Customers often look to counter people for knowledge and service, noted one of our sources, who added, “They don’t ask for pricing, they want you to solve their problem. Upselling is easy because you’re selling knowledge.”

How to ensure your frontline people, those critical points of customer contact, have the skills needed to maximize sales transactions.

There’s no question that the Internet has made fundamental changes in retailing. Yet despite a proliferation of online merchants and a waning of traditional brick-and-mortar stores, in many cases the act of the sale still comes down to a personal interaction between a customer and someone representing the retailer. “People buy from people,” explained Randy Sosnoff of Scott Lewis Associates Inc., Baldwin, New York. “No matter how the conduit works, whether the customer is on the phone or in front of you, there are two people there.” 

That being the case, how can a retailer be sure that its frontline person, that critical point of customer contact, has the skills needed to maximize a sales transaction? How can that person not only provide the customer with what he or she asked for, but use the interaction as an opportunity for additional sales? 

The answer is simple, yet complex at the same time. What it takes, say the sources interviewed for this article, is education. 

“Having a good, fundamental understanding of the components of the car or product is critical,” said Sosnoff. “The first thing counter people really need to think about, before they say one word to the customer, is to envision what the job takes. If you understand what the job entails, then you can talk about replacing all the components to do the job. Don’t let the customer go without at least trying to sell them the other components.”

“When a person comes to you, they want your knowledge and they want your service,” said Bob Balderston of Plumb Bob Automotive, Romulus, Michigan. “They don’t ask for pricing, they want you to solve their problem. Upselling is easy because you’re selling knowledge.”

When a customer comes into his store asking for something specific, Balderston will go to his shelves to retrieve the asked-for “widget,” then he’ll “go to the bolt section, get a couple fasteners, maybe some other piece that might attach to the widget that maybe the customer isn’t aware of.” He’ll then set the part on the counter, plus the additional items, and explain how they work together. “Ninety-nine percent of the time the guy will say, ‘I could use those fasteners because mine are all torn up,’ or, ‘I didn’t even know those things existed.’

“Knowing what you sell gives the opportunity to present the customer solutions,” Balderston said. “You can upsell easily if you educate the customer because you’ve been educated. If you just go by what the computer says to sell, you will never upsell.”

This is where the situation gets more complex. 

“At the end of the day, you have two problems,” Sosnoff said. “One, you have a customer who may not know what he needs. And you may have a counter person who doesn’t know what the job needs, either.” 

The education gap that can hamper a counter person’s effectiveness has several root sources, starting with the fact that “technology is moving so fast,” said Sosnoff. “We went from carburetors to fuel injection, now we’re in electric vehicles. There aren’t that many vehicles that guys are working on like they used to. So there are a lot of people who don’t really have the expertise to talk about this stuff, because they don’t see a lot of it.”

There is also a limit to the educational resources available. 

“As a manufacturer, I talk to my direct customers all the time, but none of us ever talk to the counter person who’s selling the product to the consumer or the installer,” said Dennis Grau of Energy Suspension, San Clemente, California. “And there’s so much pressure today, with cell phones, social media, video games, cable TV—how much time do they have to dedicate toward learning?”

Grau said this situation has been “high on my list of priorities for a long time.” Which is why he is proposing a video training program that he calls Energy Suspension University. It would consist of video modules related to the company’s products, such as “engine mounts, suspension bushings, body mounts. There could be seven to eight categories, and as a counter person passes a module, we could give them some sort of reward for their effort.”

He also foresees this growing into a resource in which, for example, “a chassis component manufacturer works with us to educate the counter people about the whole chassis. I can speak to the advantages of the bushing, but I don’t know what a chassis company’s control arm will do. That’s why collaboration with other manufacturers is critical. Everyone has the information, but no one has brought it together into a video library that I’m aware of.” 

Grau said the benefits for such a program could be “massive,” especially when applied to those counter people working in chain stores. He explained that Energy Suspension is “a performance bushing company, but we enjoy business with all three majors. If there’s roughly 16,000 stores at 4.5 counter people per store, that’s 72,000 counter people. If we can educate them and show them how to sell just $20 a month, that’s $17.3 million. That’s a hell of a good head start for our industry.”

It’s not just the chain retailers that would benefit from such a program. 

“Education trumps a quick sale any time of the week,” Balderston said. “You want to upsell? Teach your employees. They are the ones who represent your store. If the customer thinks, ‘This guy knows what he’s selling,’ they will wait in line to see you.”

SOURCES

–

Energy Suspension
energysuspension.com

Plumb Bob Automotive
facebook.com/plumbbobautomotive/

Scott Lewis Associates Inc.
scottlewisinc.com