Here is a personal challenge I throw out to everyone.
Walk down Pitt Street Mall (Sydney) on any given weekday between the hours of 10am and 5pm: avoid a backpacking hawker trying to sell you a fantastic deal in hair pampering packages.
I loathe the street “corporate” beggars trying to sell me a monthly donation to a worthy cause. It’s not that I don’t agree with the causes, I just hate being aggressively sold to.
This is not exclusive to Pitt St mall, many charity organisations are now resorting to using backpackers as street marketers on a commission base salary. I have no idea of the success rate, the training or the commission - and would love to get some insight into this. (anyone?)
Today I was on a mission, I only needed a couple of things from my local supermarket and had a firm plan on my attack: Walk into the store, buy my vine ripened tomatoes and walk out. Mission accomplished.
At the entrance were three charity branded polo-shirted women smiling and waiting to pounce.
Once eye contact had been made, it was obvious that I was going to be the target of an alpha-female backpacker with pen and clipboard.
“Before you say no......” she screamed from 5 metres away. I said “No” and kept walking.
In customer service, language (body language included) is crucial. Her mistake was using negative language. Before I even had a chance to speak, she had already told me that I’d said “no”.
When training my team of customer service executives, I was very keen on ensuring the language used was always positive with the aim in every phone call, “getting to yes”. My team were not salespeople, they were contact centre staff in emergency assistance, however the message was the same. The customer on the other end of the line had called for something, and my team were there to provide it. When it wasn’t possible to deliver what the customer wanted, the goal was to influence the customer to accepting what could be done for them. Even if it was nothing more than someone to listen to them.
As a customer and a manager, the words I never wanted to hear were:
- Unfortunately
- Impossible
- Cant
- No
I doubt I would have made a donation today to the corporate beggar regardless of the language she used, but it would have been a less aggressive “NO” back at her if the approach was laced with a positive sentiment.
Walk down Pitt Street Mall (Sydney) on any given weekday between the hours of 10am and 5pm: avoid a backpacking hawker trying to sell you a fantastic deal in hair pampering packages.
I loathe the street “corporate” beggars trying to sell me a monthly donation to a worthy cause. It’s not that I don’t agree with the causes, I just hate being aggressively sold to.
This is not exclusive to Pitt St mall, many charity organisations are now resorting to using backpackers as street marketers on a commission base salary. I have no idea of the success rate, the training or the commission - and would love to get some insight into this. (anyone?)
Today I was on a mission, I only needed a couple of things from my local supermarket and had a firm plan on my attack: Walk into the store, buy my vine ripened tomatoes and walk out. Mission accomplished.
At the entrance were three charity branded polo-shirted women smiling and waiting to pounce.
Once eye contact had been made, it was obvious that I was going to be the target of an alpha-female backpacker with pen and clipboard.
“Before you say no......” she screamed from 5 metres away. I said “No” and kept walking.
In customer service, language (body language included) is crucial. Her mistake was using negative language. Before I even had a chance to speak, she had already told me that I’d said “no”.
When training my team of customer service executives, I was very keen on ensuring the language used was always positive with the aim in every phone call, “getting to yes”. My team were not salespeople, they were contact centre staff in emergency assistance, however the message was the same. The customer on the other end of the line had called for something, and my team were there to provide it. When it wasn’t possible to deliver what the customer wanted, the goal was to influence the customer to accepting what could be done for them. Even if it was nothing more than someone to listen to them.
As a customer and a manager, the words I never wanted to hear were:
- Unfortunately
- Impossible
- Cant
- No
I doubt I would have made a donation today to the corporate beggar regardless of the language she used, but it would have been a less aggressive “NO” back at her if the approach was laced with a positive sentiment.
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