By Vivienne Jaffer
I was doing some research when I came across a post entitled 6 Ways to Activate Passive Customers http://geeklesstech.com/active-the-passive-customer/ and was taken by a particular reference to Commitment and Consistency…
“Interestingly enough, consumers tend to be more confident of their choices after they buy something. The act of making a final decision activates a psychological trigger that makes people believe they made the right choice. “

Yes…that may well be so, and lack of consistency is sales suicide. Take my recent experience:

I visited a Harvey Norman store this week, it was a second visit into the store within a week to deliver a computer for a maintenance check up. The salesman who sold me a very cool (and expensive) set of headphones last week was coincidentally called off the floor, to attend to booking my computer in. As he walked behind the counter to serve me, I greeted him happily and reminded him that he had served me last week and sold me a great pair of headphones. He didn’t make eye contact nor acknowledge what I had just said, just smiled to himself and grunted, took the computer from me and said that it would be fixed and someone would call me when it was ready.
I walked out of the store feeling like I had just been duped. I started to question whether the earphones were that great, had he just given me a whole lot of standard spiel that he could have attached to any particular set of products in this category? Why did I feel like that? This guy had been Mr Animated, Mr Knowledgeable, Mr Charming, Mr Trustworthy last week. This week he was Mr I don’t give a damn, Mr you’re an idiot.

I don’t understand why an organisation like this has such an inconsistency and lack of depth in their sales presentation, and it’s not a unique or uncommon experience, I am sure anyone reading this has had a similar experience. Surely it’s a matter of being consistent and regular with internal performance development.