Talking to your customers is not just chit-chat.  There are many means of conveying a message, verbal being only one.  Consider the following to be additional ways your customer hears your “voice”.

            Talk Friendly.  Who makes the first impression for your company?  The receptionist gives a picture of your company to more people than all your sales force put together.  Is the image she gives the one you want your customer to see?  Sales are often lost because the telephone or front desk person seems disinterested.  Solve the problem before it arises by going over telephone–friendly ways of getting your image across that you want your customer to see/hear.  A simple, “Hello” won’t convince the potential customer on the other end of the telephone that your company is eager to do business with them.  There should be sunshine in the voice. Give potential customers a picture of a successful future.  Go over telephone methods of conveying a business attitude that shows eagerness, even excitement. Conduct a taped message seminar, let your telephone person hear the way he/she sounds to the customer.  Practice a fresh approach and a sincere voice.  “Good morning” sounds livelier than a boring hello.  “What can I do for you?” might be replaced with, “How can I help you today”, or the increasingly popular, “Hello, I can help you today“.  Changing from a helpful question to a more personalized query lets your customer know you really do care at ABC Company.  As long as you let your employee know how you want your customer to hear you, and they respond, you can make changes.

            Talk Often.  In advertising, repetition is successful.  Putting your name in front of your buying public needs to be done again and again.  The first ad you run will be noticed and filed away in the memory bank.  The second ad within a short time period reminds the buying reader you’re a credible business.  The third ad gets your buyer’s attention to product and price.  The fourth ad reminds your buying reader of your location, your phone number, and the need to contact you.  The fifth and sixth ads put you on his call list or remind him he has made a good decision if he’s called you by now.  These are not exact patterns, but advertising works best when done consistently and repeatedly.  Running one large ad once a year will get you some attention, possibly even some calls, but you’ll gain more productivity with a pattern of planned, smaller advertisements.  Price often gets attention, but unless you convince your customer you’re a source of supply for him that will offer price and quality, dependability and trustworthiness, he probably won’t add you to his list of reliable suppliers.  Plan an ad campaign that builds on this reliability. 

            Notice old, tried and true television commercials.  They start by introducing the “old comfy” company concept.  They establish a focus–a voice they want us to hear.  In an old McDonalds’ Super-Bowl commercial build-up, we knew the two men watching TV were good-old-boys who had basic needs, feeding their sports hunger by catching a good sports event on television.  We are pre-programmed, we see how laid back these two fellas are, then see them rush from their chairs and comfort to go catch the product (pictured, but not explicitly explained), to satisfy their stomach’s hunger before the rest of the game is over.  You get the idea–progressive commercials start with step one, and build.  As the buying audience, we hear the talk the company wants us to.  Do the same with your buyers.

            Talk Plainly.  In your store, your company’s voice needs to say what you want it to with no confusion.  Do that with your displays–is the department featuring a product conveying size range, price and color?  Do you have extra inventory in case your customer wants to buy by the dozen?  Is it obvious if you have a quantity discount?  Are your signs legible?  Do you let your buyer know product qualities:  color-fastness, shrink factor, limitations or lack of?  Letting a customer ask questions may be a way of getting your customer to talk to your salespeople, but forcing your customer decipher details that need to be answered before buying may be enough to make her walk out of the store on a rushed day of errands sandwiched in between getting out of work, picking the kids up at basketball practice, and fixing dinner.  Don’t make your buyer work too hard to buy.

            Talk Interested.  If you have salespeople “on the floor”, communicate–tell them the image you want offered to your customers.  Sometimes sales are lost because an employee doesn’t seem to care whether a customer purchases or not.  We each like to feel the money we spend is more than a boring transition from our wallet to your cash register.  It’s more fun to buy when the sales person is excited to sell.  The voice here could be body language, or inflection; the tone a salesperson puts into the customary, “May I help you?”  Change from the previous expected question to, “Are you finding what you need?” and put the emphasis on your buyer instead of your salesperson.  Teach your sales personnel to convey a desire to know and answer the needs of your customer and your customer hears an interest in his need to buy instead of yours to sell. 

