Learning the Customer's Language

Being alone in a foreign country can make anyone feel like a fish out of water, especially when you don’t speak the language. One of the many things that can magnify this problem is realizing how badly you need to find a restroom.

Unfamiliar with the customs, the language, and the people, you try your best to describe what you need, relying on hand gestures and facial expressions. For some reason, you find yourself speaking louder and slower, as if it could help others understand your foreign words. Your desperation and discomfort well up and you can barely hold back the tears. Then, miraculously, you find someone who speaks perfect English.

You burst with joy, telling this stranger all about your restroom crisis. In just a few minutes, you have a new friend – someone who understands you and, most importantly, can help you with your problem. You feel connected and at home, simply because you speak the same language.

The sales world is no different. As salespeople spend each day immersed in the details of their job, they begin to pick up their own language. This language consists of specifications and insider talk that strays from the basics of customer usage and focuses on pages per minute, horsepower and reach. This techno-babble language becomes second nature, as if everybody in the world understands, or cares, about these types of details.

Salespeople become so comfortable with their own language that they fail to realize it has created a barrier between themselves and their customers. The customer doesn’t know how to speak the techno-babble language of the salesperson, and the salesperson is too engulfed in their own world to understand the meaning behind customers’ concerns and questions.

This problem of language is often most evident when the salesperson and customer make contact for the first time. Usually, customers want more information, but don’t know enough about the product or service to know what kind of questions to ask. They ask questions like, “How much is it?” or “How fast is it?” because these are simple and familiar questions they can use to get the conversation going.

Instead of discovering the intent behind the customer’s questions, the salesperson responds too quickly and too literally. They immediately tell the customer how much or how fast it is and assume that was all the customer wanted to know.

Statements such as “I don’t want to spend too much,” are interpreted by the salesperson as “I want something cheap.” To the customer, however, those same words could mean, “I don’t want to spend more than I need to, but I still want a product that will do everything I want it to.”

The salesperson has the all information the customer really wants and needs when making a purchase decision, yet the language barrier prevents the salesperson from fully understanding what is being asked.

A lot of meaning can be lost because of this language barrier. The distance between what is said and what is understood can be wide, unless the salesperson changes the way they listen. Learning to listen with the intent of gaining true understanding, rather than just responding, can help break the language barrier.

As a salesperson, it is your job to discover your customer’s meaning and ask questions that will promote understanding. It may be easy to subconsciously lump customers who sound alike into similar categories, assuming they all need the same thing. Realize that each customer is unique and try to understand the distinctive concerns and needs of that customer.

Your customers will be relieved and excited to find one salesperson who is willing to make the effort to understand them fully. With understanding comes comfort, friendship and trust – everything you need to build a great relationship between you and your customer.