Exceptional customer service may very well be one of the last ways to build competitive advantage for retailers. The problem is “exceptional customer service” is an ambiguous term — every customer has a unique way of defining what it looks like to them. Further complicating matters is the fact that your customers aren’t very good at recognizing their own true needs.

This tension can result in miscommunications, irrational escalation of issues, negative reviews, and, ultimately, lost sales.

Despite all of these factors, training your team to apply a consultative approach is a way to enhance the shopping experience for each and every customer. When your team learns how to do this well, they can not only help customers resolve their immediate issues, but they can also help them uncover other needs. Uncovering these needs helps your team position additional products or services as a meaningful part of the best solution for the customer.

Retail teams that truly embrace the consultative selling approach in retail do two things well:
1.    They engage customers in conversations that make them feel respected, understood, and important.
2.    They enhance the value of the conversation by identifying solutions that address the root cause of the customer’s need or issue.

Below we explore some specific tactics your team can apply to start improving their customer interactions.

Engaging customers

To successfully impress every customer, your team needs to find a way to personalize their conversations to uniquely engage and relate to their customers.
There are five key behaviors your team can build to better engage their customers and demonstrate a genuine commitment to helping them meet their needs.
1.    Take ownership of the customer’s issue: Customers typically do not want to have to speak with several people to resolve their issue. Effective retail sales professionals work to understand the problem and then take sole responsibility to solve it. In some cases, this might mean requesting the help of another colleague, but this action can take place behind the scenes, which helps the customer only have to communicate with one single point of contact.
2.    Personalize the experience: A personalized experience recognizes the customer’s need, challenge, or question. Your team needs to be sure to take the time to listen and read the customer’s tone and empathize with them before starting the process of solving the problem.
3.    Be authentic: Retail professionals work with a variety of customers, often in quick succession, throughout the day. This frequency is exhausting. Therefore, remaining authentic requires stamina and commitment to demonstrating a genuine interest in the customer and curiosity for learning about them to solve their problems.
4.    Seek to understand before solving: The customer wants to be heard. Their words do more than clarify the issue. They also reveal underlying issues or needs. Once the customer has been understood, the retail professional can solve the problem.
5.    Find ways to exceed expectations: In the rush for a solution, customers rarely volunteer more information than is necessary to reach a resolution. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the retail professional to seek information about the customer’s broader needs. This information can help the retail professional find a better, more comprehensive solution.

Enhancing value

Finding unseen value for the customer presents the possibility for a mutually beneficial outcome. The customer benefits from a solution that addresses the root issue. Simultaneously, the retail professional increases sales. The retail service professional has a unique advantage in driving this outcome. They can link the additional product or service to the customer’s stated need. By positioning the sale as an extension to the customer’s request for a solution, the recommendation is more authentic and salient.

Effectively positioning additional products or services can be achieved by following these three practices.
1.    Pique curiosity: Retail professionals must be able to spark the customer’s interest to keep them engaged in the conversation. The best way to do this is to reference a cue or clue they picked up on earlier in the conversation, then link the value of their next statement to those cues or clues.
2.    Position with organization: When linking an expanded option to the customer’s needs, it is important to position with organization. If a customer doesn’t understand the offer, they will end the conversation. Always position the headlines first, and check for understanding before diving into the details. This limits the cognitive burden placed on the customer, while being respectful of their time.
3.    Resolve objections: Positioning unexpected value can incite defensiveness from the customer. To combat this defensiveness, the retail professional should work to understand and resolve the customer’s resistance. They can do this by acknowledging the customer’s concern and asking open-ended and clarifying questions until they reach a point where they have enough information to position an alternative solution or compelling reason for the customer to continue the conversation. It is important that the retail professional doesn’t push back; rather, they should reaffirm their commitment to understanding the customer and delivering value.

Andrea Grodnitzky is CMO for Richardson, whchhelps leaders prepare their organizations to execute sales strategies and achieve business objectives.