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Power Your Team to Success

by | May 5, 2021 | News Release

Success in your retail business comes down to how well you have empowered your team. First, you make sure you have fueled them with the most powerful expertise for representing your products and services. Next, you need to sharpen their skills for high-performance communication that drive recommendations.

Regardless of what business sector you serve, sales and service teams often hit a wall when they are faced with questions or concerns from customers. To put customer’s minds at ease, build rapport and validate the business’ product or solution, we recommend managers introduce teams to this simple, four-step process for resolving concerns:

Step 1 Acknowledge. Acknowledging the customer’s questions or concern is a way of validating their concern and letting them know that it is an important question or concern. You do not want to discount that people might simply need more information or additional clarification before committing to a product or solution.
Step 2 Clarify. By clarifying the question or concern, you will be 100% certain that you understand it. Be sure to paraphrase the customer’s question back to them to make sure you fully understand what their asking.
Step 3 Address the Issue. Once you know why the customer is hesitating, you will know the best way to address members’ concerns. If we do not ask what concerns a customer has before purchasing or committing to something we’re offering, we don’t know how to help them overcome those. You want to make sure that the customer is comfortable with the solution and ready to move forward.
Step 4 Check for Satisfaction. The final step is to confirm that the customer is satisfied and ready to take the next step. Try using questions like, “Have I answered all of your questions?” or “What additional concerns do you have?” These are good ways to make sure you’ve addressed any and all concerns before moving onto the next steps and securing their agreement.

By asking clarifying questions and addressing concerns up front you will establish trust and confidence in your customers. You will be on your way to consistently achieving more sales and new customers.

For a sample training worksheet on Asking Clarifying Questions from our Relationship Management Workshop, email krisr@cf-pm.com.