Bob Phibbs paints an unpleasant picture of what bad manners looks like in a retail setting.

Your custom motorcycle and you hurtle down Wilshire Boulevard. You turn around at the intersection and stop in front of an apartment building.

You grab your precious cargo – two extra large meat lovers’ pizzas with extra cheese and extra sausage, and hurry into the building.

Within moments you have bounded to the second floor to knock on your friend’s door 20 minutes before the start of the game – the semifinals of the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. No one answers.

You can hear the TV on but no one comes to the door. You wait, then cautiously enter and see two of your friends talking. They stop and notice you, but go on talking.

You shut the door, take off your leather jacket and go up to them. “Hey,” one says and looks past you. The other looks at the counter and yells, “Hey the pizza is here!” and they all run over as if you weren’t there.

How would you feel? 

Well that’s how first timers might feel entering your store or showroom when they are ignored.

That’s how many salespeople ultimately lose sales opportunities.

If a friend knocked on your front door, how would you answer? “May I help you?”, “I’ll be with you in a minute?”, “Finding everything ok?”, of course not! Yet, the curt actions of poor clerks often give that message. As their excuse for not greeting a customer, some trainees tell me, “But I don’t like to be bothered when I shop. I like to be left alone.”

Well introvert, retail is not about what you want. It is about what customers want. Leaving the customer alone costs your company big money. 80% of customers never return to businesses due to perceived indifference from staff. 80% want to be noticed. 100% want a friendly greeting.

Greeting anyone with “Good afternoon, welcome to (your store name) feel free to look around and I’ll be right back,” is not pushy, it’s good manners and the first step to making a successful sale. Doing it within 15 seconds is the best (that’s not that long – try counting as you walk in to your store.)

Sometimes employees size up the customer long before they actually say anything to them. I used to have an employee like this – he felt he could “read” everyone and if they were just looking, he’d let someone else wait on them. It would be like the hostess of your local diner giving the Prime Rib menu to only those she felt could afford it, while the others got the menu with hot dogs. That comes from their personality but that’s another post…

If you’re with a customer and another walks in, first ask the person you’re helping, “Would you mind if I greet this person, I’ll be right back?” Any reasonable person will say, “Yes.” When you meet the new customer, greet her with, “Good morning! Welcome to (your store name). While I’m with another customer, please look around and I’ll be right back.”

No reasonable person will be offended and you can go back to your first customer. The person who entered can relax and look around and the first customer doesn’t feel you abandoned them.

The best salespeople make big sales by developing warm relationships that start with a friendly greeting. Whether they are white, black, straight, gay, single, a couple, a mom, etc. They’re all purple and their money is green.

If you don’t perform this first step of a sale properly- greeting them like they are coming to your home, you often make your job as a salesperson much harder.

Order Sales RX: The Five Parts to a Successful Sale video training program by Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor to learn all the steps to making more sales more often.

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3 Responses to “Lost a Sale? It All Started With How You Greeted Your Customer”

1. Jeffrey Summers says:

   October 6, 2011 at 5:57 pm

   Amen Bob! It never ceases to amaze me how many ‘experts’ preach the Golden Rule. But you are right, it’s not about how WE want to be treated. It’s about how GUESTS want to be treated. Good post.

   Reply
   • bobphibbs says:

     October 6, 2011 at 7:51 pm

     Thanks Jeffrey for noticing that sentence as the key and thanks for commenting!

     Reply
2. Heather Strang says:

   October 7, 2011 at 7:36 pm

   Bob,
   Love your intro here – it was very catching and illustrated the point perfectly. I can’t tell you how often this happens (well, maybe I can, since you know all about this!). A friendly greeting makes all the difference. I normally like to be “left alone” when I shop, but I LOVE friendly salespeople. I bought a lot of product at Lush Cosmetics about a month ago when the sales gal was so incredibly friendly and helpful. And I had come in to look. I never felt like she was selling me – just being a friend. It’s amazing what a good personality and warmth can do for retail sales.

   -Heather

   Reply