- Customers often want items they don't need. If you ask only about needs, you're missing out on possible sales. A better question is, "Did you find everything you wanted?"
But wait, there's more:
- "Did you find everything you wanted?" is a closed-ended question. Closed-ended questions can be answered yes or no or with a limited number of choices. Use closed-ended questions at checkout when the customer's in a hurry. But because the easiest answer to "Did you find everything you wanted?" is "Yes," the customer might easily choose to say "Yes," even when there are unmet desires. A more fruitful question is, "What items would you like to see in our store that we don't have now?"
Do we want cashiers asking this? If nobody else is in line to check out, yes, that's a good question for the cashier to ask. But if there's a line of people waiting to pay their money and get on with their lives, "What items would you like to see in our store that we don't have now?" leads to too much discussion. It has a related problem as well:
- What do we do with the customers' answers? The busy cashier shouldn't stop right then to write them down. But part of the cashier's responsibilities should be to make summary notes on what was heard from customers and then turn those notes in to a manager.
And one last improvement:
- Floor staff should be asking, "What items would you like to see in our store that we don't have now?" You'll often discover that the customer missed seeing an item, a substitute item could be provided, or a special order can be placed.
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