Don't Fail at Follow-Through! I've always emphasized the need to drill down" and connect with your sales prospects on a personal level. That process begins with your approach to initial referrals where you should be asking What can I do for you?" NOT What can you do for me?" It continues with how you handle sales calls, where I suggested you use my Inquiry Connection Sheets to identify the family's wants and needs, then making sure those wants and needs are addressed during the on-site visit. If, after all that, you've made the sale and added a name to your occupancy list, great! The only problem is...most sales people stop there. Big mistake! You haven't finished connecting the last dot the dot that creates a complete and successful sale. Follow-through. You want a happy customer after you make the sale and you want the person to feel the community cares about them personally. The more powerful their initial experience is upon move in, the easier their transition will be & in turn the incredible referrals to your community. A happy resident who feels looked after and IMPORTANT is a wonderful advertisement and can't help but boost your reputation. It's not difficult to make this happen because, if you've followed the advice I've given in the previous article, you've already done all the hard work! Simply use all the personal information you've gathered through the sales process and summarize it on one page. Copy that page and distribute it to the various departments at your community making sure to flag the relevant info to the relevant departments so that everyone works together to make the new resident's move-in as personal and comfortable as possible. Example: say the person is a Jewish woman. You can have the staff hang a Mezuzah, a traditional Jewish religious symbol, on her door. Or maybe the person doesn't like ice in their drinks you can let the kitchen staff know that. Do they want their room cleaned a certain way? Let housekeeping know. These may seem like little things, but they're actually very big things to your new resident. It shows that you view them as a person, not as just a sale, and it makes them feel more at home and looked after. This kind of customer service is an important part of the WOW factor" that you want to bring to each sale and it's also a part that's frequently overlooked. To sum up, if you want your community to really shine with the kind of customized personal service that people talk about... #1 Follow the systems I laid out in the first three articles. Connect personally with the family and potential resident and identify needs as well as their values. #2 Foster cooperation throughout all departments in your community by sharing that information and making sure everyone follows up on it. Again, this kind of follow- through is always impressive and is vital to completing an overall positive sales experience for the customer. That's how your reputation soars and your revenues climb! Copyright (c) 2009 Traci Bild
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