Sales are exciting. It’s always great to know that you or your team managed to close a sale with a customer. Not only do you make money when a sale goes right, but you also gain your customers’ goodwill, who will be more tempted to come back to you.
Since sales is a critical part of your business, a lot of care needs to be given to it. However, it’s easy to even seasoned professionals to make certain mistakes when conducting business. But don’t fret, cause these are things that you can fix once you know about them. And that’s why we’re here.
Let’s go through some of the mistakes your sales rep is making right now while on call with a customer and how you can remedy them with your repair shop POS software.
Make Sure You Do Your Homework
In the digital age, there really is no excuse for not doing your homework. If you’re planning on talking with a prospective customer, learning as much as you can about them isn’t just important; it is vital.
Preparing for the sale means doing your research on your potential buyer. You need to learn as much as you can about them. For a repair shop, this means learning what model phone they have, what laptop they use, when was it last repaired, what components are prone to breaking down, when they plan to upgrade, etc. All these things should be at your fingertips when dealing with a customer. If they’re not, it will show, and that lead will run cold super-quick.
Having a repair shop POS software that can store all the necessary information about prospective customers is a great idea. You can easily add and review the info you need and reach out to them as necessary. Collecting all the information you need in one convenient place and using it to process potential customers into paying ones will help make you stand out more.
Give a Solution, Not a Sales Pitch
When making a sales call, it’s easy to dive into what’s so great about your business. You want to impress customers and tell them all the amazing things you can do. As a repair shop owner, you might be proud of the fact that you can get your hands on rare components, service expensive phones, replace back panels with that fancy laser machine you bought. However, you need to ask yourself one question – what is my customer’s problem and how can I solve it?
Describing all the fancy things you can do can only get you so far in any business. What matters most to your customer is if you’re capable of addressing their pain point. Sometimes, the simplest solutions end up working the best, and you need to realize that.
Let’s say there are two repairs shops side-by-side, Shop A and Shop B. Both are capable of replacing someone’s damaged power button. But if Shop B offers to do it using their fancy new “Gizmotron-9000” which can also check if your battery or screen needs replacing, while Shop A does it in 5 mins flat, your customer is going to choose the latter. The point here is that by directly addressing your customer’s repair needs and providing them with a quick, easy, and cost-effective solution, you can close your sales better.
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Customers Want Value, Not Price
It’s easy to think that the price of a product will help it sell itself. Offering bargains at the cheapest prices will definitely get you more customers, right? Wrong.
Intentionally undercutting yourself so you can make quick sales isn’t a very solid long-term strategy. You’ll more often than not attract bargain hunters who won’t hesitate to drop you if they get a better deal. Instead, what you should be focused on is providing as much value to your customers as your listed price allows.
Denis Gutsu of First Response Phone Repair is a firm believer in offering customers the best value for their time and money. At his store in Rancho Cordova, California, he offers customers free lifetime warranties on repairs that they bring in. This strategy was one of the key factors that helped him generate over $1.5 million in sales in 2020 from a single store. Denis knew that by giving his customers the best value around, he can do better business with them over a longer period of time. Our podcast with Denis highlights some key factors on customer value that your sales rep can definitely learn from.
Get Ready to Handle Rejection
Sales isn’t a garden of roses like most people think. Any salesperson worth their salt will tell you you have to get used to objections and rejections. In fact, preparing to hear “No” from your potential customer can actually work in your favor.
When you offer your services to a customer, it’s important to note their needs and their interest. Your objective should be to keep a record of it, preferably in your repair shop POS software, and deal with them accordingly. They might initially say no to things that they consider trivial, but that only adds up the value for when they do say yes to what they need.
The key here is to get to that point where they are convinced they want to do business with you. Bring patient, polite, respectful, and treating them like a friend is the way to go. Customers today are sick of having advertisements and sales pitches thrown at them from all angles, so what you need to do is make a connection with them. Bond with them, talk about their concerns, understand their point of view, and then offer them something with honesty. Customers appreciate being treated well, so use that to your advantage.
Some additional points to make note of are as follows:
- Use humor. Customers love talking to someone that can make them smile and feel comfortable.
- Talk about value. Your customer will appreciate you giving them something to their actual benefit.
- Don’t insult their intelligence. Using phrases like “As I mentioned earlier” kills the mood; they heard you the first time.
- Keep a ‘no strings attached’ approach. If your customer doesn’t commit to a sale, at least you made a friend.
Don’t Throw Shade at the Competition
We all know how important it is to make your business look like it’s the best in the field. However, doing that by bad-mouthing your competitors is going to have the exact opposite effect. When your salesperson calls up a potential customer and starts putting down the competition, it only shows how insecure and classless you really are.
Throwing shade at the competition is the absolute worst thing you can do. What you should be doing instead is highlighting your strengths, giving your customers more value, and acknowledging that the competition is good in its own right. Your aim should be to show that you offer the same services as your competitors, but with more value to the customer. Talk about your extended warranty, your delivery times, your aftercare services, your freebies, or even your repair shop POS software. Your sales call should be more about you and less about your competitors.
Doing this right will not only net you more customers who admire your work ethic but will also prevent potential legal troubles. Companies can often sue for slander, libel, and defamation, and that’s not something you would want to deal with. In other words, keeping your integrity while making a sale is the better choice.
Final Words
Making successful sales isn’t all about talking customers up. Being aware of the mistakes that you can make and avoiding them is really important, and could be the deciding factor for your business. Remember to offer your customers more than just a product or a service – as a repair shop, you’re offering them a lot more.
Repair shops have the benefit of interacting with customers in a more humane manner and appealing to their human side. That’s what you need to be going after. Treating them as just another pay-day may be easy, but if you want to grow your repair business, make sure you steer clear of these mistakes.
