subject: Tips For Retaining Customers [print this page] Closing mastery is a skill that must be developed over time and come with constant practice. Closing a sale effectively, after making your prospect feel value driven by the purchase is the best any business can ever hope to achieve. If you are in a business, then you would naturally know that the thumb rule is - "Customer is Master". Keeping this in mind it is essential to be able to close every sales pitch productively and for a profit. If the customer is king then retaining patronization is of prime importance. After all without customers what good is your product or service at all!
Simply deploying marketing or sales gimmicks is not important and a quick way to lose the close. It is essential to deploy certain time tried and tested skills to close a sale deal effectively. These include bonding with your customers. The business transaction should get engaging with a polite greeting and friendly chat. This not only helps the customer feel at home but also valued. Another strategy is to try figuring out the actual needs of the customer.
This can only be achieved after you spend as much time as possible with your customer and listening to what is being said during the conversation. To this end, probing and enquiring helps to identify their pain points. Closing mastery also implies assimilating excellent knowledge about all your products you offer.
This helps you to make the right recommendations at the right time. It helps not to be too pushy, and allow the customer to have the final say and feel that they are making the best decision for them. You should develop insight on how to read body language and facial expressions or voice inflection if you are speaking to them over a telephone.
These are your two greatest allies and help you to understand what is running in his or her mind. This helps to close the sale effectively and efficiently. Showcasing the product in the right light and in alignment with the customer's primary need helps a lot. You should understand and deploy good customer retention strategies even after thesale as follow-up. This helps to ensure that the customer will always get back for queries or concerns and increase their trust and longevity of doing business with you in the future.
