Communication in sales and customer service

Importance of communication in sales and customer service – is it much ado about nothing? Many a talk or seminar has been given on communication and sales. Countless books have been written. Sales training focus on product knowledge, selling techniques and touch points with customers. Yet, in all the training I do and interactions I have with salespersons in India, I find that if there is one prime focus area in sales and customer service that is lacking – it is communication.

What brought this on my mind? A couple of days ago, I received a phone call from a leading life insurance company in India – ostensibly to convey customer service guidelines. The sonorous voice of the telecaller, reading from a ready script was designed to send me to an early afternoon nap. It also put me off any further interactions with the company. The good part however – it gave me inputs for this blog.  Here are some of my reflections on the learning we get from the quality of the call - many of which have been oft repeated but little practiced among salespersons. 

1. Voice modulation – The importance of voice in sales or customer service cannot be over emphasised. This is irrespective of whether it is a face to face interaction or a tele-call. A hesitant voice will convey a lack of confidence to the customer. A sonorous voice will typify boredom. Let your voice project interest and excitement to the customer. Needless to say, voice modulation is the key. Your customer will make decisions based on how you communicate, not just what you communicate.

2. Pauses are intrinsic in a good communication – use pauses to check whether the recipient of your communication is with you on the same page. The person interacted with me talked with me in a robotic fashion – allowing me no time to even put a word in.

3. Encourage the customer to talk – it’s a well know but little practiced fact that the customer should speak more than the salesperson. Ask questions and get them to speak. Have conversations with the customer. They are to be talked with, not talked to.

4. Listen to customers. Practice TALK – Total Acceptance and Listening with Kustomers. Many an important sales trigger is lost because of lack of listening. Listen with total acceptance and empathise with the customer’s point of view.
5. KISS – Keep It Short and Simple, in the interest of clarity. Much as jargon sounds good, customers may not understand or be impressed. Keep the communication short. ‘Shorter and more sentences’ are better than ‘fewer and longer sentences’. 

Read other blogs on communication

Take charge of your communication

Communication patterns
Becoming better listeners

Elevator Sales Pitch – 10 tips to elevate your speech

A lot has been written and spoken about how an elevator sales pitch should be. For those of you for whom the term is new – it’s an introductory sales pitch that introduces you, your work and how it can benefit the person you are speaking to. It generates interest and is short enough to be communicated within the timespan of an elevator ride. This is something that a salesperson keeps ready and handy to be used at all times.

So I am not going to repeat what countless other people have said on how an elevator sales pitch should be constructed. What I would like to draw you attention to are some essential elements of an elevator speech, which could prove to be the tipping point of its success.

1. Spontaneous and eloquent – at the risk of sounding repetitive - practice, practice and practice till it appears spontaneous and not something that has been learnt out of the words of a book. Also, eloquence is the key. Fumbling through sentences takes the impact out of it.

2. Does your voice convey confidence in what you offer? In the absence of time to convey confidence through your product or service, the potential customer senses the strength of your service through your voice. Record your sales pitch and replay. How does it sound? Does your voice  need assertiveness, modulation, pauses?    

3. Simplicity is the key. The use of short crisp sentences, simple words cannot be over emphasised.

4. What is the benefit to the listener? Let the listener grasp what there is in it for him.

5. Rapport, rapport, rapport – get into rapport with the listener. Else your pitch will sound and feel obtrusive.

6. Elevator sales pitch should be what it suggests – short. Much as we like to hear our own voices, brevity is of utmost importance.

7. Inspire curiosity - Choose you words with care. They should offer a glimpse, tantalise and make the listener interested enough to give you a second hearing.

8. Take a moment to reflect if your gestures and body language inspire confidence. Are they congruent with the image and message you are sending across through words? The mirror gives true feedback.

9. Is your message appealing enough to paint a picture in the recipient’s mind, make him want to listen to you some more, inspire feelings of curiosity? Pay attention to the picture the message creates, the sound of it and the feelings it inspires – an ideal combination of all three.

10. Be flexible to adapt – the moment you sense a barrier, change your approach. The content can be the same – the approach different.  

Elevate your speech such that it catches attention even in an elevator.

For more readings on selling, read:

Selling skills of a successful salesperson

Five secrets to confident communication in sales

Saying No to the customer

Service in 'Customer Focus' while selling

Selling with a difference

Rapport in selling

Emotional vulnerability equates courage

Vulnerability equates courage? For many this is very difficult to comprehend. How can putting myself out there in the open - susceptible to emotional hurt - be a moment of courage for me? My thoughts, words and actions all naturally work towards ensuring that my vulnerabilities are least exposed. So I posture such that I am perceived to be someone with no chinks in my emotional set-up. It’s a defence mechanism which for many, come as natural as breathing.

In fact, many of us would equate emotional vulnerability with weakness. I would not like to put myself open to ridicule, pain and hurt. When I expose my vulnerability, what would others think of me? I would rather go without than open myself to scrutiny. Little do I realise however, that covering up or posturing, just feeds the feeling of vulnerability. And then the next time I feel vulnerable, it manifests itself even more within me. And so begins the vicious cycle, with little room for escape.

Yet there is hope for escape - By opening up and acknowledging my vulnerability. When I allow myself to reach out and confess, first of all to myself, that I am only human. When I decide to take that first baby step and test the ground, not knowing if my legs will support me or not; when I decide to take a chance & open out the window of my emotional framework to others- even if it is just a crack; that is when I take a chance on leaving myself open and vulnerable. This is an act of the greatest courage. Often what we perceive as a weakness, is truly courage and strength of the highest order. Just as a bean bag is often perceived to lack strength – it however provides an inner support in any which way.

It takes great courage to lay ones heart on the line in a relationship; it takes immense guts for a leader to admit that he/she too could make mistakes; it takes immense strength for a parent to be able to admit to a child that he/she may not be perfect and know everything. All it requires is a willingness to let go – to let go of self and allow myself to become vulnerable. In letting go, I realise that I drift into nothingness. And in that nothingness, lie my greatest strengths – for there is nothing to prove, nothing to protect myself from.

Does this willingness to be vulnerable come naturally? Not to me and to a million others like me.  It's a decision we take day after day after day. And with each iteration, it becomes just that little bit easier to open that window a wee bit more...to experience that strength, power and courage that comes with vulnerability.