In sales, the ground realities of the business can often be different from the strategies that should work in theory.
For instance, it can be very difficult to explain why certain customers react the way they do to a particular event, while others react differently.
As an agent, you could provide the most promising argument, back it up with data and show your value proposition effectively to your customer, and still find that your pitch has been rejected.
It is as important for employees to focus on how they communicate as it is for them to pay heed to what they communicate.
To get the best out of every single buyer, they need to mold their personality and their approach according to the personality of the buyer.
This way, the customers will be able to relate better, be more likely to trust the agent, and subsequently be more likely to invest in the product concerned.
In this article, we will provide tips on how employees can adjust themselves according to the personality of their buyers, to draw the best out of every conversation.
1. Listen attentively. The first thing an employee has to do is cultivate good listening skills.
He has to pick up on subtle references to understand what the customer’s mindset is, and how they are reacting to any situation. Attentive listening also gives the agent a wealth of information to work with.
2. Talk about your product’s USPs. Starting a conversation can be a gamble because agents cannot predict customer behavior at that point.
Therefore, it is a good idea to push your USP first up, so that you can gauge early on how the customer perceives it and then work accordingly to further convince them and make the sale.
3. Give yourself time to understand the customer’s personality. Most associations last well over one phone call. Your company stands to gain a meaningful association in the long term if you give yourself some time to understand your customer’s behavior patterns rather than jumping right in.
Let the customer speak for a while, understand their problems and their approach and then model your pitch accordingly.
4. Make use of technology. Use the data about a customer to get an idea about their personality.
Their previous buying history, expressions of likes and dislikes general profile, and experience all indicate how they are likely to behave.
Agents need to adjust their communication to reflect best with that determined likely personality to give themselves the best chance at success.
5. Establish a personal connection. Operations are far more efficient if the customer feels a personal connection with the agent in question.
It helps to bridge a relationship of trust between the two parties, makes the customer feel more comfortable, and enforces the idea of a partnership for mutual benefit.
6. Match your customer’s intensity. Very often, the intensity or drive that the agent exudes is way over that of the customer. This leads to customers feeling like the agents are over-enthusiastic or desperate to sell them products, and cause them to shut off the brand.
Matching the customer’s level of intensity is important to move a business relationship forward.
7. Analyze the effect of your conversation. Agents have the benefit of real-time data to see what kind of effect their words and actions have on a practical level.
This data should guide employees into modifying their conversations to reflect better results, even in the middle of a call if necessary.
8. Communicate at an individual level.
Your customers want service that is personalized and individualistic.
To match their personality, you need to treat each customer as a separate subject instead of grouping them into demographics and trying out more generic strategies.
Communicating with each person separately will establish better relations.
9. Keep the ideas easy to grasp. Talking about concepts that are too complex for non-experts in the field, using too much jargon, or painting every action as complicated, can alienate the customer.
Agents have to keep things simple and solve queries in a manner that is easy to grasp and understand.
10. Focus on beginning and ending well. The beginning and end of a conversation stay with the customer even after the call.
You must make these memorable.
Say something that piques their interest to start with, so that they remain invested in the entire conversation.
End on a positive note so that the customers are willing to stay in touch further.
11. Appeal to your customer’s emotions.
Emotional connections often work better than logic in convincing customers.
An agent who can deliver content in a way that appeals to the emotions of the client is likely to see more success than another who delivers the same or even better content in a less engaging way.
12. Be charismatic in absorbing information.
As a call center employee, you have to showcase genuine interest in what the customers have to say.
Even if they are saying something repetitive, wrong, or inefficient, it is your prerogative to be charismatic and take in whatever information you are getting.
You can then use this information as a base for your subsequent conversation with the customers.
13. Ensure your customers know you value their association.
Companies need to communicate to their customers how valuable they are and how important their association is to them. Agents need to conduct themselves in a manner that is respectful and interactive, so the customer feels valued in the conversation, and hence trusts the intentions of your brand additionally.
14. Be persistent with skeptics to persuade them. Patience is a virtue all employees need to cultivate.
Very often, a customer will be skeptical about the products you pitch.
They will hesitate to invest in your company, or ask a whole lot of questions covering every detail.
Employees need to answer them patiently and comprehensively to gain their trust.
15. Influence customers by citing referrals from their networks.
A customer is naturally more likely to trust the words of someone from his own circles.
