Response Magazine - December 2007

Getting Your Sales Basics Right

By Sean Coleman

Acouple years ago, during a heated debate with my sister-in-law, the subject “Death of the Salesman” came up. No, not the famous play — my sister-in-law was making a strong case that the Internet and electronic retailing will eventually kill off the traditional salesman/customer relationship.

She had spent an afternoon buying several items online, and was waxing lyrical to me about how easy the process was and that she had no need to deal with “salesmen.”

Thinking about this in some depth later, I submit that it must be, in fact, the complete opposite. The salesman (or company) must maintain the very important “personal touch” in sales — and after sales — in order to maximize each profit opportunity, prevent cancellations and increase repeat orders.

The two largest purchases that the average person makes in his or her lifetime are usually a house and a motor vehicle. Both of these items are very expensive and involve the prospective client in a lot of careful thought prior to making the decision to purchase. But once that decision is made, it is usually followed through until a purchase is complete — and it is rarely cancelled.

It’s no coincidence that trained professionals handle these purchases, rather than just leaving them to a click of a mouse. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule — buying a new car from the Internet is becoming more accepted — but do you know many people who have bought a vehicle this way? With real estate also popular for advertising on the Internet, no one I know has actually bought a house by solely clicking a mouse.

So how can we in the electronic retailing business
ensure that our contact with the consumer is as pro-
fessional as possible — a rewarding experience from
both their point of view, as well
as yours?

Back to Basics

Selling, as we all have heard is a science, but sometimes we can be overburdened with infor-

mation and tactics. The traditional “sale” has a well-worn track. As every reader of any management guide will know, the track consists of:

• Presentation

• Introduction

• Demonstration of need

• Benefit of product

• Personalization of benefit

• Pitch of price/investment merit

• Close

• Consolidation

• Referral/upsell

In the world of DR, we rely upon stages 1-7 to be performed by the infomercial or spot. The only contact the client has with the vendor is once they pick up the telephone.

As we are all too aware, if the phone does not ring, then usually it’s down to the ever-present show/price/offer juggle. If the phones do ring, then the most important part of the process has begun.

Choosing your call center carefully — professional telesales operators, armed with upsell and feature/ben-efit sheets — is perhaps the greatest, most important part of the whole process. It’s the first time that you, as a company, get to interact with the client. Instead of just using this purely as a revenue opportunity, use this as a way of instilling confidence to the consumer. Promote your company ethos, say how many satisfied clients you have, explain how importantly you value their feedback.

Using a Consumer Satisfaction Index?

Are you using one? If not, why not? They are invaluable in finding out what you are doing right, as well as what you are doing wrong. In the long term, acting on the issues they reveal will protect your greatest asset — your customers.

Two weeks after my argument with my sister-in-law, she received three items via the post. Each was labelled incorrectly, with shoddy merchandise inside, and her expectations were shot down. She has taken every opportunity she has had to give the companies concerned bad word of mouth.