In big-ticket sales — from consulting services to information technology — customer emotions run high. Buyer’s remorse will cost you a big sale.
To prevent buyer’s remorse, you need to be a calming influence in order for the customer to understand you’re providing value.
Take care to manage your customer’s emotions. Use compassion and empathy. Always be cognizant your customer deserves the same consideration that you would expect.
Create a happy buying environment. You’ll make the sale and enhance your chances for referrals – the strongest type of lead imaginable.
Appearances count. Don’t appear to take the customer or the sale for granted. Otherwise, you inadvertently create buyer’s remorse, which results in a lost sale.
Preventing buyer’s remorse is an important part of the sales process. (More on that later in the Coach’s Corner.)
Again, all buying decisions are based emotions. The more expensive the item, the higher your customer’s emotions are.
If a customer is stressing, it will affect your sales potential. So make building trust your salient tactic.
Here are four strategies to prevent buyer’s remorse:
1. Do your due diligence
Be proactive in all phases of the sale. Anticipate any objections. Prevent any negative surprises.
If the customer has a question to which you don’t know the answer, promise to find out and get an agreement to set a time for which you’ll answer the question.
2. Continually educate the buyer
Set yourself up as the go-to person for answers and solutions. That means educating your customer.
Tell your customer what to expect. Remind them as you go along.
3. Keep it simple
Be conversational, but use formality when addressing your prospect (e.g. use Mr. or Ms.). Without getting too familiar or patronizing, talk to your customer as a friend. Smile whenever feasible.
When you’re talking on the phone, use a disc jockey trick – smile as you speak. Your voice will sound warm and friendly.
Avoid information overload. Only use computer apps in your sales operation that are absolutely necessary for time and customer-relationship management.
4. Use the right phrasing
You need an opening elevator pitch – with a strong benefit statement — to pique the customer’s interest.
Customers want to be appreciated. You must say “thank you.”
They want reassurance. Develop a buyer’s remorse statement. (For example, mine is “you will be very pleased with the strong results.”)
Be prepared to overcome objections. So empathy and information are vital.
After you close the sale, send a handwritten thank you note the same day. Be sure to mention your opening benefit statement and your sentence to prevent buyer’s remorse.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related tips:
The 7 Steps to Higher Sales – Secrets for sales success include: 1. Five value perceptions that motivate prospects to buy. 2. Seven steps to higher sales. 3. Three-step process for overcoming sales objections.
Classic Red Flags You’re about to Lose a Sale – How to Save It – You’re in the hunt for new business. You’ve done your research about a prospective anchor client. You’ve had some preliminary discussions. Now, you’re seated with the person and making your case. But will you seal the deal?
6 Rules to Keep Your Pipeline Full for Continuous Sales – It doesn’t matter what type of business you have. Even if your sales are great today, there will come a time when sales will crawl to a halt unless you take precautionary measures to keep your sales pipeline full. Yep, that’s right. Never take sales for granted — when it comes to sales keep on truckin’. Never stop marketing. Take good care of your customers, but make marketing your top priority — every day — to prevent a roller coaster ride of profit and loss.
Sales, Networking Strategies to Build Strong Relationships – Thank you letters matter, but it’s become a lost art in favor of e-mails and uttering the trite phrase, “Have a nice day.” Ugh. The irony is that thank you letters create a self-feeling of optimism — a key ingredient for climbing the corporate ladder or to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Invigorate Sales with 11 Customer Retention, Referral Strategies – How to attract and keep brand evangelists with customer service and word-of-mouth advertising. What’s needed to be effective in sales? Merely having a gregarious personality will no longer cut it in the 21st century.
Consultants – 5 Strategies to Build Trust with Clients — When a businessperson hires a consultant it’s usually because of brand trust. That’s an emotional decision no different than when a consumer buys a new refrigerator or car. But there’s one major difference – the consultant is dealing with a wealthy client or someone who wants to be affluent. Wealthy people have a different mindset, which is why they have money in the first place.
“For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.”
-Zig Ziglar
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