Managing Your Customer Relationships

Improving your customer relationship management is all about improving your listening skills.

Someone once said listening was so important that God gave you one mouth but double the ears.

If you’re like me you hate those stores where you see a half a dozen salesman waiting like sharks for you to step into their domain. As soon as you’re in their line of sight they become seals splashing up to sell something you don't want.

Thank you store manager for hiring rookie salespeople who ask “Can I help you?” so you can say “No thanks I’m just looking” and move out of their feeding zone.

I always let my customers swim at least 30 seconds in my waters before I begin to circle them. I ask them opened ended questions to draw out the reasons why they are here and to win their confidence.

“Are you shopping for you or someone else?”

“Are you buying for home or business?”

Then, if I listen, I’ll know their buying objective and the product they really need. By asking the right opening question and listening I’m selling myself as their friend and assistant, not their salesman.

People love to talk about themselves and the more we prompt them to talk about themselves the more they like us, and the more they like us the more they tell us and the more we find out how-to sell them. Even if they are long-winded closing will be no problem, eventually, because they essentially agreed to buy from us the moment they started telling us about themselves. This is customer relationship management.

Real sales are about relationship and listening is the best way to manage you and the customer into a sale.