Selling advice: Adding on

This month’s section on jewellery services such as engraving, resizing, and polishing is very timely before the holidays because it will give you jewellers a big opportunity to increase your sales. I know what some of you will say: “We’re too busy then.” Perhaps you are if you don’t know how to convert these services into sales.

If an enterprising young jeweller opened a jewellery store across the street from you, you should be worried. Why? Because he would advertise all of these services and better yet remind every customer who comes into his store and asks to see their jewellery. As soon as they show him what jewellery they want cleaned, refinished, engraved or resized it opens a world of repairs, new settings, replacing of broken stones designing and remodelling rings. I could go on, and I will.

If you are thinking ‘we give plenty of service’, think again. Let me give you the definition of service: ‘When you do something above and beyond what your customers expect’. Some readers would give me the example of cleaning customer rings because this is the first thing they think of, and in most cases the only service they have. But when I ask jewellers if they volunteer it they say they offer it ‘whenever a customer asks and sometimes we will voluntarily’.

I tell them that if the customer has to ask, it might as well not be a service. It is a courtesy and one which should be expected of any jeweller. Why don’t they volunteer it all the time? They say it takes too much time and their salespeople don’t like it because they have to leave their customers to clean the rings. Besides, they get few repair requests anyway.

When I am in their stores, I see the problem. No one else is on the sales floor for the salesperson to give the rings to, to have them cleaned. They are in the back of the store where most sales assistants congregate. They should be nearby to always be of assistance. This should be the first thing a salesperson should volunteer because it immediately puts their customers in a positive frame of mind and they will always give you another opportunity to find something they will buy. You should be able to visualise the increased sales already!

Why am I so positive about cleaning customers rings? Because our family store voluntarily did this all the time and it was the talk of the town. Customers would come into our store, start taking off all their jewellery, put it on the counter and say they will be back after they shop, or wait for it while they are browsing. More often then not, we would see worn shanks and prongs which would lead to new diamond mountings and sometimes larger diamonds. The word-of-mouth advertising was so strong that customers from competitors came into our store.

When I opened our mall store, I had everyone emphasise the same service. Many of these customers had never been to our downtown store and they were pleasantly surprised when we voluntarily asked to clean their rings. We asked them to drop on by whenever they are in the mall, as often as they would like, and told them we will clean and check their jewellery.

They did, and our steam cleaner was going all day. The results were as strong as our downtown store, we gained repeat customers, customers from the mall jewellers and large diamond sales. We rarely heard a challenging remark from a customer because when they saw how brilliant their diamonds were after our cleaning work.

However, something may be missing if you don’t teach your sales assistants how to convert these opportunities into sales. As an example, when you see a ring with a worn shank and claws did you recommend a new setting or to repair the ring? I found in most stores salespeople repaired the ring because they assumed their customers would object due to sentimentality.

Customers think you can add gold to the shank and claws and that will preserve the sentiment. Once you explain you have to remove the claws and shank they will understand they are losing part of the sentimental value. Now you can show them new diamond mountings that will make their diamond look even more brilliant.

This is another great service that is overlooked by almost all jewellers. Outstanding gift wrapping with special paper and beautiful bows, even with an ornament on top at no extra charge. It would stand out from all other gifts from under the tree and customers would be coming to your store to buy the same thing they saw at your competitors because they want that fabulous gift wrap of yours. The objections I get are: “It’s too expensive, takes too much time and what we have is OK”. It’s that old complacency attitude I hear too often.

That fabulous gift wrap was a hallmark of our store and some of our male customers would even comment that if their wives didn’t see a Zell Brothers gift under the tree, they were in trouble. When it came to selling a brand name like a popular brand watch they could buy at other stores, we got the business because they wanted our gift wrap.

At the mall store it also made a huge impression. Our new customers never expected anything like it and they became customers forever. Was it costly? Yes, because we made sure we used special paper and ribbons you wouldn’t see anywhere else. We charged it to our advertising budget and it produced far better results that we could actually see from an advertisement. The beautiful gift wrapping was always above and beyond what our customers expected. Now that’s service.

This feature first appeared in the November 2015 issue of Jewellery Focus