As the holiday season approaches, it's so important to put a strong focus on sales techniques. Effectively communicating the holiday expectation with your team gets everyone on the same page. The National Retail Federation has reported there will be a continual and steady rise in consumer spending again this year. The best way for your business to take advantage of this increased spending is to be prepared. Here are three tips to improve your sales methods and make this holiday season the best ever. 

“Did You Know? Over 90% of #business #marketing budgets are spent to get customers to call. Only 6% is spent to actually handle the call.” (Tweeted by @Conrecept.) Now if this is true, and I suspect it is based on what we witness and evaluate each day, think of the money that is wasted and the customers that are lost because focus is just on sales, marketing, and PR. Scary and sad. And to further shock you, according to the "2015 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report" published by Parature, from Microsoft and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, today's consumers have increasing expectations for customer serivce.  In fact, according to the report, which surveyed 4,000 consumers across the globe, 60% have higher customer service expectations than a year ago.  What you need to do is obvious- you have to step up your customer service game! 

You have heard it all before - to provide good customer service and make a sale, you need to understand needs, have good product knowledge, find the "fit," and so on.  All true, but it's no longer popular to be stiff and calculated in how you serve and sell.  You need to be MEMORABLE.  So what happens when you take those skills and throw in personality, fun, and genuine rapport and care when connecting with your customers?  I will tell you what you get- better relationships, increased loyalty, and more sales.  

Let me prove this to you. My family and I are getting ready to move, and one super fun task I have (insert sarcasm here) is getting quotes from movers.  So I am going to share two moving company experiences from the last couple of days, and I want you to pick which one you would choose to do business with. 

I personally don't think that the Customer Experience can be explored enough. One of the main reasons that ProSolutions re-branded in 2001 was because I could see that we were leaving important needs on the table. Companies saw us as one dimensional. In order for us to re-communicate our message of what we could do for our customers, we built new operational models that showed how we could influence all aspects of the Total Customer Experience. So often we would hear from our customers that they need us to "fix" their broken service and delivery. Ten out of ten times, based on our analysis, we would quickly determine that the broken service and delivery (customer experience) was a byproduct of the whole organization being fragmented. Meaning, in many organizations, the "whole" runs as individual department silos. 

A little bit in customer service can go a very long way. Trust me- nowadays customers' expectations are not very high (sad, but true), and it's so easy to turn a standard interaction into one that is memorable.  As Nelson Boswell said, "Always give people more than they expect to get."  Why?  It's simple: one wow could be worth more than $10,000 in advertising. Now the examples and tips I am about to share with you are tailored to hotels, but think of these concepts in a grander scheme and how you could generally apply similar efforts into your business.  So here are our "Little 'Wows' Can Go a Long Way" for front desk agents and sales & catering managers...

How many times after a service exchange do you say, "That would have felt so much better if they just would have said or done...." In many cases it would only take small changes to make a big difference. If we agree that customer satisfaction is a leading factor to the success of any business, then understanding how your business can turn a good customer experience into a great customer experience begs attention.

There are no new and/or improved methods that I am going to unveil to make all your customer service challenges go away. Instead, we are going to revisit and refocus on what we already know. Let's re-energize our efforts regarding some very basic tips on how to provide great service.