the 3 v’s
VERBAL
Did they just say ‘SCO’? ……….
Do you know what a PLU is? ………. What’s an SEL? ……….
By Alan Jones, Two’s Company Training Manager
Dated: 21st October 2019
Using terminology your customers understand, hugely contributes to your customers shopping experience.
We all have the need to feel comfortable and in control, however, if we use words or abbreviations that customers do NOT understand, this may cause confusion and, in some customers, panic!!
Imagine the scenario ………..
Store has an installation of NEW Self Service tills. A queue-buster colleague approaches a customer queuing at a normal till and says, “Would you like to use our NEW Self Service Tills’.
The second the colleague said the word ‘New’; some customers will automatically start to panic and produce a negative response. This is because, certain customers do not like change and therefore, as soon as they hear the word ‘New’, the panic and negativity set in!
So, what could the colleague have said differently?
Self Service? … SCO? … Hybrid? … Fast Lane? …
Or just simply TILL?
If the colleague had simply said, “I have a free till over here, follow me!”, most customers would have followed the instruction, as the colleague had used terminology the customer understood.
If colleagues deliver this and then coach customers in the right way at the Self-Service Till, the customer is more likely to use Self Service as a first-choice option when visiting store in the future. The journey from a normal manned till to a Self Service till gives the colleague an opportunity to talk to the customer and start the coaching cycle with the customer sooner rather than later.
Throughout our courses and live coaching, we look at how colleagues do this and empower them to read customer body language and decide on what terminology they should use to best suite each individual customer.
Do you want your customers leaving store thinking, ‘What does SCO mean or what’s a PLU? Or do you want them thinking ‘WOW, that service was great!’
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