            Talk Patiently.  Allowing the customer an amount of time to browse first is a good idea.  There is a fine line between letting too much browsing time go by before your customer thinks no one cares, and allowing him enough time to shop.  When a sales person is kind enough to ask, “May I help you find anything?” and then leaves the customer alone long enough to exercise enough intelligence to do just that, it’s smart of the selling person to offer the buying person a smile.  Then, if it appears the buyer is going in circles, he’ll be reminded there is someone to help if he doesn’t remember what it was he wanted in the first place.

            Talk Professionally.  Salespeople, beauticians, or CPA’s who talk to each other in front of a customer about what they did last night, or what their best friend did to them, let customers know they are more concerned with their own problems than a customer’s needs.  The voice they project is immature and self-interested.  If you have sales people who practice more interaction with each other than your customers, your customers have probably already figured out that your company doesn’t need their business and have gone somewhere else.  Don’t leave this possibility open–let your people, your employees know that an unprofessional attitude toward the customer will eliminate the need for their job.  School them on the proper way to approach and care for a customer, leaving their personal life at home.

            Talk Word-of-Mouth.  People–all of us–share what we think, what we feel, and sometimes, even what we know.  Word-of-mouth can be the most damaging or the most advantageous advertising.  All of the mentioned methods of talking to your customer result in your customer talking to friends, family and co-workers about your company.  Make sure your customer hears the voice you want to convey.  Insure your success by talking to those who can be your company’s voice:  your receptionist, your advertising team, your warehouse workers and your salespeople.  Remind yourself you’re just as excited about your business today as you were when you first started it.  Then believe it.  When you do all those things, you’ll talk to your customers in a voice that is friendly, clear, consistent, caring, professional, fun, and profitable.

by Myrna E. Coleman

Help! I’m out of work, and not ready to retire.  What next? It takes more time to search for a job each day than when I worked at a job each day.  I check the internet daily for who might be needing what I do – it might be time for a makeover.  Everything is on the internet, and they have a way of knowing what you want to know, so I’ve gotten offers from resume writers, from groups selling books on writing, offers to edit books from Russia, would I like to write off color poetry, companies suggesting a seminar where I am guaranteed I’ll be rich and famous, if I give them time and some money.  I didn’t want to spend money when I’m not making any, or time when it’s not productive, so I passed on those ideas.

Looking for a job is a job. I heard about a great project, but that’s on hold; they asked me to wait awhile.  Talked with a supervisor about another job, they love me, but can’t make a decision.  I sent some of my poetry to greeting cards, the editor tells me to send her some more.  Articles are written and ready to submit. I enjoy writing, and did even before they called it bloggin.

Networking.  I called people I know who gave me names of people they know who were hiring, but they’re not now. I applied online and was told at the end of the application, “That job is no longer available.”

Working was fun, made me feel good! I learned that early. I’ve sold cars, painted walls (and cars), wallpapered ceilings, analyzed legal documents; sewed drapes, created costumes for 4 kids (no money for these), cleaned restaurant fryers, taught Head-Start, worked on pipelines, served as a sympathetic ear to many needing to talk (no money here, but satisfaction), ironed sheets on a mangle at 2-cents/each, made cabin double beds using those nicely ironed sheets, baked desserts for the local teachers’ meetings, held a day care-school in my home, wrote custom birthday poems, was a reporter on a local newspaper, and worked in my mother’s Town Clerk office. None of these things seemed like work, but some of them were called jobs.

Work has been part of me since I learned to clean the cabins Mom and Dad owned, way before people figured out that a group of cabins joined together was a “motel”. Each day after school I made beds, cleaned toilets, mopped the floor, and made money to buy school supplies and clothes. I used lay-away at $1.00 down for 4 button-up worn backwards sweaters, getting to wear them only after I paid the $12.00 balance in full. Mom and Dad didn’t believe in allowances, but they paid us for a day’s work and they made sure there was always at least a day’s work ahead.

So, I’m not ready to retire. Never will be, I’ll bet.

Copyright Myrna Estey Coleman