Like me, you probably HATE going to the doctor. Why? Could it be that in a medical setting you feel exposed, vulnerable, scared and very out of control? Guess what? Your first time residential carpet cleaning home owners feel the same way! (And yes, your traumatized clients suffering after a water or fire loss are even more messed up!)
How can you calm your customers “messed up” emotions and in the process create a delighted Cheerleader? Here is one way …
Pre-orient your customer on what you will be bringing in to their home. Then briefly explain the process involved and why it is needed. For example …
“Mrs. Jones, I’ll be using a very powerful truck mounted carpet cleaning plant to deep clean your carpets today. We’ll run these two hoses into your home. The smaller blue one will be bringing a heated cleaning solution in which will flush out the dirt and then this big grey hose will extract all of the solution and suspended soil and leave your carpets almost dry. I’ll be explaining what I’m doing as I go along but if you have any questions just let me know.”
You get the idea. You don’t want to bore or annoy the home owner. However, you can’t go wrong orienting the customer. Just do it in simple terms and don’t try to impress them with a bunch of technical jargon. Instead use the old “feature/benefit” sales tool- tell them what and why you are doing something and then how it will benefit them.
Your goal is to give the home owner enough knowledge to FEEL in control. (In the SFS seminar we call this process “Giving your customer the Illusion of Control.”) Little details like this will help you make the Cheerleader on (almost) every job!
Steve Toburen
PS: So how do you help your customer “feel in control”? We’d love to see your comments here.
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