Have you ever been around someone that knew exactly what to say at the right time but also knew when to close his or her mouth to listen? If you have, it is obvious that this person has purposefully trained himself or herself to be a keen speaker but also a very careful listener. Many times, people use pointless chitchat to fill moments of awkward silence or to plug up an uncomfortable situation but when it comes to making a sale or setting a lead– extra blabber is a big “no-no.” We must learn to open our eyes and our ears before opening our mouths. When an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company choose to listen and watch with our ears and eyes before we speak, this is what our team can discover:
Open your Eyes to Discover:
What is important to the client
The first important aspects when working to set a lead or make a sale is building rapport and trying to make interaction as comfortable as possible between your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company and the client. So it is important to quickly discover what interests your client. The best way to do this is to be observant from the moment that you park in front of the home to the moment that you step foot back into your service vehicle. Here at Service Excellence Training, we have an acronym for maintaining this observant mindset: F.O.R.M. This acronym explains the 4 most important topics that a tech should be watching and listening for: Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Material possessions. When you discover what is important to your client you can find ways to relate to them and engage in tactful “icebreaker” conversations before you ease into the service or sales process inside an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company.
What the client really thinks
If we take time to watch, a customer’s body language will tell us just about everything that we need to know. Through watching for nonverbal ques and body language, we can see a customer’s level of interest, concern, confidence, or uncertainty. Discovering how the client truly feels helps us understand how to phrase our questions and at what speed the customer wants to close. Some clients may want a quick close but if we try to stretch out the presentation then we may end up losing the customer’s attention and the sale. To be successful in setting leads or making sales, we must be observant because it is important to move an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical sale or a lead along at the speed at which a client is comfortable.
Open your Ears to Discover:
Clients will talk themselves into a lead or sale
Providing a silent moment in a sale or lead setting presentation can be very beneficial to the customer’s decision-making process. Many times this silence prompts the client to make a decision or begin to rationally “think out loud” and ultimately guide him or herself into the sale or lead. This is good for the technician and the customer because when a client tries to fill the silence by “thinking out loud” they express what they truly need and want rather than just aimlessly responding to a technician’s presented options. In the long run, this allows the technician to hear the areas that the customer is interested in rather than having to guess or assume; so then they can tailor the presentation to meet the customer’s wants and needs.
Most clients need time to mentally process
Taking time to be quiet and listen is important for allowing clients to process the information that you have presented as well as allow them to think of any questions or concerns that they may want addressed. When clients feel rushed to the close, you may lose the sale at the customer’s home or if they do buy, there is a greater chance of “buyer’s remorse” and a higher likelihood that they will call to cancel the sale or lead. Giving the client time to think and process information helps to build their confidence and trust in you and your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company as well as allows them to be more confident in their decision to buy or go forward with a lead.
It takes training and continual implementation to strengthen your ability to carefully listen and observe. At Service Excellence Training, we have several popular training lessons that provide interactive ways to grow and develop these skills. Thank you for following our weekly posts, we love sharing with you and hearing from you. Here at Service Excellence Training, we turn learning into earning!
-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training.
[…] to the initial meeting at the front door so a customer knows the tech is ready to work. Indirect service excellence skills are normally skills that require the technician to nonverbally read the customer and the […]