This is where agents can improvise and cite referrals by other clients to establish a connection.
This shows that others have given your company a vote of confidence and that you are capable of delivering the best solutions in the market.
16. Avoid ambiguity in conversation.
Perhaps the one most hated thing that customers have reported is ambiguity in conversation.
As an agent, it is your duty to ensure that the point of the conversation is clear and well laid out.
No customer wants to waste their time talking to an agent who will only beat around the bush.
Get to the point and stick to your points as often as you can.
17. Be ready to change your style of decision-making.
As discussed earlier, employees need to be ready to adjust their approach to match the customer’s personality.
If you understand that your approach needs a change, you must have a Plan B in place, so that you are prepared to take up a different decision-making strategy.
18. Bring in an expert opinion if needed.
Customers sometimes want reassurance in a particular field to dispel their doubts.
In such a scenario, it is a good idea to bring in an expert to the conversation, take a backseat and let them explain the technicalities to the customers.
This also makes customers value you as a resourceful agent belonging to a resourceful company.
19. Make your business customer-centric. Major companies are realizing the need to put the customer first in all situations, because of the power that customer service holds in business.
A customer-centric business ensures its agents know that the client must be prioritized, and communicated so to their callers, in a bid to keep them loyal and profitable.
20. Ask questions outside your business agenda. Customers are more likely to enjoy a personal connection with agents who know their personal lives.
Agents need to be ready to open up and be willing to ask the odd question about the customer beyond their business, for a meaningful relationship to exist.
The Case Study
Different customers will obviously have different approaches in any particular scenario.
Moreover, the mindset of a customer depends on whatever is going through their minds and in their lives at that point. Using the call center software, companies try to factor in everything that influences a client’s personality and then devise strategies.
The approach that employees take can have a significant effect on the outcome.
You might have a great product, provide great value propositions and have a working marketing strategy in place, but if you cannot adjust your strategies to fit in with each client’s personality, chances are you will end up striking the wrong chord and lose a lead.
Agents use every resource they can, from intuition to call center software solutions, to gauge the mindset of the client before trying to provide support.
To understand the critical role of dynamism in sales tactics that play in business and the importance of adapting to the client’s personality, let us take into account the example of Vanarym Solutions, a telemarketing agency providing call center solutions for a large organization.
We will analyze the challenges they faced, the solutions they implemented to those challenges, and how that impacted their business and their sales figures.
The Problem Scenario
Vanarym Solutions had been struggling with a slide in productivity over the past year.
Despite conjuring solid marketing campaigns and developing a top-notch product, their sales figures were nowhere close to ideal, and they were falling short of predetermined targets.
The company was looking to take the help of technology to provide more effective telemarketing software solutions and boost their revenue generation.
The Challenges
The problems that the company faced in their day to day operations are listed below.
1. Customers were not being given adequate time to say their piece. Instead, the agents were more concerned with making sure that they informed all of the salient features within a short span of time as possible.
2. The same customer was redirected to different agents on subsequent calls so no agent could establish a personal connection with them.
3. The software in use was insufficient to indicate what route to take for agents to draw the best out of every interaction and every individual customer.
4. Customers complained of ambiguity in conversation, and the agents could not appeal to their emotions in trying to sell their products.
The Solutions
The managers at the company proposed the following solutions to counter the challenges that they were facing.
1. Agents were asked to adhere to metrics that prioritized quality, so they could take some time to listen to the customers and gauge their personality, and then adjust accordingly instead of having to rush through with the call.
2. Agents were encouraged to establish a personal relationship with the customer, get to know about their lives, and get them to trust the brand through repeated contact.
3. The company invested in the best call center software which took in data about the customers and suggested the best strategies to adopt in every individual scenario.
The Results
Vanarym Solutions invested heavily in new technology and training for its agents.
For the next year, their revenue figures remained stable as they could overcome the setback of those investments.
For the next two years, their sales figures rose steadily.
Customer satisfaction levels were at a high, and more and more customers were remaining loyal to the company, which was important for them to ensure as they embarked on a journey of scaling up.
Within five years, they were in a leading position in the market and were able to increase their operations.
Thus, we can see how important adaptability is in the curse of business.
Employees should be able to adjust themselves according to the unique customer they encounter.
That is what separates a truly successful company from the mediocre one.
The tips and strategies provided here will definitely help your company follow that route of adaptability and generate even better results.