In their zeal to extract more from the existing customers, companies go all out to sell everything that they think these customers should or would buy. Their salespeople are trained to enthusiastically try to sell to these customers. Too much of selling efforts puts off a customer completely.
• Some banks appoint Relationship Managers (RMs) to take care of their premium customers. These RMs rarely “take care”, but they actually act as front ends to sell different products to these customers e.g. Credit Cards, Loans, Insurance Policies, Deposits and Mutual Fund Schemes etc. They help the salespersons from the bank’s various divisions to reach these premium customers. Once these products are sold, the RM is neither available nor equipped to solve queries or problems about the new products sold. He simply directs the customers to contact the respective divisions. In the corporate jungle of various divisions, the customer gets lost. If the banks use RMs only to sell new products, and not to support them, the customer relationship suffers, undoing the whole purpose of the Relationship Management initiative.
• Gently introducing some relevant products to customers is one thing, but being pushy is bad.
• One reputed restaurant chain has a dubious practice of waiters suggesting “Today’s special” items to the patrons. These special items are invariably not included in the menu, so their rates are hidden from the customers and they are almost always kept at a higher side. The customer realizes this only at the end, when the bill arrives. In fact, “Today’s special” should actually be kept at par or at a lower rate because it is planned for in advance and the ingredients are sourced comparatively cheaper in bulk.
• The waiters at the same restaurant are trained to always “convince” the customers who are in groups to order more quantity of food items, which finally remains unused and is wasted, but the customers are charged for the same. Such cheating practices result into bitter taste and customers don’t come back to such places because of the bad experiences.
• Many companies come out with “Buy one get one free” offer. The customer realizes very quickly that, in fact, the products sold under such schemes are worth half the listed price only, so the company is forcefully selling two items to them when they actually wanted to buy only one. Such tactics are easily found out and leave the customers unhappy.
• A company introduces “diet” biscuits for working executives who can consume it as a snack while commuting or travel. The size of the pack was much more than a diet conscious person would prefer to consume in one serving. And once the pack is opened, it is very messy to keep the remaining biscuits back. Moreover, once the pack is opened, the biscuits get soft and spoiled also. The company must have kept this consumer insight about its preferred size in mind while introducing the diet biscuit. Yes, the per unit sale quantity may reduce, but overall sales will increase. The focus should not be only on how much we are selling at a time, but how often we are able to sell with the right size.
• On the other hand, some companies share the data of their customers with their other group companies or business partners, without the prior consent of the customers. Such incidents, when found out, are mostly disliked by the customers because they infringe their privacy and it is a breach of trust on the part of the company.
• Through overselling, we may succeed in selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo who really may not need it, but the Eskimo will always hate us for that sale and will never do any business with us.
• The focus of the company and the sales team must not be always to make a quick buck, but to build long term relationships with the customers, so that the customers want to buy our products or services only whenever they need them.
• We should remember that customers don’t buy because we are selling. They buy because and when they need the product or service we are selling.
