Sometimes, great sales or service isn’t all that complicated. In fact, sometimes it all boils down to one great question. I had a reminder of this fact last week.
I was in the Houston airport connecting from Corpus Christi to a flight home. I had a couple of hours, so instead of a typical airport fast-food dinner, I decided to have a nice sit-down dinner at Pappasito’s Cantina (a great Mexican restaurant chain that’s located all through Texas). I wasn’t concerned about the time – as I said, I had a long layover. I travel a lot so I eat in a lot of airport restaurants – still, I was blown away by the one question that the hostess asked me.
“What time is your flight?”
The simplicity of it was huge – but so was all that it implied. Without saying so, she was letting me know that they would do everything they could to get me fed and out of there in time to reach my flight comfortably. In hundreds of visits to airport restaurants, however, I’ve never been asked that question.
Without explicitly saying so, the hostess said, “We are going to provide you with a great service experience.” (This in and of itself is unusual for airport restaurants, in my experience.) And that was exactly the experience I received – even though my timeline wasn’t tight at all. Great service and delicious fajitas; what more could I ask?
Interestingly enough, when I related this experience to Jesyca Hope, my social media and branding coach (yes, the Sales Navigator also has coaches), she said, “That’s amazing! I just had a similar experience.” Apparently, she was dining at a restaurant in Washington, DC, and the server asked each person at the table if they had any food allergies that she needed to know about. Again, a small and quick question, but one that asserts first, that the person asking actually cares about the customer, and that second, efforts will be made to accommodate the customer’s needs.
Think about your own sales environment. What one great question could you incorporate in order to provide a great service experience for the customer? We cannot produce success for a customer unless and until we know what success means to them. Do you ask the customer what their definition of success is?
There is, of course, a risk to this approach. The risk is that, once you ask and get the answer, you become responsible for achieving the customer’s desired result. For instance, if my timeline had been tight at the airport, it’s the hostess’ responsibility to either ensure that they serve me quickly – OR tell me that the time was too tight for me to get in and out of the restaurant. Same with the allergy question – if the customer did have an allergy, the server is responsible for knowing what’s in the dishes that everyone is ordering and advising if there’s something in a dish that would trigger a reaction.
But here’s the thing – GOOD SALESPEOPLE AND SERVICE PEOPLE ARE CONFIDENT ENOUGH TO TAKE THAT RISK. And without risk comes no reward.
Here’s my challenge to you. What’s the one great question you could ask your customers, at some point during the sales process, that could greatly alter their service experience? Once you come up with it – ASK IT. Your customers will thank you.
