How to Help a Client Who’s Had a Previous Bad Experience

All sales professionals have, at some point, encountered a certain type of client. The kind who is intrigued by what you sell, seems interested and allows you to go through the process, to the point where you anticipate a positive outcome for both parties.

However.

There’s one thing that concerns the customer. One objection that keeps coming up, blocking the ability to progress forward.

The situation:

Salesperson: Are you happy to go ahead with that?

Customer: Well, actually, I don’t think we’ll be committing to this product.

Salesperson: Oh, okay, may I ask why that is?

Customer: You see, I’ve had a bad experience in the past and I really don’t want to risk it again with this kind of product/this company/this solution.

Maybe it wasn’t with you, maybe not even with your company. Perhaps they previously implemented a similar program or product into their business and didn’t get the outcomes they wanted. Maybe they’ve turned off your whole industry.

As an example, a dear friend of mine created a fantastic product that has started to revolutionise his industry. The difficulty he faced on entry, though, was that prior to his product entering the market there was a phase of earlier, low caliber products that tried unsuccessfully to achieve the same thing. As a result, everyone who had jumped on board the previous product’s train had a very hard time believing that my friend’s creation would do what he said it would. This was the primary objection that his team received for a very long time, until he had the base of happy and educated customers that proved otherwise. Now, they’re doing incredibly well, but they still occasionally get this objection. And that’s okay, and that’s fair. Because his team knows how to handle it, they are able to take on the role of supporter and consultant and help the customer to make a good choice for their business.

That particular scenario, where the product wasn’t what they thought it would be, may not be the case for your client. Maybe they had a salesperson who overpromised and underdelivered. Perhaps it was a case where the fine print wasn’t articulated directly, or perhaps the salesperson neglected to help the customer after delivery. Someone, something, somewhere, has burned this customer’s ability to have faith in you and your product. And you need to fix that.

It is always important to serve your customer and provide fantastic products that will help them and their business. The reality is, though, we can’t control everything. Even if we act with utmost integrity, authenticity and transparency, we may still be subject to that sticky ‘untrustworthy’ residue of a past salesperson, company or product that the customer experienced. We are, after all, largely shaped by what happens to us, so it’s only natural that if one has a bad taste in their mouth from something in the past, that’s going to become a roadblock.

So what do we do with that?

What many will do from here is make another concerted effort to express how they are providing value. Some will even choose to take the approach of downright bashing their competitors products in an attempt to differentiate themselves.

The issues with that approach are significant (Issue 1: Never bash your competitors.) The fact is, there is a major element missing from this equation that’s integral to any potential progression:

Trust.

This is usually less a question of ‘I didn’t like the last product’, and more a question of ‘how do I know I can trust you and your product? I trusted the last person and that didn’t work out well for me.’

This is about people, value and reassurance. You need to make up for that last bad experience and give the client a breath of fresh air.

How do we best handle it? With a combination of curiosity, authenticity and genuine efforts to build up trust to help heal that open wound from the past:

1.   Be understanding

Ensure that you empathise with the situation. Most of us have personally experienced some scenario where we leave feeling we didn’t ‘get what we paid for’. It’s important not to rise to an automatically defensive position when the most appropriate response is appreciation for the situation.

2.   Don’t fear the objection - Be inquisitive

Ask questions to get to the core concern. Many clients will only initially give you some vague information, along the lines of ‘it hasn’t worked well for us in the past’. Why that is is therefore an integral question. By asking what happened, you can narrow down to the root cause of the concern.  

Be sure to ask very broad questions here – ‘Why’s that?’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Can you tell me more?’

We can’t work through a concern with our customer if we don’t know what that concern is. Truly listen to understand, and allow the customer to tell you their story.

3.   Be the difference

I would note that particularly if the previous bad experience was with your own organisation, the tendency is often to soften the customer’s story with questions like ‘surely it wasn’t that bad?’, or otherwise explain away or fight against the idea that the customer has had a bad experience before.

Don’t do this. You must appreciate that this customer’s perception is their reality and resisting their point of view is never going to be worthwhile. To do anything else is to perpetuate yet another bad experience for your customer. What is important is showing why their experience with you is going to be different to their last. You did not ask them what happened so that you can argue with them – you did it to understand.

Make it your mission to be the empathetic, genuine and reliable salesperson that they may have been missing before. Ensure that you work to maintain rapport with the client and show that you’re there to listen and you’re there to help.

Once you know what the previous issue was, you can start to work with the customer on a solution.

4.   Keep up the dialogue and find out why they sought a solution before

Something to consider is that if the customer has had a bad experience, it means at some stage, they have tried something similar to your product or within your industry. Why did they choose to try something last time? What were they hoping to achieve last time?

These questions can be incredibly powerful, because we all do things for a reason. The client probably sees the problem your product solves because at one stage they themselves have tried to solve it – it may be that what they were hoping to achieve last time is something you can actually deliver.

5.   Set up a demonstration

You know what they say – the proof is in the pudding. If it’s possible to give a demonstration where you can alleviate some concerns, that is only going to be beneficial for the situation.

6.   Build up the trust, use proof and educate

Evidence is always reassuring. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to thoroughly go through the warranty line by line, show some testimonials or provide data to clear up what the customer can expect to gain from the product. You might be the difference by offering up your personal direct line and assuring that you will be the person who can help them whenever required. Become an educator, and if your industry is one of many where things are significantly different now than they were 5 or 10 years ago, talk through those changes. You might explain why this particular product is different to previous ones, or have a Q and A session where the client can verbalise any specific concerns.

Note that this is not simply a matter of regurgitating your feature-advantage-benefit combos. It may involve your USPs (what makes your company or product different to others?), but overall it is a matter of problem solving and trust building with the specific issues at hand.

7.   Overdeliver

Finally: Always, always, always overdeliver. Assure the customer that you will be there for them – and make sure you follow through on that assurance.

If you help this customer; if you are the genuine salesperson with the great product and consistent service they were missing last time; you will set yourself up to secure a fantastic trusting relationship for a very long time.

Make Today the Day,

Sonia 

Connect with me for more articles like this one on the regular, and check out our website for holistic training solutions.