HELPING THE CUSTOMER TO BUY
Satisfied customers are a perpetual lip-to-lip advertisement.
“Help your customer to buy. Don’t merely sell to him.”
A Quaker merchant who had made a fortune in Liverpool, when asked how he
had made it, replied, “By a single article of trade in which every one
may deal who pleases—civility.”
This self-same “article of trade” has been the making of the celebrated
Bon Marché in Paris. The clerks in this famous establishment are
instructed to show people, whether customers or not, every possible
consideration. Strangers in Paris are invited to visit the Bon Marché,
and are taken in hand the moment they enter the store by those who can
speak their language, are shown over the whole place, and every possible
attention paid to them, without the slightest influence being brought
upon them to purchase. A similar courtesy is shown visitors in many
well-known American concerns.
It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.
Everybody knows that the salesman is supposed, at least, to treat a
customer decently; but the over-plus of service, the extra courtesy
and kindness, the spirit of accommodation, the desire to be obliging,
the patience and helpfulness in trying to render the greatest possible
service—these are the things customers appreciate most highly, and these
are just the things that tie customers to certain houses.
Whether you are a traveling salesman or selling things behind a counter,
nothing will add more to your success than the practice of that helpful
courtesy which is dictated by the heart rather than the head, or by mere
convention.
Doing a customer a good turn has proved the turning point in many a
career. Nothing will make such a good impression upon an employer as the
courtesy of an employee who has so ingratiated himself into the hearts
of his customers, and so endeared himself to them, that they will always
seek him out and wait to buy from him even at great inconvenience to
themselves. Every employer knows that a clerk who attracts trade is worth
ten times as much as one who drives it away.
It is said that when John Wanamaker went into business, he paid a
salesman thirteen hundred dollars the first year, which was equal to
all the rest of his capital. He did this because of the man’s wonderful
personality, his ability to attract trade, to please and hold customers
so that they would come again.
I know a man who has built up a big business largely because he is always
trying to accommodate his customers, to save them expense, or to assist
them in buying things which he does not carry.
To-day our large business houses make a great point of pleasing
customers, of obliging them and catering to their comfort in every
possible way. Waiting-rooms, reading-rooms, with stationery, attendants,
and even music and other forms of entertainment, are furnished by many of
them.
There is a premium everywhere upon courtesy and good manners. They are
taken into consideration in hiring employees just as much as general
ability. Great business firms find it is impossible to carry on extensive
trade without the practice of courtesy, and they vie with one another in
securing the most affable, and most obliging employees possible in all
departments. They look upon their employees as ambassadors representing
them in their business. They know that they cannot afford to have their
interests jeopardized by objectionable, indifferent clerks. They know
that it will not pay to build attractive stores, to advertise and display
their goods, to do everything possible to bring customers to them, and
then have them turned away by disagreeable, repellent clerks.
Many young men going into business seem to think that price and quality
are the only elements that enter into competition. There may be a score
of other reasons why customers flock to one store and pass by a dozen
half-empty stores on their way. Many people never learn to depend upon
themselves in their buying. They do not trust their own judgment, but
depend upon the clerk who waits on them. A clerk who knows his business
can assist a customer wonderfully in a very delicate way, by suggestion,
by his knowledge of goods, of qualities, of fabrics, of durability.
The courtesy and affability of clerks in one store pull thousands of
customers right past the doors of rival establishments where the clerks
are not so agreeable or accommodating. Everybody appreciates courtesy
and an obliging disposition, and a personal interest goes a great way in
attracting and holding customers. Most of us are willing to put ourselves
to some trouble to patronize those who show a disposition to help us, to
render us real service.
What is true in regard to the man or woman who sells in a store applies
with equal or even greater force to the man who goes on the road to sell.
The motto of a well-known salesman, “Help your customer to buy, don’t
merely sell to him,” is one that it would pay every salesman to adopt.
Put yourself in your customer’s place, help him with your knowledge of
what he really needs; mix sympathy, kindliness, helpfulness with your
sales; you can give him a lot of valuable points. You are traveling
all the time and constantly coming in contact with new ideas; give him
suggestions from other merchants in his line.
