With the Holiday Season upon us many of our stores are going to be visited for the first time. So now is the perfect time to make sure you’re engaging your customers fully. To help I’ve noted 3 points at which you can make or break a customer relationship.
3 points of customer engagement
1. When they first walk in.
2. When they are out on the sales floor.
3. When they approach the register to check out.
First Impressions
Your first chance to engage the customer starts when they walk in. Say “Hello” or “Welcome to XXXX”. Say it with a smile. This immediately gives the customer a friendly, happy feeling about your store. Also, when you greet someone as they walk in you can tell if they’re doing a return and instantly start the process of helping them with that. Several places then go from the “Hello” to the helping phase – DON’T. Let the customer get a feel for your store first. Let them browse. Let them decompress. If you start with, “can I help you find anything” you risk shutting them down too quickly.
Browsing to Buying
After you’ve allowed the customer to walk around a bit you come to your second point of engagement. This is where several places ask, “Can I help you find anything?” or “Are you finding every OK?” These are fine questions, but see how easily the customer can shut down the conversation with YES/NO? In fact, it’s almost a rote response like Thank You/You’re Welcome.
Instead try to engage the customer. Use questions that require a real response. “What brings you in today?” Or, bring up a featured product or special: “Did you know that we have XXXX on special today?”
When the customer responds, don’t go into sales mode. Customers hate sales mode. Instead, ask questions and find out what they are looking for. This is why, “What brings you in today?” works really well. They can say they’re shopping for a gift. Which allows you to ask several questions: What does this person like? What types of products have you seen this person use? Are they young/old? Prefer an iPad or a Legal Pad? Etc.
Now that you’ve engaged them you can steer them to the product that’s right for them. And if it is successful (meaning it makes the receiver or the customer happy) they will be sure to come back again and possibly tell their friends.
Checking out doesn’t mean you “Check out”
Now that they’ve got their purchase don’t stop with the engagement. You still have the opportunity to ruin everything with a bad checkout process. Be sure to greet the customer again. If you have a line, make sure you acknowledge the next person in line. “We’ll be right with you,” goes a long way to making a customer feel more appreciated. Apologize for the wait – no matter how long or short. It’s hard for someone to be angry when you’re trying to be nice (it’s not impossible as everyone working retail knows, but it’s at least harder). If you have a long line and don’t have enough registers open or staff to man them, make note of this and plan for the future. If people have to wait in line, they immediately start doing mental calculations as to the worth of the product. Many will walk out without buying something if they deem the worth/wait ratio to be skewed. They will remember this and possibly not come back. So not only do you lose the sale, you lose future sales.
After the customer is in front of you ready to check out make sure you give them your full attention. Don’t have conversations with other associates. If you’re a manager, wait till the sales associate is free before asking any questions or giving instructions. Nothing says, “you’re not important” like treating someone like they’re not there.
This is also the point where many places try to get phone numbers and email addresses. Don’t just ask for them, give me a reason to give you them. Give me an immediate deal, or a deal I’ll get as soon as I finish the checkout process. “you’ll receive a 20% off coupon to use on your next visit and receive weekly specials.” Sign me up! The point of email addresses isn’t just to get them, it’s to get repeat customers.
If you pay attention to these three points of engagement I’m sure you’ll create happy, life-long customers who will help spread the word about your store.
So take a look at your store and ask, “At what point could we more fully engage the customer?”
Joe Robles 