Greeting Customers

Your initial contact with a customer, or "the approach," is a critical key to your gaining a customer's confidence. You need to put your customers at ease and show them that you have their interest rather than your own pocketbook at heart, When you can exhibit this attitude to your customers they will be willing to confide in you why they have come into your furniture store. People will only buy from you when they have confidence in you and the solutions you offer.

The process for successfully approaching customers is simple and it breaks several "old rules" of selling. Old rules like, Find out what they want in a hurry, and Don't get them talking about the weather, because they may never stop, won't put you in a position to learn what your customer needs. You need to break these "old rules" and learn to get your customers to drop their defenses and begin talking with you.

A Warm Smile And Friendly Greeting

Experts in the field of human relations tell us that we only have a few moments to establish a positive impression when we meet a new customer. The best way to begin creating a positive impression is by giving a sincere and enthusiastic smile to your customer. People respond incredibly well to a friendly smile. Such a smile makes your customer feel welcome in your store. A customer that receives a smile is more likely to begin a conversation with you.

Say Hello

After sharing a sincere smile you need to initiate a conversation with your customer. Don't count on your customer begin the conversation. This is your job.

Simple greetings like "Hello!" or "Good evening!" or "Good morning!" can be a great start. Just like you, customers appreciate a pleasant greeting with a smile.

After that initial greeting you can ask how he or she is doing. Open-ended questions like "How are you?" or "How is it going?" or "How are you enjoying the day?" invite people to open up. Be sure to ask these questions with real interest.

Make Appropriate Responses

You already know that most customers won't open up at first. They will respond with simple, one word answers like "Fine," or "Good," or "Okay." Don't give up. When a customer answers your "How are you?" question with "Fine," you could say, "Well, that's good! I'm glad to hear it!" or "Great. The day will continue to get better too!"

Make sure you phrase your responses in complete sentences. This is not just for the sake of good grammar. Complete sentences will encourage your customers to open up and become more involved in the conversation. Simple, one-word answers will discourage communication and end your sales interaction.

When you give appropriate responses the customer knows you are listening. This is key to your success. From the beginning you must demonstrate to the customer that you know how to listen.

Further The Conversation

When a customer responds positively to your initial greeting make a real effort to draw them into conversation with you. You can do this by asking open-ended questions after your first greeting. Open-ended questions, by their very nature, encourage communication since they cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." They require a customer to think before answering. These questions encourage a customer to talk with you.

Here are some sample questions:

"What do you think of all the rain we've been having this week?" "What do you think of the Spring Festival they are having in the mall today?" If you are talking to a customer on a Monday morning, you could say, "How did you enjoy your weekend?"

On a Friday, you might say something like, "What fun have you got planned for the weekend?"

On Saturday or Sunday, you might say, "Tell me, how is your weekend going?"

During the middle of the week you could look for current happenings of interest that are not political or religious in nature, like a recent football or basketball game. For example, you could ask, "Hey, what did you think about that game last night?" You could also choose a weather-related question, like, "How are you holding up in all this heat?"

Or, perhaps, if you are in a busy location, you could ask, "How was the traffic coming down here today?" You just need to keep the conversation going.

Keep Listening

The purpose of your questions is to draw the customer into conversation until he or she feels comfortable enough to tell you the purpose of her visit to your store. If your customer responds with interest to your second question, you should try to further the conversation. For example, If the customer answered a question about the weather with, "I'm really enjoying the sunshine today," you could follow up and ask, "Are you planning anything exciting?"

Getting Down To Business

Now, if the conversation has gone for at least a few sentences, and you feel it is coming to an end, then you might ask the question, "By the way, what brings you into our store today?" Or you could say, "What's got you out shopping on a beautiful day like today?"

In other words, after you have put your customer at ease, ask open-ended questions which will help to reveal the reason for the visit. Once she has revealed a willingness to talk to you, and she tells you about her needs, then you can truly serve her.

Compliments

Sometimes it is a good idea to get a conversation going by acknowledging an item of clothing, a piece of jewelry, or a hairstyle that a customer is wearing. There is a very simple rule to help you decide when this is appropriate. If the item you are thinking about mentioning is unique or definitely different, go ahead and ask about it. People wear different and unique things to be noticed, and they appreciate comments about them.

For example, one young man who lives in Tennessee loves to collect and wear ties with large pictures of horses on them. He loves it when people mention his ties. He wears them to share his interest in horses. And when he's asked about them, he talks all about his hobby as a horse trainer.

Similarly, women who wear a particularly ornate or unusual piece of jewelry would probably love to have it commented upon. Yet a woman who is wearing a simple gold-plated chain may find the fact that you commented on it rather artificial, and she will feel that this is an obvious ploy to get her talking.

Another opportunity to discuss an item someone is wearing would be when you meet a customer that is wearing a lapel pin signifying membership in a particular organization.

Be careful to comment on items of clothing or jewelry only when they're truly unique. A customer wearing a blue suit and a red tie is probably not going to find it at all interesting or imaginative if you comment on what, to him, may be just an ordinary red tie and blue suit that he grabbed out of his closet that morning.

Watch out for inappropriate humor in greeting your customers. One salesperson used to greet customers with a little humorous line that went like this, "Hi! Did you bring your checkbook or charge card today?" He got their attention and sometimes a little laugh.

However, he also put his customers on the defensive as they became aware of his selling motives. When this kind of method is used to start a conversation at the beginning of the selling process, often any possibility of developing a rapport with your customer will disappear.

Conclusion

Regardless of whether you talk about the weather, discuss something your customer is wearing, or ask questions about how your customer is feeling, these rapport building moments will help you to build a relationship and become more successful than if you try to briskly get down to business. If you welcome your customer with a smile and a sincere greeting you are on your way to turning this visitor into a customer. You will really be breaking the "rules" of what is too often normal in furniture selling today.