.e. Medium, which will influence which speargun would be best suited to him.
Sticking with Minimal Choices
By taking just two options off the wall, the sales assistant reduced the level of decision fatigue the customer would feel.
Demonstrated Deep Product Knowledge
Now that Lucy had reduced our team members' product choice down to just two options, she got right into the nitty gritty by demonstrating deep product knowledge. This product knowledge gave our team members the confidence to trust her.
So when she topped it off with a personal recommendation, our team member who trusted Lucy was able to make a confident decision and leave the store secure in the knowledge she has just nailed the gift.
In summary, a great sales experience does not need to be long and drawn out. With the use of direct questioning you can get to the root of what your customer is looking for and by reducing decision fatigue then demonstrating great knowledge about the product, you can ensure your customers leave the store feeling #purchaseconfident.
