Jan 18/25; Volume 30/Number 15
By Amanda Haskin
The Internet has made it possible for consumers to perform an endless amount of research before shopping, and business owners and salespeople must understand the implications of this modern practice. According to GE Capital Bank’s 2015 Major Purchase Shopper Study, 81% of consumers go online to conduct research before shopping, up 20% from the previous year. This means consumers may be coming into a dealer’s store with more knowledge than his own salespeople. FCNews asked retailers what they are doing to combat this issue and how they are retraining their sales forces to face this new kind of shopper.
“There are plenty of people who come in here and seem to know more about certain products than the sales staff,” said David Stover, vice president of sales, Grigsby’s Carpet, Tile and Rug Gallery in Tulsa, Okla. “Whether or not it’s useful knowledge I don’t know, but they like to talk as if they’ve figured it all out.”
While modern customers may be coming in with accumulated knowledge of flooring, business owners find it is actually a superficial understanding. “A lot of the things customers pick up on the Internet aren’t necessarily the right things,” said Chris Cosentino, flooring general manager, Nebraska Furniture Mart, with locations in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Texas. “They learn the buzzwords people throw out on the Internet. For instance, a customer comes in and says, ‘Well, I heard hardwood flooring needs to be acclimated.’ They may know about acclimation, but they don’t really know why the floor needs to be acclimated or exactly what the procedure is.”
Regardless of the kind of research these customers are doing, changes can be felt by retailers and sales associates alike. “The consumer today is shopping very differently than five or even three years ago,” said Brian Witkin, vice president of sales at Avalon Flooring, with 14 locations throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. “The mobile environment has made it that much more challenging because people can do more research throughout the day prior to shopping. They have enough knowledge to be dangerous.”
Continuing education
The sales team at Avalon Flooring offers sales training for beginners once a quarter and advanced product and sales instruction twice a year at its training facility in Cherry Hill, N.J. “[The advanced training sessions] are for new and seasoned salespeople, so the store manager determines who needs additional training,” Witkin explained. “We’re constantly putting out information on new trends in terms of categories; we have monthly meetings and the stores have weekly meetings.”
At Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM), the sales team takes tours of different installation jobs throughout the city so team members can see jobs in various stages of installation, as well as on-site conditions. “First, it gets them in a vehicle for a couple of hours with my installation manager or his coordinator so they can talk and form a relationship,” Cosentino said. “And then they get to go out on a job and actually see what’s going on. We also send them out with the measure agent to see what he looks for in the home, and then with an installer to see how that translates into finishing the job.”
The NFM sales team also gets product knowledge training three Saturdays per month before the store opens. Vendors come in and talk about what to look for and the differences between certain products. Salespeople are also given the opportunity to brainstorm during these sessions, discussing what questions customers are asking about specific products or categories.
At Blakely’s Flooring in Indianapolis, RSAs participate in ongoing training sessions with manufacturer reps. “We have scheduled training sessions several times per month, and we also have informal training every other week in which the reps come into the store and give the sales team information to help them with their product lines,” said Allen Gindt, retail manager. “We also encourage them to look things up on the websites customers are looking at. Get on there and see what they’re seeing.”
Interacting with today’s shopper
Not everything posted on the Internet is true, so it’s important for a salesperson to find a way to provide the customer with quality information while not disparaging her research.
“At the beginning of a sale, the sales associate needs to ask the right questions to determine [the customer’s] needs first and foremost,” Witkin said. “Direct them, with that information, to a product category or a specific product. You can’t belittle the knowledge they have.”
Witkin recommends the sales associate ask if the customer did any shopping online; this helps the RSA get an idea of which websites the prospect has visited. “We also make sure the sales team is familiar with the competition’s sites. We want to make sure they know what Home Depot’s website says and what it is promoting because people are going there for information first and foremost. See what’s coming up on page one of Google.”
Gindt suggests building consumer confidence by making sure customers know how long a dealer has been in business and how much the staff knows about flooring. “Then we tell them, ‘Here’s how we see things,’ as opposed to pointing out that something is incorrect. And we can then substantiate what we’re saying by telling them where we get our information or by giving them handouts—manufacturers’ information, warranty brochures or information provided by sales reps. We also tell people they have to take things with a grain of salt. You have to temper what you’re seeing on the Internet with good education and common sense.”
After listening and asking the right questions, the key is to give customers valuable information that will be of interest to them. “If someone comes in and says [she] likes this ceramic tile and how real it looks, start talking to her about inkjet printing or roto-jet printing and explain how they get that texture,” Cosentino said. “If you can give them a bit of knowledge and facts, they realize you know what you’re talking about.”
Maintaining excellence
Once a dealer has trained and retrained his sales associates, the next step is making sure they are continuing to learn and evolve with the industry. At Avalon, managers monitor each product category so they can see who is having success and who is not. “We put a plan together on how we should address specific categories,” Witkin said. “Last June, we sent out a laminate newsletter about what’s happening called ‘Laminate: Alive and Well.’ We put together this one-page document outlining product details, underlayment, etc., to get our sales team refocused on the category.”
Another part of maintaining a successful sales force is determining who gets hired in the first place. NFM likes to recruit sales candidates from its entry-level employees. “That way we don’t need to teach them about our organization,” Cosentino said. “Flooring is a tough business to learn; it’s easier if they can focus solely on the products they are selling. This helps get them up to speed on product and prepares them to help customers faster than bringing someone in from outside.”