Art of convincing

Businesses are quite intuitive. How about buying a large size bread pack just that the support executive convinced you stating it’s far efficient compared to your earlier shopping preference?What if you are convinced to pick up new butter products available in the store just that the executive promoted it in such a nice way? This list might get chained more and more depending upon your budget and support people’s skillset to connect your desires.

Once I visited a top-rated restaurant and ordered some of my usual preferences. But my list extended fairly that too. Let me explain to you how.

Offering something the customer might love but something the customer would expect and something the customer is not really aware of can make wonders.

I was offered a seat and as soon as I settled in, I was greeted firmly by a waiter. He just flawlessly starting describing their signature dishes and how people would love to have them. He also took a moment to highlight the options available for customizations if preferred. Guess what, I was totally confused. Earlier I was getting into the hotel by ordering some dishes in my mind. But now after the descriptions from the waiter I was totally out of the world. I felt really bad that I had no companion to help me make food decisions at the moment. But he doesn’t fail to accompany me, he started asking me about my taste preferences and suggested some dishes that I could choose based on those preferences. He offered me a tablet and suggested me to have a look at other dishes, customer ratings, and price for various other items listed with their online site until the food gets ready. Honestly, in a few minutes, I made my mind to enquire about two more dishes. He explained about those with a full excitement-filled face and asked me if I would let him serve one with those for me. There was no reason to deny it. I just went with his offer. This time during my course of waiting for the dish, he offered me to give away some ratings for his service.No room for me to deny it, gave one for him. I later enjoyed my food and felt satisfied overall.

Let us now break down the story into parts and analyze what’s the win-win strategies the hotel followed and what are some cool customer success tactics they applied to me.

Initially, when stepped in they were engaging. The support executive raced me to greet and offer their services before I ask for anything. This is the key thing we should consider.

Always offer to offer first

The reason is customers are more likely to choose from options and its obvious to stay unaware of the amenities or services we usually offer. Thus they would expect us to help them get started.

More the options are more the confusions would arise, more likely help gets appreciated and more scope for us to market.

They offered me a wide variety of options and offered to accompany me throughout my ordering experience. This is the second key thing to note. Many of us fail at this stage. I have seen many businesses fail to provide an overview of their services(in our case a menu card) and directly enquire about the customer need. There are fewer chances for your services to be remembered every time and there is a high possibility of losing a high-rated order from them. Thus it really matters how informed you are and how supportive after it.

They made me feel excited about their Unique Selling Point(USP). He succeeded in taking me through their signature chef’s special dishes. This made them unique and impactful compared to other competitors.

Now let’s look at a few other important customer service principles. Once I had been to a shopping complex in Chennai. It was very large and quite busy always. I just randomly enquired if they could offer me some mobile accessories services here. It was an ice-cream corner at the front-face of the mall. To be honest the owner had no idea of my inquiry however he took some time amidst his busy time, enquired the same to the nearby shop person and had a healthy discussion. There were 3–4 people later gathered over there and finally I got valuable insights about those services. I thanked him and guess what when I thought of having a break I came to the same shop and ordered an ice-cream from him though I had to bypass so many other shops to reach this front-face. I could have bought one easily from a nearby shop inside the mall. But I preferred him so that I can get more valuable suggestions to make my further shopping experience pleasant.

Try to please your customers even though it wasn’t your responsibility. Most of the time people would take you like the responsibility for any issues since you are the only face they knew. So its quite obvious to take some responsibility on own for any possible concern. The key is to calm down your customers even though you can’t offer them exactly the same what they are in need of.

Take ownership and build a rapport

There is a difference between offering what they need and offering what they might love to have. This doesn’t mean to impose something on them, just offer them a choice.

This is what termed as providing extraordinary customer service.

You should also consider a few below fundamentals that are self-descriptive in place.

• Actively listen to your customers
• Identify emotional needs
• Manage the expectations of your customers
• Go to the extra mile when dealing with customers
• Act on customer feedbacks

I hope you enjoyed this writeup if so share some of your personal customer success strategies you use on a daily basis if any.

Write to me - mariappangameo@gmail.com