Time to Get Personal.

Current events have put a real hiccup in the way we work with our retail customers. What can we do?

As retail salespeople, we typically rely heavily on floor traffic to make sales happen...and of course create commissions. With consumer's growing social interaction concerns relating to the COVID-19 situation, in-store traffic has already been affected. While Stressless and most of our stores are advertising reassuring messages and procedures along with promotional calls-to-action in order to generate interest, in-store will likely continue to be adversely affected for some time to come.

We all know the problem. As salespeople, what can we do to help generate sales?

Answer: Get creative and make it personal.

· Communicate. Good salespeople always have lists of customers that they have sold to, helped or met with in the past. This is an excellent resource in order to farm sales. During these times, most customers are stuck at home which will cause them to focus more on their décor. Reach out to your customers and contacts directly via email or even more personally via handwritten snail-mail.

· Reassure. In your communications, reassure your customers that you are available to personally help them in any manner possible. Personal appointments, email product suggestions, phone consultation, etc that will let them know you will respect their concerns with a safe shopping experience.

· Incentives. Work with your stores to offer “personal” incentives for your customers to act now. Such things as free-delivery, special financing, or factory promotions such as the Stressless Wing/Manhattan/Oslo promotion can be great tools.

· Creativity. Furniture salespeople are inherently creative people. Use that creativity to think outside the box in order to find new ways to help your customers – even though you are at “arm’s length”. Offering room layouts, mailing of swatch or finish samples or emailing photos can be very beneficial.

· Resources. Some factories offer photo banks or product spec sheets, that may be at your disposal to help with providing you customers with inspiration. Stressless in particular has an incredible wealth of images and pdf sheets on the entire product range, and don’t forget about the Stressless@Home app enabling customers to see any item right in their own home!

Most of all, stay safe and healthy. All things pass, and this current COVID-19 situation will be no different. Remember that your Stressless reps are available and ready to help you during these challenging times to provide you with any suggestions or recommendations that their considerable experience can offer.

Thanks again for being part of the Selling Stressless community! We all learn from each other, so if you have any comments or suggestions please let us know by contacting your local Stressless Representative directly, or droping us a line here at Selling Stressless. We'd love to hear from you.