8 Ways to Improve Your Rapport Building Skills

Here are 8 tips for our customers on how to build customer rapport in sales:

1. Make sure your body language, words, and tone of voice are all professionally aligned. I remember one time I was told, “I’m sorry, you’ll be much happier with this solution instead,” which made very upset. I wasn’t upset with the fact that he was trying to solve my problem. On the contrary, I would have preferred someone to correct me if I was wrong. His body language showed me otherwise – a person who looked at me as another customer wasting his time. He was already eyeballing the next customer walking through the doors.
2. Always make eye contact with the person(s) you are conferring with. Don’t stare at one person in particular – look at everyone equally. They say that there’s only three degrees of separation between equality (looking squarely at someone), self-centeredness (looking down at someone), and insecurity (looking up at someone with a raised head).
3. Be genuine in your excitement and enthusiasm. Customers are easily influenced by a sales representative who is confident in their sales skills and loves their job.
4. Watch how you speak to people. Try to match the pitch, speed, and volume of the person(s) speaking to/with you. That means, if someone is talking in a quiet voice, you should do the same.
5. Check your attitude problems at the door. Use your positive body language list to reposition your attitude until your mood improves.
6. Listen before talking. The last thing you want is to talk about you and your products/services and how they are great. Perhaps the customer wants something different. You will never know until you ask.
7. Eliminate the “I” in every sentence you say. Replace the “I” with “you”. How will the customer benefit from your products or services?
8. Sales agents should be able to adapt their approach – there is no reason to think that all customers should be approached using the same style.

Remember that it takes less then one minute to make an impression with a decision maker. Make the right impression and you will develop trust and get the sale. Develop the wrong impression and you will lose the business to someone else.