There’s no single right way to approach a customer. All kinds of customers will visit your website. Each of them unique and requiring a different approach.
You can tell that a support team knows their stuff by looking at the way they approach different customers. If they work from a single script no matter who comes to talk to them, well, they need to do some homework.
A team that changes their approach for different cases is the team that gets good customer service results. They are able to handle all situations, no matter if they are pleasant or not.
Read on to see what types of customers you can meet when handling sales cases and what you can do to make their contact with you helpful and memorable.
Types of customers from a sales perspective
You can segment your customers into groups based on their position in the sales funnel. You basically go from someone who either is just looking and not really thinking about making a purchase to a person that is a life-long fan of your brand and will always come back for more.
Depending on how far they went into your sales funnel, you will need to address their needs and questions a bit differently.
In addition to that, you should consider the reason why somebody is buying from you. This will also change the conversation a bit and can help you move a customer that is still on the fence further down the funnel and turn them into a loyal follower.
Here are five sales-oriented types of customers you will encounter.
1. Potential customer – The Potential Paul
The Potential Paul is a type of customer that is on the very beginning of your sales funnel. Technically, Paul is not your customer yet. However, you should give them the full treatment and hopefully change that quickly.
Potential Paul is a lead that needs nurturing and warming up before making a buying decision. He already showed some interest in your business, either by filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter or asking a question via your live chat tool (doesn’t have one? no worries, you can test LiveChat for free).
That piece of interest is what separates Paul from other website visitors. You can use that spark of interest to convert him into a paying customer. It’s much more effective than carpet bombing all website visitors with offers.