Sell Better by Listening to Your Customers

People are hit with hundreds, if not thousands, of messages to buy every day. Companies everywhere jockey for position to get the attention of people, so consumers become numb to sales messages. Anita Bruzzese of USA TODAY wrote that it's important for field service organizations to keep this in mind and that listening may be the best way to make sales. With information garnered from field service software, employees can show customers what they need after hearing their concerns.

Steve Yastrow, an author and sales professional, told Bruzzese that people will often get offended when they start noticing they are just hearing a sales pitch, thus it becomes far less effective. A better route, he said, may be to have conversations with the customers and see what works best for them, listening to their concerns and issues and matching them to the company's solutions.

"Everybody feels like they need to be selling themselves and persuading people," Yastrow said. "But then we fall into the trap of thinking that our job is to explain, cajole and convince, and that's not how you get people to do what you want."

Becoming a listener instead of a seller

Instead of selling and telling customers what the company has, becoming an active listener, asking questions about the customer's situation and forming a new pitch based on this information will likely be a vast improvement.

Jonathan Farrington, a business coach, wrote on Monster that to be a good active listener, field service technicians should sense what kind of message the customer is giving, understanding what it means, evaluating what solutions may be appropriate and reacting by showing the customer what may help him or her out the most.

"Frequently, a gesture, an expression, will reveal as much or more than words. Therefore, effective listeners seek to understand the meaning behind their customers' words," he said. "This requires giving the other person full attention and demands conscious practice."

Jared Corpron, an HVAC sales professional, told Contracting Business that he tried to make his sales pitch to customers comprehensive by showing his level of knowledge and expertise, as well as being confident in what he was saying. Not only will this add credence to the pitch but it will likely show customers that the field service professional they are dealing with is an expert in the subject. This, along with information from the HVAC service software, can go a long way toward making sales.

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