The Worst Sales Tip?
There are many posts about what is the best sales tip, but I think it is also time to talk about what may be the worst, or one of the worst.
I think there are many candidates. It’s hard to choose one. Besides, the consequence of many not-so-good tips are also related to many of the salespeople’s defects we have ever mentioned.
There have long been many sales mantras that are repeated ad nauseam as immutable truths that are not nuanced enough to end up being negative rather than positive.
In that sense, I think that one of those sales tips that have become very popular, but that in the end are a barrier to improve sales, is the one that says:
“The customer is always right.”
And if he is not, he is…
But all of us who have been attending customers know that they are not always right.
And it’s okay for that to be the case.
This sales tip has actually done a lot of damage, even if it was and still is well-intentioned in the beginning, always in pursuit of better service and customer care, but taken to the extreme it ends up becoming negative both for the seller and for the customer’s own interests.
Why do I think this is bad advice?
Among other things, because it establishes an unequal relationship, as if the seller had to obey all the customer’s whims, which are not always needs.
Not always his complaints are real complaints and not always his complaint is entirely fair, even if he believes it to be so.
This premise also cuts off the seller’s initiative to become a real support for the customer, nodding and accepting everything he asks for, without critical thinking beyond the objective of making the customer happy at all times, without annoying him, without provoking him, without challenging him.
If the customer is always right, we will never be able to find out what the customer really needs, because we will only attend to what he thinks or believes he needs.
On the other hand, many times customers lie (I also do it as a customer) and others even become toxic customers, of which it is better for us that they go to the competition.
But if we follow the principle that they are always right, we would never detect this type of customers, nor would we filter them at our convenience, meeting demands that end up being negative for the company’s interests.
Of course, not following that principle does not mean that we should not listen to the customer at all times, especially in the case of complaints, suggestions, etc. Trying to give great customer service and experience, as the origin of that maxim, is positive, but without taking it to the extreme, which actually causes this advice to become bad sales advice.
Also, in most B2B situations there is a normal negotiation process that, if we followed this principle, would even disappear or we would give in to any objections, often unjustified, about prices and comparisons with competitors, for example.
We have also spoken many times about differentiation.
And precisely, finding a salesperson who does not agree with you on everything, who even makes you think and question the status quo, can be the point of differentiation that the customer finds among a mass of submissive, obedient, passive salespeople who are not going to provide the additional value that the customer needs. In this sense, it is not always advisable to adhere to this principle.
If the customer is always right, what happens when he is wrong?
Someone should be there to precisely change that situation, to take advantage of that opportunity to light the right way. To do otherwise would be to leave him to his fate, to not really want to help him.
We are supposed to be the experts in our product (if not, too bad) and therefore we should know how to correct the customer when he makes a mistake, or when he has the wrong idea of what the product or service can do for him, or when it is not the right product for his needs.
In short, believing that the customer is always right is a bad sales tip.
It may even be the worst, especially because it is already very widespread and accepted in our heads so that it becomes a barrier to becoming a better salesperson.
It is better to create a relationship of equals, in which both of us may or may not be right.
We are human, after all.
But maybe I’m not right…
Find out more principles for selling more and succeed selling (51 Sales Tips)
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