STRATEGY
Adam Caplan
If a salesperson is not thinking
along these lines, they should either
change their attitude or find another job
A CUSTOMER SERVICE
PHILOSOPHY
It’s an attitude of going the
extra mile, of helping others
to what’s right for them, of
being ethical and responsible,
of helping your customers get
more than they expect - and
it’s all about honesty
and integrity.
To do this you need
to follow a simple threestep process; you need
to understand who your
customers are, you need to
discover what they want,
and you must help them
understand how your product
or service benefits them (as
long as it really does).
These are the three pillars
of who, what, and how. Let’s
investigate this in more detail:
WHO ARE YOUR
CUSTOMERS?
Simply put, your customers
are the people who will
truly benefit from using
your product or service.
Anybody outside this
important classification is not
a customer. Do not try and
sell your product or service to
someone who wants whatever
you offer when it doesn’t
benefit them.
50 September 2014
STRATEGY_TB36_adamcaplan.ga.indd 50
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
All customers want the same
four things, broadly speaking;
they want their needs to
be understood (by others),
they want to be made to feel
welcome when they speak
to you, they want to feel that
they are important, or at least
valued, and they want to feel
comfortable that they can
make a decision without being
pressured or being a nuisance.
HOW CAN YOU HELP
THEM UNDERSTAND
HOW YOUR PRODUCT
OR SERVICE WILL
BENEFIT THEM?
Traditionally, sales people try
and do this by telling customers
that their product or service
will benefit them because it has
certain following features that
deliver these advantages.
The problem with this approach
is that telling isn’t selling.
Selling is finding out what
the customer wants by asking
the right questions, listening,
acknowledging they’ve heard
the customer, understanding the
customer’s desires and asking
the customer if they would
benefit from the product or
service. If the salesperson asks
the right questions, it helps the
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customer understand how the
product or service would work
for them. For example;
“I understand you are looking
for your staff to increase their
sales results. How would your
staff respond to high quality
sales training that improved
how they communicated with
their customers? “
Listen to the response and
reply: “OK, and if that training
included a section on closing
by helping customers make the
right buying decisions, would
that help them?”
Can you see how that works
better than saying, “Our high
quality sales training will help
your staff better communicate
with customers and this will
give you better results”
Ultimately, helping the
customer to understand how your
product or service will benefit
them is the best way to sell. It’s
pro-active customer service and
I think of it as a pre-emptive
customer service approach. It
works for all of my delegates and
for my whole sales team as well.
Try it out and see how you
get on with it.
Contact:
www.www.usptraining.co.uk
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TM
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29/08/2014 12:20