Guest Blog: Effectively using Product Knowledge with Your Customer

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Doug Sandler writes about how to communicate with your customer, anticipating the information that they need and want.  - Shep Hyken

I’ve spent 30 years building a business and I would say I know more than anyone about the services I provide. And I definitely know more than the vast majority of my customers do about the services I offer as well. As a matter of fact, I bet I could list the top 25 most important questions, concerns and potential issues that my customers would ask about. I hope you agree, you should know the same about your products and services too. Why am I telling you all of this? Simple — none of it matters to my customer and it doesn’t matter to your customer either. It only matters to you.

Your wealth of product knowledge is useless if you spend all of your time telling your client the great benefits your products offer but neglect to ask your customer what is important to them. Stop talking, start listening, ask questions when appropriate and provide only the information your customer is asking for. My dad used to call it puking product, and it has to stop if you want your customer to be happy and not bored by you. A bored client will leave you for your competition. I know it’s challenging to listen to your customer ask questions about the problems you are about to solve by providing your services, especially when you’ve heard all this before. You’re excited because you see a good match for your customer and you want to tell them. Now. Eager for your turn to chime in, you want to stop them from talking because you could probably finish the sentence for them. But don’t be so eager to interrupt them. Let them finish what they are saying. Your job is to make them feel important. They are important, they are your customer. Take a moment before you answer, and talk to them like a human being. Here’s your chance to complement them. Pace yourself, stay calm, listen closely to what they are saying. And when they pause, give yourself a moment to contemplate the question, even if you know the answer immediately.

Let’s look at a good way and a bad way to answer the same question. Question – “Does your product come in blue?” Right way to answer – “That is a great question Sam, I’m glad you asked that. Sure our product comes in blue. It sounds like that might be important to you? Is there anything else that’s important to you about our product?” Listen to how that sounds when compared to the puking product version of the same question. Question – “Does your product come in blue?” Wrong way to answer – “Does it come in blue? It sure does! It also comes in red, yellow, purple, orange and green. The green one is amazing too because it comes with 3 other features including tilt, spin and pan. You are going to love this product. One other thing worth mentioning is the great carrying bag that you get if you decide to buy one of these today.” I don’t know about you, but the wrong way sounds like a typical salesman and the right way sounds like someone who genuinely cares about the question the customer is asking and wants to know more about the customer and his questions.

Often times, the issue is not our customer, the issue is us. That’s okay though, because we can change us. We are one hundred percent in control of our behavior and zero percent in control of our customer’s behavior. So let’s not try to change our customer. Make a conscious effort to leave our product knowledge in our brain and not all of it in our conversation. You may be thinking that to have all this product knowledge is great and it’s important to use it. I would agree, having all the product knowledge in the world is great. But knowing when to use it is even greater. I promise, your customer will appreciate you checking it at the door.

Doug Sandler, aka Mr. Nice Guy, created Nice Guys Finish First in an environment where too often people accept average as the norm when it comes to customer service; and way too often companies accept average from their sales and customer service departments.  Doug is a speaker, author and blogger specializing in exceeding service expectations and he can prove to you why nice guys (and girls) finish first. You can get a free download of his e-book “5 Biggest Mistakes Made By Sales and Customer Service,” by clicking here.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com

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