When you force your employees to say something or try and sell something to customers at the point of sale, it will come across as unnatural.
On my last trip to Fry’s electronics, as I was paying for my purchase, the cashier asked if I wanted to apply for a Fry’s credit card.
You’ve probably heard that request before at numerous retail locations and it rarely sounds compelling enough to take action.
I asked the cashier how often people take him up on the offer for the credit card. He replied, “Not many.”
“Do you get in trouble if you don’t ask?” He mumbled, “Yes.”
Obviously there is no incentive for this employee to get people to sign up for the service other than fear of punishment. This reduces the employee to the bare minimum steps required to not get fired.
It doesn’t get people to sign up for the service.
I always thought that the cashier should ask me the “do you want to sign up for our credit card?” question before I hand over the cash or swipe my credit card.
Sometimes this question is given with a preface: “Would you like to save 10% today by…”
This, unfortunately, can easily be answered with a “No.”
If you want to be truly effective, try tweaking your thinking just a little.
Why not hook the customer with an offer like “Would you like to save 10% off your XYZ today?” where XYZ is personalized to what they are buying.
In this case, more customers are likely to say “yes.” Then you can explain how they can save 10%.
Lead off with what is in it for the customer and you’ll be more clear with the benefits of your offer. Additionally, you can give incentives to your employees to make them more more convincing in their selling.