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Coach’s Corner: Cultivating customer love
When a customer loves working with a retailer, it means they trust them and most likely would recommend the retailer to their friends. Pat Henneberry shares seven rules for creating this kind of relationship.
Pat Henneberry was just named vice president of global learning and development at Hearts on Fire. She also is founder of The Jewelry Coach, a sales training community for jewelers. Reach her at 512-203-3414 or pat@thejewelrycoach.com.
The greatest compliment a sales professional can receive in the retail jewelry world is “I just love working with you.”
That’s especially true when that compliment comes from customers, because it means that you'll be getting their business time and time again. It means they trust you and most likely will refer you to their friends.
Here are the seven rules for getting customers to love working with you.
1. Learn who they are. Making a connection and building a relationship is the most important thing you can do with your customers.
2. Create opportunities for the customer to buy. Help them build their own stories around the reason they’ve come to you.
3. Treat your customers right and interact with them genuinely. Be real--if you aren’t, they will pick up on it.
4. Have empathy for everyone (this is a seminar in itself.) “Empathy selling” is a topic you will hear much more about from me in the future.
5. Believe in your heart that you and your store are the best at what you do.
6. Be transparent. Honesty is crucial when it comes to mistakes; your word is your bond. Following up on your promises helps show the transparency of your store and you while helping to build a feeling of trust and dependability with your customers.
7. Always say “Thank you.” Kindness and gratitude will take you far. As many as three out of four customers say they have spent more with a company because of a history of positive experiences. Kindness and gratitude for a customer’s business is an undeniable way to further enchant them for the long term.
Let’s remember to show “the love” to customers year round, even if there are 361 days until the next Valentine’s Day.
Make it the best sales day ever.
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