Timing can be everything in sales sometimes…knowing when to sell and when not to can make a big difference.
I recently had an experience that made me think about this idea. We all know that it’s easier to sell to existing customers than it is to new or potential customers; however, selling to your customers needs to be well timed to be effective.
Last week I was having trouble with my phone and internet services. I had a frustrating morning of dropped calls and the internet randomly going down. I tried all the things I could on my end before turning to the company that handles both of our services. I opted for the chat feature, since I have historically been able to resolve any issues that way and could talk with them while continuing to get some stuff done.
When I chatted with the representative, things were going okay – she was working to troubleshoot for me to find the source of the problem. After a few false starts and me expressing my frustration over the situation, she mentioned that she could do a system refresh, which would take a few minutes. I would lose phone and internet access during that time. That was fine, because I needed to get this resolved and would do anything to make that happen, though I was getting increasingly frustrated by my looming pile of work that was stacking up.
She nicely explained that she would be starting soon and to wait until she returned to the chat to indicate that everything was reset. A few minutes later, I noticed a new message from the representative…..it was a sales pitch for a new service they are offering!
I was a bit taken aback by this, and I’m certain it was some type of automated sales chat, similar to what you would hear if you were on the phone and put on hold. It surprised me that they would use this messaging with a customer that was not really happy with the service they are already getting. That was not the time to try to sell additional services to me, a currently dissatisfied customer.
Timing is everything – you want to sell additional services when the time is right, and when the customer is happy. Otherwise, you may not only not get the additional sale, but it could be the one thing that pushes a customer from dissatisfaction to leaving you all together.
Just some food for thought.
