You sell what you know – gaining a competitive edge with product training
To nearly all Finns, the digitalization of the TV network represented a tragicomic example of the meaning of product knowledge – or the lack thereof. Desperate consumers roamed from one appliance store to another trying to come to terms with the code language of digital boxes and SCART connectors with the help of sales personnel unfamiliar with the products and missing a language in common with their customers. In this case, the product business was redeemed by the consumers’ forced motivation to buy. Since there were no alternatives, a deal was made even if the sales people didn’t know what they were selling, nor the buyers what they should be buying.
A product or service familiar to the sales
personnel does best in comparisons, says
Timo Raaska.
A sales person is a product expert – or should be
The example above is, nevertheless, an exceptional one. In a majority of purchase decision situations, the consumer bases the decision to buy on deliberation and comparison. Information and experiences are looked for in stores, on the internet, and in peer groups, with the attempt to always choose the alternative best suited for the individual in question. In such comparisons, the winner is usually the product or service being sold by a representative who knows the product. In addition to basic product knowledge, the sales person can argue for the qualities, benefits, and price of a particular product. A sales person’s professional skills also include the ability to analyze a customer, a so-called “situational sense”. The kind of sales arguments that can win over the customer in question and the product(s) worth offering to this customer, in order to reach an agreement.
The efficient implementation of corporate product and service training is often challenging. The target group is geographically scattered, the skill sets different, and the motivation to adopt new information varied. There is seldom extra time to devote to the introduction of new products and services in the sector of sales and customer service jobs, meaning that only too often the practical solution lies in the principle of survival.
Yet the customer’s starting point originates in the assumption that the sales person is the product expert. Even if there would be a lot of information available to support a purchase decision, the sales people are looked to for confirmation to one’s own opinion and decision.
The web is superior in product training
In a rapidly changing business environment, the web is more or less the only cost-efficient way to offer almost simultaneous product and service training of a consistent quality to hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of people, free from constraints of location and time. Online training is an effective way to reach one’s own personnel, distribution channels, partner networks, or a product’s end users, whilst enabling the measuring of performances on a country or location specific level, or all the way up to the level of individuals.
A part of the web’s uniqueness is also based on its two-way nature. If so desired, an e-learning program enables opening up personal dialogues with each member of the target group, thus allowing the gathering of data such as direct feedback, ideas, FAQs, or problems from each individual participant.
The contents and actual event of e-learning can be quite varied in their form and content. A part of the learning can happen with the help of small nano-modules, which can be gone through in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, the contents can form 15-20 minute training packages. Online, the training can also be implemented in the form of a game or a shared quiz.
When implemented effectively, online training is compact, interesting, and above all motivating.
A competent sales person sells more
Prewise has plenty of experience in the implementation of product and service training for different sorts of customer needs. Entire distribution chains, starting from one’s own sales staff to the most recent part-time sales assistant in the most distant retail store, have been trained with the help of e-learning.
In line with the web’s nature, training has been available simultaneously in dozens of countries, and depending on the needs of target groups, in dozens of languages. Demanding training programs have adopted models of certification, in which a final exam completed at the end of an e-learning program will grant the participant an authorization or a certificate to act as the official expert of a product or product group.
The best part of this all is the satisfaction of all parties involved when it comes to the possibility of getting information crucial to one’s own work easily and in an interesting way. In the end it is, however, the customer who benefits from the competence of the sales people. A competent sales person is pleasant to deal with and can offer exactly the right kind of information to support the customer’s decision. And such a decision spells a deal! A decision that is naturally the goal of every meeting a sales person has with a customer.
Text: Timo Raaska