A wide-awake, progressive salesman, without violating confidences,
can help his customers wonderfully by keeping them posted on what his
competitors are doing, on the latest ideas in his line, the new and
original methods. You may know of some novel and striking methods of
reaching the public, of displaying merchandise and arranging store
windows, or of reaching customers through unique local advertising. Give
your customer every suggestion you can. You may see that he is a good
business man in many respects, but seriously lacks something which you
could help him to supply. If he finds you are always trying to help him,
that every time you come round you give him some good suggestions, it
will be pretty hard for your competitor to get his order. He will prize a
man who gives him helpful suggestions.
For instance, a salesman I know, who travels for a cutlery and hardware
concern, makes a specialty of keeping his customers posted as to the
arrangement of goods to the best advantage in window display. He
keeps track of the latest ideas, new wrinkles in his line, and gives
his customers the benefit of them. If he sees that any of them are
getting into ruts, or that they do not have good business systems, very
tactfully, without offending them, he suggests certain new devices, say,
for saving expense, little short-cuts in business methods, new ideas in
filing cabinets, or some other labor or time-saving device which it will
be to their advantage to adopt. In his kindly, unobtrusive way the man
binds his customers to him by bands of steel so that no other salesman
would have any show whatever in getting them away from him. He has built
up such a large patronage for his house that rival houses have made him
most tempting offers for his services.
The extra service for which he is not paid does more in helping this man
to get and hold customers than the actual routine for which he receives
his salary. Business men who are at a distance from the big centers of
trade fully realize what this extra service means to them, and are glad
to keep in touch with a helpful, up-to-date salesman.
I know a successful merchant who is so afraid that his business will get
into a rut, that his standards will deteriorate through familiarity with
his surroundings, that every little while he invites friends to go all
through his establishment in order to get the advantage of their fresh
impressions, their criticisms and suggestions.
The salesman should always remember that he has an opportunity to pick
up a great many new, progressive ideas which customers, who are closely
confined to their business or who do not have the time to go about much,
would not be likely to know about, and he can render them, as well as
himself, a very great service by keeping them posted and up-to-date.
Traveling salesmen are also traveling business teachers.
I know of no one quality which will help a salesman so much as an
obliging spirit, the desire to be helpful, to accommodate, and to assist
buyers.
Large jobbing concerns are finding that it is to their own interest
to look after the interests of their customers, to aid them in every
possible way, such as suggesting attractive ways of advertising, giving
them new ideas and suggestions as to the best arrangement of their
merchandise and advising them on other important points.
Many large concerns aid their customers financially. Mr. H. N.
Higinbotham, Marshall Field’s well-known credit man, was noted for
helping customers, especially when they were financially embarrassed. He
often assisted them to get mortgages and loans, and, in fact, frequently
made personal loans to the customers of his house. Of course affairs of
this sort must go to the credit man, but at the same time a salesman
often leads up to them, and thus relieves the embarrassment of customers.
Some time ago a manager of a large concern told me that he helped a
customer to get a thirty-thousand-dollar mortgage on his property, an
accommodation he was not able to get at the bank on a strictly business
basis. Many small houses, especially in the West, have come to look upon
the jobbing and wholesale houses they trade with as real friends, and
whenever they are hard pushed for money they are the first places they go
to for help.
Hundreds of Western concerns, through the initiative of the salesman,
owe their prosperity to-day to the assistance of the jobbing house which
carried them through hard times. When they could not have secured the
ready cash they needed upon purely business grounds, firms accommodated
through the efforts of a salesman become life customers and a perpetual
advertisement for the concern which has helped them, always saying a good
word for it whenever possible.
There are a hundred and one small ways in which both wholesale and retail
salesmen can accommodate their trade. Be alert to do all these trifling
personal favors, which mean so much and cost only a little thoughtfulness.
A word of caution in regard to promises. Guard carefully against making
promises you can’t fulfill. In your zeal to help the customer do not, for
instance, promise deliveries that are next to impossible or very hard for
your house. You thereby hurt yourself, your customer and your firm. Be
accommodating, but always use common sense.
Your customer may forget a lot of things which you say to him, but he
will not forget how you spent your time and energy in trying to show
him that which would be a real benefit to him; your effort to give him
new ideas, to show him how he could be a little more up-to-date; your
explaining to him how other progressive men in his own line were doing
things. There is nothing which makes a better impression on a man or
woman than the unselfish effort to please, to be of service, and the
demand for salesmen and all sorts of employees who will put themselves
out to do this is constantly growing. There was a time when human hogs
could do business, provided they had the goods and could deliver them,
but all this has changed; to-day the art of getting on in the world is
largely the art of pleasing.