So to summarise, the indoctrination phase has been successful and an appointment has been made. The customer has bought your pre–eminence in the market, understands the sophistication of your offering and has a feeling for your price point range.
The purpose of this phase is to ensure that the prospect SHOWS for the appointment and ideally brings a friend with them.
Here are some actions points that we would suggest you focus on:
- That each prospect is appointed to a 20 minute window using an alternative close method“I have an opening at either 10.20 or 10.40.Which would work for you?”Precise appointment setting ensures punctuality and greater show rates.
- Your sales team to pre-confirm each appointment – show rates increase 20% with a confirmation call on the day of; (for afternoon and evening appointments) or the night before for morning meetings.
- The prospect has been asked whether “to make you feel a bit more comfortable when you visit, would you like to bring a friend? “
(“Supersizing” your appointment referral will give you leads increases of around 10% just by saying these magic words! Ensure the membership team use them EVERY time!) - The customer knows exactly where to report to and who to ask for. Ideally this would have been confirmed in an email at least, before the visit.( the email is also used to reinforce the appointment referral)
- Reception are suitably prepared and briefed for the visit (with some sort of diary system) importantly they know the name of the visitor, the time and reason for the visit and the sales staff handling the visit. Ideally you would operate a “A V.I.P Welcome to ..Board “with the prospects name and greeting visible when they arrive at the club. First impressions make a massive difference!
-
Ensure there is a waiting area where the customer can be seated. If there is a delay in the arrival of the sales person, ideally the Club should provide a range of information for the prospect to look at, particularly stories of and testimonials of happy members .Details of events that show the club to be more than just a workout gym are good too as well as items that show off the expertise of the staff.
- If possible the waiting area should have facilities for presentations (PowerPoint or video), wall charts of club achievements.
You will notice that we are NOT advocating the customer filling in “customer enquiry cards “at any stage. Our view is that this process is counterproductive. Our new mantra is “If John Lewis don’t do it when we visit there stores – we need to think again about why we do it” In the next two days, we will be sending you the third part in the series “The Ascension Phase “
