GPI 368 – Track reasons why your employees tell your customers “no” to discover how they ruin sales growth.

Your employees tell customers every day on the telephone, in emails and in person what your company can do for them.  They also tell these buyers what your firm does not do. Ask them to document why they must say “no”.  Find out what you are missing in the marketplace. Your company is disappointing buyers and you may or may not want to react.  You must find out first what these rejections are and how often they occur so you can react.

Examples of your sales personnel saying “no”:

• No, we do not have an office in that part of the city, state, country.
• No, we cannot stay over for the late truck. Our supervisor said no overtime, period. I believe him.
• No, I do not believe we can ship that many pairs of shoes at one time. We never did that before since I started here.
• No, we do not drop the price just because you will come pick them up, all 100,000 of them.
• No, we do not offer our product in that color. We have only black, white and light purple.
• No, we have never had anyone on staff who speaks Spanish or Vietnamese. Sorry.
• No, we cannot cut pieces of metal that large. I can give you the names of a couple of companies that can if you like. They have larger saws.  We do not.
• No, we have never offered our instruction manuals online for download.
• No, we cannot deliver in one day. It always takes two days because of the firm we hire.
• No, you cannot return that item regardless of how much you buy. We are told we do not return items no matter who bought it.
• No, we do not have a guard in the store to escort customers to their cars late at night before closing.
• No, we cannot send the item to you in the mail. You can come pick it up if you like. We have that policy for all customers.
• No, we cannot give you a discount if you buy $10,000 or more. I asked my supervisor that question a few years ago and he said “no”.