Selling Advice: Call your customers

Why don’t you ring your customers? I have asked this question to thousands of salespeople throughout my 30 years of sales training and these are some of the answers I get:

• It’s too pushy

• I don’t like to get rejected

• How do I know they will come in?

• I don’t like salespeople calling me, why should I call my customers?

• I call some of my customers who I am more comfortable calling

• What if he does come in and I don’t remember his name?

I may have left out a few remarks, but you get the idea. Salepeople find every excuse in the book not to call their customers. Those salespeople expect their customers to come in as if they are obligated to. Then they complain that traffic is slow, or blame it on the economy.  Does any of this sound familiar? Does it make sense? Of course not and this is why:

Most of your male customers wait until the last week and sometimes the last day because they have no idea what to get their wives and girlfriends. If you don’t have your salespeople call their customers, then why should they come in? Worse yet, if your salespeople don’t call their customers and another jeweller does, that could be the last time you see them.

Advantages:

• No cold calls. Your customers will be expecting your call
• These customers will be yours forever
• Competitors’ customers coming into your store will also be yours forever

This should be enough for you to read further because calling your customers is the most powerful of all sales techniques. No other technique approaches it for increasing sales. Those salespeople who I have trained how to create a customer list and call their customers do more than double the sales than those who do not. In fact, a new sales girl I hired, who worked in a fine ladies’ clothing store, came in asking for a job.  She always wanted to sell the finer pieces fo jewellery like we had at our family store, Zell Brothers. She had the two most important attributes, a great smile and enthusiasm and I hired her on the spot.

When I told her about creating a customer list she said she already had one and she will start calling them today! From that day on she could not be stopped. Before I knew if customers came in asking for Patti.  When I showed her that add-on sale it took no convincing and she started creating add-on sales that day.

If you think she was aggressive you are mistaken, she was friendly and introduced herself to every customer, even if they came in for a spring bar, rings cleaning, or just to ask a question.   

She took it to heart when I told her: “Every customer who comes into our store, regardless what they want, is a selling opportunity.” She greeted them all with their name. No other store did that. She had no competition. After only a few years she was so busy she didn’t have much time to wait on other customers.  Patti had developed her own store traffic. I gave her the opportunity to become an entrepreneur in our store and she grabbed it. She was only 24 then which proves a veteran salesperson is not a qualification to be successful in your store. Patti outsold them all.

This is how I recommend you get started:

• Create a meaningful customer list with your customers. This means do you know them and do they know you if you call. Include their mobile number, important parts of your conversation, and the list of jewellery they had purchased. Do not call him on his home phone number. The diamond necklace may be for someone else.
• Stand up when calling because you will get better voice projection than sitting down
• Smile before you dial and be sure to keep smiling during the entire conversation and show enthusiasm, otherwise there will be no inflection in your voice. If you don’t, you will sound defensive, uncertain and even worse, apologetic.
• Practise, practise, practise. The recorder in your smart phone is your best friend because it will always tell you the truth. Place it on a counter and rehearse a call with another salesperson until it sounds the same way you would like to be called.
• Do not ask how they are doing today. It is meaningless and he will wonder why you called him in the in the first place. Be honest and tell him why you are calling. If you sold to him correctly, he will expect your call and everything will be fine, as explained in the next paragraph.

Two key sales techniques:

Introduce yourself and remember his name, then use it selectively throughout the sale. You will not have much success selling him anonymously because he will wonder who you are when you call. However, by making a friend of him you will have gained his trust and he will be very receptive when you tell him you have something exciting to show him for his wife for Christmas.

The add-on sale is the key. This is the second most powerful sales technique to increase sales and I have written about it often in Jewellery Focus. Unfortunately, it only amounts to 5% of total sales in jewellery stores in the UK and in the US. Regardless, I urge you to use it. If a customer says that the diamond bracelet is enough for now, just tell him it would be the right gift for her on their next occasion. In fact, a small deposit will hold it. (I recommend  not to put it in hold without a deposit.)

Now that he has seen it he no longer has to wait until the last minute to select the gift. He sees you have done him a favor without you telling him. By implying is the strongest way to make your point.

Six good management tips:

• Supervise: You and your managers must assist your salespeople and walk them through the entire process. If you the owner do not want to get involved then be sure your manager is.
• Role-playing: Set the example first and demonstrate separate parts of the technique by playing the salesperson on the phone. Do not face them, instead turn your back.
• Record it on your smart phone and play it back.
• Keep everything positive and do it with a smile and yes, especially laughter
• You must sell it to your salespeople to have them do it continuously.
• Set a good example: Be the first to call your customers, create add-on sales and introduce yourself.

Now you have made a real friend. You have won his trust and especially when you tell him that the more in advance he selects a gift for his wife the more it means to her. When he comes into your store, you will remember his name because you used it during the sale and he will be very impressed. Remember the theme song from Cheers: “Everyone wants to go where they remember your name.”