Effective Handling of Talkative Customers

In sales the worst thing that can happen is to have a potential customer who is just not showing any willing at all. It’s like getting blood out of a stone, with no way of getting them to open up at all about what they are looking for or to get them to commit to signing up to purchasing your product or service. One type of customer that is often overlooked however is that of the talkative customer – the customer who takes a conversation way off topic and prevents you from closing a sale in the complete opposite way to a quiet and obstructive caller. With the assistance of highly trained call centre operatives and a top class contact centre service you can ensure all types of callers are overcome and a healthy sales rate of conversion is created and maintained.

Can you stop a person from talking uncontrollably? When you are a sales agent looking for a way to close a sale, or at least get to the next stage of a conversation and gain some interest the last thing you want is to see a conversation spiral out of control and go in all sorts of different directions. In some cases it might be a clever way to fob you off, to waste your time, in other cases it might be a genuine character trait or a lonely person who just hasn’t had much human contact prior to your call. A good salesperson will be experienced enough to understand and expect any of these things.

The first approach is to understand that an open question always gives an opportunity for an answer to go anywhere. At first in a sales call you’ll want to explore the customer and build a relationship, asking open questions to see what drives them, what they are looking for, and to gain vital pieces of information that will help you close a sale. If the caller starts to go off track and become too talkative you have to rein them in quickly by asking a closed question. If you have a specific question you need an answer to in order to move on a closed answer will provide you with them. For example, asking ‘Would you like to receive some more information from us?’ can only lead to the other person giving you a yes or no answer.

Always use the customers name during conversation, it builds trust and is polite. If there are instances where you are asked something away from the conversation of business, such as where you are from – be quick to provide a short answer before quickly moving the topic back to the pressing business matter. What this does is provide enough of an answer to show that you are listening and have not been rude, whilst promoting that you are an authority and can provide solutions to their problems with your service or product.

Having an experienced sales team on your side, in the form of an additional contact centre service, is the best way to maximise the potential of your company and ensure talkative customers are handled quickly and effectively.