Nearly all sales, be they retail, commercial, or personal, hinge in large part on respect. If a client, customer, or prospect has little respect for your sales person, your business, or your products, that person is almost assuredly not to be a client, customer or prospect for long.
Respect isn’t just for clients, though. If mutual respect is not had within the agency or office, from one employee to the next, no matter their function, that will also show in your relations with customers. Sales people who aren’t respected in the office won’t exude respect to clients. Clients who don’t feel respected will treat the receptionist with disrespect when they call or visit the office. If, however, the client feels respected by the sales person and the sales person treats the secretary with respect when he or she greets the client in the lobby, then this mutual respect all the way around will breed confidence that means better costumer loyalty and better staff loyalty as well.
Here’s how that respect is generated. As with most things, it starts at home.
In the office, no job or function is less important than any other. If the CEO treats the secretary like his job is unimportant, then there is no respect. The janitor, receptionist, sales person, stock boy, and everyone in between should have the same level of respect given and expected in return. You can train people in this, but it must become a practice, not something learned by seminar.
When the office has mutual respect, this will be conveyed to customers. A respectful receptionist or sales person will intuitively give 100% of their attention to the person they’re dealing with, whether it be the CEO, the big account, or a random person off the street or on the phone. People sense when they’re being marginalized and if habits like multi-tasking while on the phone, pointing to doors or objects rather than answering questions, etc. are the norm, then the lack of respect will be noted and avoided in the future – they’ll go somewhere else, frankly.
Engendering respect in the office begins the process of creating it in all things around the business. Guide sales people to be “in the moment” with their clients, to listen to and respond to all things given and to take away information that can be used in the future. Did that client mention his kids? What were their names? Did the prospect say something about her car? If so, what kind is it? Maybe something was said that explains why they are leaving or have left the competition to come talk to you. That’s important as well.
If your people have respect and are listening like someone who respects the person they’re dealing with, these things will be learned and can be used. Remembering the kids’ names, the car type, or why they left your competitor gives you an inside edge and shows them that you really care and paid attention to them.
Again, this begins in the office itself. When staff is respectful of staff, no matter rank or position, this carries over into the outside world. Respect breeds respect and that breeds confidence.