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A ringing phone is the sound of money in your shop
However, too many shop owners allow money to slip through their fingers because they haven’t trained their staff to make the most of each call. There's a solution. Read on to discover how to optimize sales and customer satisfaction.
Every shop relies heavily on its telephone orders, but too few give this function of the business the respect it deserves. You would never let an untrained staff member design an arrangement. Why let untrained staff answer your customers’ calls?
Did you ever wonder why your average Internet order is higher than your average call-in order? It’s simple. No one gets in the way of the customers spending what they want!
Nationally, florists undersell their products by a huge margin. This is tragic because they are inadvertently lowering the standard of our industry. Customers who would be happy to pay $99 for an arrangement are routinely offered more modest products, and the consumer never realizes what they could have had for a little more money.
Professional selling is not about being “pushy” or “tricking customers.” It’s about learning what your customers need and helping them meet that need.
Take Charge of the Sale
The job of the person answering the phone in your shop is to guide customers toward the right choices in a professional manner. Too often, employees get off on the wrong foot with the first few words. When customers call, they need to know that they have reached the right party and that you are ready to assist them.
The most professional way to answer a shop phone is, “Urban Flowers, this is Mary,” or something similar. From there, the customer knows she dialed the right number and that Mary is ready to take her order or answer her questions.
After the introduction, most shop salespeople open with a standard phrase. Asking a customer, “How much do you want to spend?” or “What did you want to send?” is unprofessional. These questions put customers on the spot, asking them to make decisions they aren’t ready or equipped to make.
When you start off the process of helping customers with a discussion about price, you immediately limit their options. For example, a flower order for an employer’s birthday from his six employees would differ enormously from a college student’s order for a bouquet to be sent to his sweetheart.
Likewise, an anniversary arrangement from a young man to his wife of two years will be a different gift than one from an executive to his wife to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Before price comes into the discussion, you need more information.
Train your employees to sell colors, styles, and emotions, not prices. Customers don’t call your shop to buy a price. They are calling to buy beautiful flowers.
What did you have in mind?
Asking what customers would like to order without first giving them an idea of what your shop has to offer is like a restaurant waiter asking what you would like to order without first showing you a menu.
Train your employees to make suggestions once they learn enough about the event. They should start with shop specials or the middle tier of your pricing options, then move to higher-priced options, and finally to the most basic designs. Most of the time, the discussion will not go past the shop specials if employees provide appealing descriptions of them.
Follow these steps for every phone order (excluding sympathy) to put the focus where it belongs:
- Ask who the flowers are for and where they will be sent.
- Ask for the message on the enclosure card and how it should be signed. (This gives you the most important details about the gift early in the call.)
- Ask customers, “Do you have a gift in mind or may I make a suggestion?”
These steps are more logical when your goal is to assist customers in making the right gift choice – something that will not disappoint them or the recipients.
A Word about Specials
Your shop should have regular “featured arrangements” or recipe stylings available for your sales team to sell. While providing new and fresh options to your customers, they have significant benefits to your shop.
First, specials are easier to sell (the salesperson can have a script describing them) and faster to make (designers can produce them in batches for a lower labor cost).
Second, you can lower your COGS because you can take advantage of vendor price cuts on certain flowers and incorporate them in your shop specials. Add this all up, and it can easily double the profit on a sale.
Give your employees a script they can use to describe shop specials and other flower designs. Spend time crafting the script your staff will use to sell the shop designs. Make the descriptions accurate, visual, and appealing. A good description could be something like this:
“Today we have a beautiful arrangement of garden flowers in a distinctive hand-painted basket. It will contain flowers such as roses and hydrangeas in pink, white, lavender, and blue. It’s our most popular design and is the perfect size for a coffee table or end table.
How does that sound?”
Employees should pause to give the customer a chance to absorb the information and react to it. Customers will either choose the special or ask what other designs are available. They might ask for prices at this point, too, but it should be their question to ask and not yours. Don’t begin descriptions with the price or price range because that will become the filter for the rest of your information.
Finish the order with the offer of a finishing touch:
“For this special occasion, you might want to add a box of gourmet chocolates and a Happy Birthday balloon.”
Be Precise with Words
Sometimes customers will ask if a design is “showy” or “unique.” They often say things such as, “I want to send something tasteful” or “I want something exotic.” These descriptions mean something to them, but perhaps not the same thing as they do to you. Always try to get a clear idea of what customers want by asking them what they consider as “tasteful” or “exotic.”
To understand more clearly what they have in mind, ask questions. For instance, you could ask them if they think roses and lilies are tasteful or if they think tropical flowers like Bird of Paradise are exotic. You might discover that by “tasteful,” the customer is thinking of a traditional design of a dozen roses in a crystal vase. The customer looking for “exotic” really wants a design that includes branches or grasses. Pin them down as much as possible and when you think you know what they want, give them a description of a design that will fit their mental picture.
Never get hung up on price. If a customer says, “I want something showy for around $60,” be positive. Tell the customer what you can design for that price and then add, “If you allow another $20, I can send a fuller design that will look great on a dining room table or a coffee table.” This gives the customer a choice so that neither one of you is boxed in by price.
When customers ask, “How much are your roses?” train your staff to give them choices. Their answer should be along the lines of, “We have a classic dozen deep red roses showcased in a clear vase and finished with a white satin bow for $80 and our premium dozen roses arranged in a red frosted glass vase with a pink bow for $125. We are offering the premium dozen today in your choice of red, pink, or yellow.”
Besides giving the customer a choice of designs, this also makes either one they select top drawer. There is no second best or lesser quality. If the customer wants something less expensive, you can suggest a half dozen or an arrangement with a few roses and other flowers.
The Power of Choice
Training your phone crew to be ready to sell products and not prices will raise your average sale. When customers are given choices, they usually spend more than they had intended. This happens in all retail environments, not just flower shops. That’s why we have deluxe hamburgers, premium packages, and express delivery.
Given a choice, people will often opt to pay more for something they really want. But they won’t know they want it if you and your staff don’t tell them you have it.
