Editor's Note

"No, I’m Just Looking," is an oft-repeated answer that retail employees receive when they greet customers with the question, Can I help you? It is dehumanizing, and after weeks of this rejection, your discouraged employee gives up trying to make any sort of connection with them. The first eight feet after your retail store's doors is the Hell Zone where your employees and customers hesitate to venture into. What if we say it takes just 15 seconds to break the ice!

Sales and Service Excellence July 2015 Advertisers

The Hell Zone: Getting ahead of a customer’s “No, I’m Just Looking”

There’s an area of your retail store potential customers will avoid; it is the first eight feet after your doors. Some call it the decompression zone, some call it the threshold area — it should be called The Hell Zone. The Hell Zone because customers don’t want to go there. They might remember a past experience where an aggressive employee pounced on them wanting to shake their hand. Or they might remember another employee asking them a question, when all they wanted to do was get their bearings. They had to blurt out a No just to get rid of the pesky employee.

Customer Service Across Generations: A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work

A customer who is in his sixties has very different expectations than a customer who is in his thirties. While offering “friendly and helpful” service is always a good idea, each generation may have a different idea of what “helpful” and “friendly” looks and sounds like. Older customers may prefer a more formal and hierarchical experience, whereas younger customers may prefer a more casual and egalitarian exchange. Training customer facing agents to deliver excellent customer service across generations requires planning, training and practice.

On The Path To Greater Sales: Be true to yourself

A TV commercial years back stated life got tougher, so the sponsor made their over-the-counter drug stronger. I cringed when I heard this commercial because it essentially said that the only way to face the work-a-day world was to medicate yourself at increasingly higher doses. Without getting into details, all evidence indicates that the level of dosage and frequency of prescriptions is increasing. This is nothing short of appalling. People seem to have progressed from aspirin to Valium to Prozac to who knows what’s next.

"When Customers Care Only ABOUT Price: What Should You Do?"

Susan runs a successful business consulting company. She shared that while her top-line revenue has grown by almost fifty percent over the past two years, her net revenue or profit has grown less than ten percent. I asked Susan why her new business was less profitable than the prior business. Susan said “My clients keep pressuring us on price. We have to stay competitive, so even though we are doing more business, our margins are slim. I don’t’ know how long we can keep this up?”

Sales Compensation: Are you planning it right?

You are the senior HR leader. You paid a million more in commissions last year than the year before, yet your revenue was flat. How is that possible? Your CFO and CEO are questioning sales expense to revenue (or booking ratios). Did you make the necessary changes to the compensation plan for 2015? How are you measuring the success of your compensation plans?

Resistance To Guidance: Why sales, coaching, and leadership practices falter

Do you know what’s stopping you or your company from making the changes necessary to have more success? Or why prospects aren’t buying something they need? Or why clients aren’t adopting the changes they seek? The problem is resistance. And as change agents we’re inadvertently creating it. Change requires that a complacent status quo risk its comfort for something unknowable - the probable loss of narrative, expectations, habitual activities and assumptions with no real knowledge of what will take its place.

The Purpose Of A Purpose: How to cultivate positive, confident thoughts?

Here's the story. I had left a very secure sales position for one of a lot more challenge, and a lot more risk. My new position was the opposite of my previous one in a number of ways. It paid straight commission, for example, with a draw that lasted only the first six months. The salespeople bought their own demonstration samples and literature from the company.

Best Sales Team Hires: The top five selling points

Several people will interview each candidate across these fit dimensions. You certainly will learn a lot in the process. Try to avoid an emotional connection a single person might have with a candidate. To mitigate any bias, you conduct an interview round-robin. Each interview explores different aspects of competency, cultural, and performance fits. Let’s briefly explain the “fits” for candidate evaluation.