Nail the Sale, Chapter One: A Shopping Trip of Reverse Proportions
With one exception, the duration-to-spend ratios for my excursions to Best Buy have always been disproportionately weighted toward emptying my wallet. Last weekend, that got turned around.
After I had one of the greatest customer experiences I can remember, Best Buy forfeited a doozy of a sale (upwards of $5,000) -- and they had sunk a big chunk of time into it, too. Here's how it went down (and BTW, I'm using the recent Best Buy trip as an example. Y'all know I'm about patterns, not anomalies, and I'm seeing this situation lots of other places).
Last Saturday, my just-divorced friend and I spent two hours browsing Best Buy. She was excited about trading her "perfectly good" (according to her dear ex) Flintstonian, room hog of a television, receiver and speaker set-up for a streamlined home theater system. She'd asked me to accompany her because she was "clueless" about technology yet ready to splurge big time.
Every minute of this visit reeked of "customer centricity." The first sales associate deftly guided us through computer speakers -- though they were not even on my list, I started poking around. Plugging his iPhone into the demo unit and flashing a conspiratorial grin, he took me up on my dare to crank up the volume on the $150+ Klipsch set...and when it came time to head to Home Theater, his seamless hand-off to a senior associate was a real thing of beauty.
Once there, we were treated to an effortless non-pitch that had Senior Blue Shirt translating the latest in TVs, receivers and speaker sets from high-tech to low res without so much as a whiff of condescension. The more time we spent with him, the more confident my friend became in her decision to make an investment that would surpass any she'd personally made in the last ten years.
The power session wrapped up with Senior Blue Shirt offering to write up everything he had recommended, and that's when the sale started going off the rails. The five minutes that he was gone was just long enough for my friend to lapse into doubt mode. When he got back and began walking us through the quote, the situation became more unnerving for a few reasons:
Installation: What had previously been described as a fairly straightforward process suddenly got more complicated. First quoted as a general estimate of "about $300," the installation fee then morphed into a "range" of "$100 to as high as $800." Of course, there are reasons for the range but that provides no comfort.
Delivery: Another unexpected complication, as visions of Geek Squadders magically appearing with everything -- plugging it all in and turning it all on -- regressed into a two-phased commitment that would include dealing with a trucking company for the television and Geek Squad for the remainder. AND, it was revealed that the non-TV components would need to be brought home by my friend while the centerpiece of the system, the television, would be brought by the trucking company in "a couple of days." That shut off the instant gratification switch.
Furniture: Best Buy's limited selection of home theater furniture presented a problem that wasn't considered up until this point. My friend didn't care for the somewhat utilitarian styles that were present on the floor so talk switched to leaving Best Buy and shopping for furniture first.
Timelines: There was no discussion of specific timelines; only ranges. Senior Blue Shirt's low-pressure accommodations gave my now-skeptical and fearful friend "permission" to leave the store gracefully, and that's just what we did.
Back at her house, my friend turned on her perfectly good TV and twenty-year-old stereo and said, "You know, I really don't watch television that much."
Discussion Questions: What are the most common mistakes in closing a sale at retail? Which stood out as the biggest faux pas in the incident described in the article? How can retailers make sure such incidents happen less frequently?