Retail sales jobs and how not to greet your customer

I don’t often go shopping in the high street, it’s just not my thing. But when I do, I’m usually disappointed at the complete lack of selling skills displayed by the vast majority of the people in retail sales jobs. I can’t believe that some of our biggest brands in the high street don’t offer their staff sales training, so I can only assume that these staff simply choose not to use it. Either way, it’s a huge wasted opportunity to gain more business.

Most notable is the way in which the average retail sales representative greets a potential customer who has wandered into their store. It’ll go something like this, “Hello, can I help you?” or “do you need any help”. Forgive me for sounding a little cynical here but the response, 99 times out of 100, is equally predictable, “no thank you, I’m just looking!”. Really? I don’t think so. They may be ‘just looking’ but they are, of course, ‘just looking’ because they are interested in ‘just buying’, otherwise they wouldn’t be there!

During conference season we are always reminded by the bucket about ‘Britishness’, and don’t get me wrong here, I’m about as proud a Brit as you’ll find, but part of Britishness is that we really don’t like being ‘sold to’ or indeed put under pressure in anyway in this type of situation. Consequently when we are approached by the sales representative in a retail shop, most Brits are looking for the quickest route to dispatch this hungry predator.

In reality, the sales rep is not some indiscriminate predator, and the shopper is usually a pleasant and chatty person, but so often the two never enter a healthy dialog that could end in sale because they never get over that first hurdle.

The key here is simple and lies in the opening question. If you asked a closed question as above, remember a closed question invites a ‘yes/no’ answer, your customer is likely to grab the ticket to freedom you’ve just handed over. Always start with an open question. Open questions begin with who, what, why or how when and are designed to invite conversation. So, for example, “what type of shoe are you looking for?” This is a good opening on two counts. Firstly, you’re letting them know that you know they are interested in buying before they have chance to try and deny it with the old ‘just looking number. Secondly, you are inviting a chat about the sort of shoe they need, perhaps what they will be using them for, or the sort of price they are prepared to pay.

It might seem simplistic, but this one change can make a huge difference to the number of selling opportunities you can generate in retail sales jobs just by successfully getting over the first hurdle of entering a proper conversation to try and help. Try it, you'll like the results.

Good luck