(Writing contest entry by Gieo Quang, posted on: CafeF.vn)
One beautiful Sunday morning, while sitting alone in a coffee shop, I received a call from a landline number with a very nice ending number “888”, a pre-recorded female voice rang out “Hello”. Being used to professional greetings in sales marketing, when I heard such an emotionless sentence, I had no interest in answering, just left the phone open, surprisingly there was no more words.
A short one-way conversation! Later I learned that it was an automated call programmed for marketing, depending on the content of the listener’s response, the operator would give corresponding advice. So when I met someone who didn't want to talk like me, this marketing call was a failure from the very first sentence.
Thinking back to the early days of my career, one of the things my colleagues and I were trained in was sample conversations when talking to customers. After the training, many of my colleagues were very confident and enthusiastically repeated the learned conversations every time they met customers.
As for me, I don't know why I felt it was fake, I couldn't say it when I met customers, so I quickly forgot the sample conversations. Of course, I was confused for a month not knowing what to do correctly.
The turning point that completely changed my mindset was when I closed my first contract, it showed me clearly that the customer decided to trust and cooperate because I sincerely shared both relevant and irrelevant information for the customer to choose, because I was enthusiastic, whenever the customer called, I picked up the phone, needed to meet, I was there... all had nothing to do with "sample conversations". From then on, I stuck to the philosophy: Just sincerely bring the best things to the customer, the contract will naturally come.
Many times my friends and employees asked me: in this age of technology, how can you still sign contracts in the traditional way!? At times like that, I sincerely share that:
(1) Technology is great, but consider it only a tool, not a factor that determines success; (2) Customers are humans, not robots, using technological devices but the decision to buy must still be based on emotions; (3) When customers spend a large amount of money to buy goods, the principle of "choosing the right person to entrust their gold" is always applied.
So the way of thinking that helps me succeed is to still sincerely bring the best things to customers, technology will only play a role in helping us do that more effectively:
Customer information management:
A lot of software has appeared to replace excel tables, but the important thing is where the information is entered, verified, and updated over time. Customers are people with high incomes and high positions in society. If we are not sincere in our meetings, it will be difficult for them to share important information. When customer information is not important enough or not accurate, no matter how modern the software is, we will not be able to make the right decision.
Email:
Customers are not the same, so it would be a disaster to send the same content to hundreds of people in the hope of saving time, hoping to connect with many people in a flash. If we do not sincerely think about our customers, spend time searching for useful information, suitable words and edit the email to be neat... then if we are lucky enough to have customers open our email once, there will not be a second time.
And more importantly, after sending an email, if we do not sincerely call "Hello! Sir/Madam, I just got important information/very good information...send email to you. Please check it out!”, then our efforts will surely be lost in the information matrix of the technology era.
Smartphones:
It's great that our phones can integrate many functions and applications, so think of ways to use them thoroughly, not just for decoration or to honor the appearance. Use them to remind customers of important days. Take pictures that are useful for customers' lives and work and send them to them as soon as possible. Handle anything anywhere when customers request... because we have smartphones.
Social networks:
When social networks are labeled as "virtual living places", what we post about ourselves will not be expected to be completely believed by customers. But the good things about customers are real. So take the time to be present at important events of customers, don't forget to record meaningful moments, wholeheartedly create photo albums, cut and paste neat clips, and then share with customers at the right time.
Google:
Knowing that we need to "bring the best things to customers", but customers are not the same, each person works in a different field, each person has a different level, culture, personality..., how do we know which good things are suitable for whom. Luckily for us, there is a search engine that helps us access an endless store of knowledge like Google. Take the time to think about keywords related to our customers, don't waste time on keywords just to satisfy personal interests...
You see, technology is great, giving us a lot of tools to work. But our customers in any era still need a real broker - a real person to "choose the right person to trust". So don't forget the traditional basics and leverage technology in a way that makes you as present as possible, useful and sincere to your customers.
Gieo Quảng
