How to Open a Window of Contact

– Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor

In the old days sales people knew how to be friendly because they were treated better in stores than they were on the street. Nowadays with reality TV where everyone sees others belittled and the sitcoms where everyone is a wisecracking cynic, everyone is seeing the worst behavior modeled. As a result, interacting with people has become harder and our sales associates have few positive role models to guide them. As a result, the art of being friendly has disappeared from most retail. Luckily, you who are reading this are not most retailers!

After a friendly greeting, it is up to the sales associate to look for something unique about the person standing in front of them. This second part of the sale is what I call the Windows of Contact™. Common windows of contact are jewelry, hairstyles, and clothing. You want to find something you like about them, compliment them and then find something in your experience to tell the customer about.

You begin by finding something you honestly like or notice about them—people will see through phoniness. For example, a woman walks into your store with a “Soccer Mom” T-shirt and two small children in tow. The obvious window is soccer so you might say, “Good afternoon, did they win today?” or “Did you just come from a game?” Bonus points if you asked the children something about the game.

Then it would be up to you to speak from your own experience about soccer. Perhaps you played in school and could say, “I was goalie in college, I really loved it” or “I’ve got two kids myself in soccer.” Or even “I never played soccer, my game was baseball.”

The second part of the sale lets you become familiar with each other and form a relationship. Otherwise, you become a robot where people are asked what they want, they fill out some forms and their products are delivered. Always remember we are in the people business, which means you must notice them and share something of yourself if you want to build loyalty. That loyalty pays off big when they talk to their friends about the nice people down at your store—something the big box can’t even think about having their customers say!

Reprinted with permission. This information is based on Phibbs’ best selling book, You Can Compete, Double Sales Without Discounting.© 2004 Bob Phibbs All rights reserved.

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