Customer Satisfaction

1. Customer Satisfaction Unit 5: Retail Agribusiness Sales Lesson: AS3

2. Objectives Lesson Objective: • After completing the lesson on customer satisfaction, students will demonstrate their ability to apply the concept in real-world situations by obtaining a minimum score of 80% on a Customer Satisfaction Sample Sale. Enabling Objectives: • Identify the characteristics of the three types of sales personalities and dialogue specific words, statements, and questions to be asked to each during a sales presentation. • Identify the importance of determining customer needs and craft questions to use during a sales presentation to determine those needs. • Develop appropriate activities to ensure satisfaction at each level.

3. Key Terms • Extrovert • Introvert • Ambivert • Open-Ended Question • Close-Ended Question

4. What Would You Do? • “I just purchased a 5 gallon backpack sprayer from you a couple weeks ago. I used it just this past weekend and realized it’s really too heavy for my back. We have a lot of steep hills along the fence lines on our farm, and I found the backpack to be especially uncomfortable. Since it’s too heavy and causes me back pain, I would like to return the backpack for a refund.”

5. What Would You Do? • “These plants were purchased just last week, and I noticed they are annuals. When I bought the plants, I thought they were perennials. I wanted perennials so I won’t have to replant each year. The annuals look perfectly healthy, and I’ve been watering them every day. Could I exchange them for perennials?”

6. What Would You Do? • “Yeah, two days ago I purchased this gas powered hedge trimmer. I was trimming the hedges this morning, and after cutting about half the hedge, the blade went dull.”

7. What Would You Do? • “I bought these plants from here about two weeks ago. I went to plant them this past weekend and noticed they were looking awfully unhealthy.

8. What Would You Do? • “I purchased a holiday wreath from a neighbor of mine who is in your FFA chapter. I ordered a wreath with a red ribbon to hang on my door in December. I was told I would receive the wreath the first week of December. Unfortunately, I just received this wreath, and it’s already December 15th. It also looks very spindly and has a white ribbon. Can you help me, please?”

9. Customer Sales Personalities

10. Identifying Customer Needs • Needs motivate customer’s buying decision • Needs also reveal valuable information about the customer, his or her personality, and his or her business 1) Discover a need by asking probing questions, listening carefully to the responses, and observing and researching the customer’s business 2) Make the customer aware of his or her needs by questioning the customer about his or her needs to obtain agreement on the nature of the needs and inform the customer of the research conducted or about ways to meet seemingly unfulfillable needs

11. Open-Ended vs. Close-Ended Questions

12. Using Open-Ended and Close-Ended in the Sales Process • Open-Ended Questions • Used to help the salesperson understand the customer and his or her point of view • Allow the customer to take some control over the conversation, which generates feelings of friendliness and trust for the salesperson • Close-Ended Questions • Used to learn specific information • Give the salesperson almost total control over the conversation • Should not be overused since the customer may feel as if he or she is being interrogated and become defensive

13. Questions to Determine Customer Needs

14. Questions to Determine Customer Needs

15. Obtaining Agreement on Customer Needs • Salesperson must put together a list of needs and get confirmation from customer • Agree on needs by summarizing the list for the customer • If list is short, salesperson should discuss the specific features of the product at the end of the summary and ask for customer agreement • If list is long, salesperson should match the features and needs one at a time while going through the list and then ask customer for agreement

16. 4 Levels of Customer Satisfaction

17. Conclusion • Identifying customer needs is a necessary part of the sales process. The salesperson must be able to match the customer’s needs with specific product features and benefits to convince the customer to make a purchase. Different sales personalities must be approached in different ways to gather this information. • Determining needs can be accomplished by questioning the customer using different types of questions, which may be either open-ended or close-ended. Once needs have been determined, the salesperson should summarize the needs and obtain the customer’s agreement that they are valid. • Customer satisfaction plays a key role in maintaining customers and their loyalty. Obtaining the four levels of customer satisfaction will enable a business to dominate the marketplace.

18. Exit Cards • What did you learn today about customer satisfaction? • What questions do you still have about customer satisfaction?