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There was a time when someone contemplating a hot tub purchase had little more than personal experience to draw on. The prime source of hard information was the salesperson at the local retail store and the brochures that might be found there. Those days are long gone, of course. Now when a customer walks through the door, a salesperson regards a prospect armed with hours of website study.
Amazingly enough, one of the principal drivers of this change (along with convenience) has been trust. Many consumers put more faith in an anonymous internet site than a live human being standing before them. A recent study found a full 60 percent of consumers surveyed preferred not to interact with a salesperson as the primary source of information.
Itβs been a dramatic change in the salespersonβs role in a short time, and
Dan Boelhauf seen it firsthand. He started in the leisure aquatic industry as a high schooler in the β90s, sold spas retail in St. Louis for more than a decade before joining manufacturer Aspen Spas two years ago. Boelhauf runs the factory showroom and works as sales manager, assisting in new dealer development, dealer training and marketing.
UPSELLING THE EMPOWERED CUSTOMER
βI remember those days,β he says. βIt used to be that people would come in for showroom research. And that still happens, but now in the age of the internet, most buyers do their research online and feel empowered with information theyβve gotten there. βThey may have already made as much as 75 percent or more of the buying decision before they ever walk in a store. And theyβre probably going to stick to their guns on that 75 percent because they trust what theyβve learned online.β
Encountering the customer at this point in the process, itβs the job of the salesperson to read the situation and evaluate the customerβs true level of confidence in the decisions already made from online research. Are they open to a larger model they might have mistakenly eliminated?
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At the same time, the salesperson canβt be too pushy, Boelhauf says. βThat has turned off a lot of people, that old way of doing business where you use pressure and haggle and negotiate. And I think itβs unnecessary β nowadays I see more people who are ready to spend the money if they believe the product is good.β
An important factor in this interaction is the salespersonβs compensation structure β commission or non-commission. For a long time Boelhauf was on commission; only recently has he seen it from the other side, a perspective which allows him to step back a bit when necessary. βIt [not being commission-based] gives us more confidence on the sales floor to be more adaptable to the customer. Weβre not trying to get the biggest score on the commission scale. Thatβs taken out of the equation.β
βFREQUENTLY SOLD WITH THIS ITEMβ
On the internet, customer upselling is automatic. Under the product youβre buying you will inevitably find a link to three products with the encouraging statement that other people felt it wise to purchase these items to go along with your selection.
Of course, salespeople do this, too, Boelhauf says. βIt would be hard to find a salesperson who doesnβt offer a cover lift or steps after the sale. What I try to do in approaching the customer about options is to mentally move them forward, beyond the sale phase and beyond the honeymoon phase, to where theyβre going to be six months or more down the road once the novelty wears off.
βMy goal with each customer is for them to say, once the newness and the excitement wears off, βI wouldnβt have done anything differently.β
βThatβs why Iβm saying to a client after Iβve seen them really react to the spa lights in the showroom, βMaybe you really should add these $250 LED lights, because it seems like you really want them.β Because in six months, I donβt want them to say, βYou know, it was only $250. We really should have gotten those lights. We should have just spent the money.β
"Because weβve all done that. We have a price range going in, and we stick to it, but later we say to ourselves, βI should have just gotten that extra thing that was a few dollars more.ββ
βWE NEED THEM BACKβ
One thing the internet age has profoundly changed for small, niche retailers is the need for repeat business. The internet facilitates the impersonal. Itβs a world of cold, hard data that encourages customers to remain detached and remote from relationships and base buying decisions on images and text on a screen. For this reason, when a retailer has an opportunity to win a clientβs trust and affinity β and thus future trade β the retailer has to make that count.
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Boelhauf echoes that idea repeatedly. βBecause we do such a high volume of referral business, we have to focus on treating the customer right and setting their expectations correctly. And that means doing things the right way from the beginning β figuring out what they want and need and helping them get it.
βIf you do that, then theyβre going to tell people about it. Itβs all about being honest, and honesty travels well. Sure, in the short term, there are cases where by being honest with the customer and making the customerβs needs your priority, you donβt come away with the maximum number of dollars. Maybe you could have made more money by being super aggressive, going hard at them every time.
βBut on aggregate, just by being honest and giving the customer good information, I think you do better in the long term.β