On the importance of training for sales and customer service personnel in service industries.
There are three elements necessary for any type of person who wants to make a successful sale:
- Training in the products and services you sell. Knowledge of how to understand customer needs. Development of the ability to negotiate.
Before thinking about training in sales techniques, any person who is assigned to provide a service to the customer, must be properly trained in the products or services the company provides. An indecisive or unsure client of what he is going to acquire, looks for in the person who attends him someone with concrete and extensive knowledge, since that will make him feel that he really is in the hands of an expert.
The training should be about the company's range of products, the additional services it provides, how to get better use of them and how to make a smart purchase. There is nothing more uncomfortable than talking to a salesperson who does not know or who has to ask the partner. Recently, when visiting a bank, a suggestion had to be made, given the discomfort caused by an official who, being in front of the client, had to ask his supervisor each of the steps in the process, despite the fact that the company has an ISO certification., which establishes that everyone who affects the quality of the product must have the necessary skills for the position, be previously trained and measure the effectiveness of that training.Other necessary elements are related to knowing the company you work for widely, its mission (the reason why it exists), its vision (how it aspires to be recognized) and its values, what the company believes in.
The other aspect is knowing how to recognize the various characteristics that drive a customer to buy. If a potential buyer is accompanied, this may be a possible influencer of the sale, you must know how to recognize it. Long before selling, we are providing a service, if the person who attends us understands us even better. A good salesperson must have "big ears and a small ego", know how to listen more than torment the client with details that he does not require and, of course, stop worrying about "closing the sale" and concentrate on understanding the client and becoming his best buying ally.
Much of the training received as salespeople turns out to be untrustworthy, because it focuses on what to do to people, turning customers and colleagues into enemies to be conquered. In many it is exaggerated in the presentation of attributes of a product that the customer does not care about or value, this generally happens in household appliances such as DVDs, sound equipment, televisions, etc. It is probably information that the expert is interested in, but most customers are not, but still buy.
Successful sellers act as partners with their customers and share a common goal with them: maximizing customer success through the products or services they are sold to. Its dynamic is not that of "me against you", but that of "you and me facing the challenge"
The last aspect is the ability to negotiateand for that the company must adequately manage the prices and especially the periphery of its products so that its vendors can skillfully achieve the best deal for the benefit of both the client and the company. We must remember the importance that is given to the value perceived by the customer, much more than the added value, it has been said that «added value not perceived by the customer is a waste. A professional seller must comply with the following steps: make a proper entry, so that the chemistry begins with your potential buyer. The next step is an adequate exploration of the client's needs, using for that, what was indicated in the previous paragraph. Then comes the "give and take" offering the client alternatives to obtain a greater benefit and finally comes the closing,that while it is true, is to achieve a sale, more important is to achieve a loyal customer, who will buy again. Remember that selling is a process, which does not end when the invoice is made or collected, but ends when the customer returns for another product, because their shopping experience has been successful.
These three elements allow a person to really face a sales process successfully, all of which can be acquired through training, that is what makes the difference between a good seller and a bad seller and what makes the sale really important. training, is that it provides the necessary tools to obtain a better performance.
