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Home Furnishings Stores Need Check Guarantee and a Great Story

Posted by Tom Lombardo | Thu, Jun 05, 2014 @ 10:23 AM

Furniture StoresYour customer likes to think of herself as wealthy and tasteful, and one of the main reasons she enjoys browsing in your store is that you make her feel that way. Many of your customers actually are tasteful, and most of them probably are wealthy, so understanding the psychology of your client and the sales tactics she’ll respond to can have a positive impact on your bottom line.

Especially since your customers use home furnishings to express themselves and to portray their character to others, you need to bring as much insight to the sale as possible. First, there’s time. Wealthy people guard their time jealously since time is the most precious thing they cannot buy, so you need to gauge your customer’s time frame and adjust your sales pitch accordingly. And you need to be able to shift gears in an instant: while you ought to be patient while they make up their mind, once they’ve reached a decision they will probably want to conclude their business as fast as possible, so make sure you have the tools to do that.

And next, you need to appeal to the storytelling aspect of their shopping experience. Think of celebrities, whose very lives become stories. On the one hand, they want to be empathetic “normal” people. On the other, they want to be utterly unique. For example, when the comedienne Chelsea Handler recently went to Africa, she wrote a memoir depicting herself at once as a regular tourist interested in African culture and nature – and also as the only tourist to conduct a unique – and hilarious – experiment with baboons. Your client may have the same tendency. She wants her home to be welcoming and “real” while at the same time she wants something unique that will draw the eye and distinguish her from the crowd.

Some celebrities become renowned for their taste in home design and furniture, and storytelling explains how they approach their aesthetic, which may mean that storytelling also explains a lot about selling to an affluent client.

A blogger who sold furniture to movie stars in Los Angeles, for example, discovered that his clients preferred it when he took control of the story. Now of course your customer wants to feel like she’s in charge of the situation, which is common courtesy when you’re working for a lucrative sale, but the story…well the story is yours for the taking.

And you might profit if you seize it. Your customer is buying your wares specifically to portray her sense of self to the world. So help her see it in full color on a giant movie screen. Say she asks you if this candlestick would look nice on that table. Don’t answer, and don’t ask questions. Instead, set the scene: the table with eight chairs, a complete set of napkin rings and chargers, a spectacular swirled glass centerpiece, and no less than four candle holders, the candles dripping with wax and illuminating the room in an intimate glow as her guests enjoy the warmest and longest conversation of the summer.

That may make the sale. “They want you,” the blogger writes, “in short, to be like Jeeves, or Bruce Wayne’s Alfred. They’re the boss, sure, but if you’re not in control, they’ll eat you alive.”

Taking control of the story also puts you in position to take control of payment. Since most people like to make large purchases with checks, be sure you can accept your customer’s with confidence. This goes two ways. First, you want to be sure that you’re not falling for a story yourself, so you want to verify the check.

And second, you want to be backed up by a reputable check processing service that has the highest check approvals in the industry. After all, the time you’ve spent creating the sale – time you can’t buy, either – you don’t want to lose it to an irate customer who knows her check is good no matter what your “service” says.

The ideal solution is to get the sale because the check is verified and guaranteed, so even if there is a “story” behind it, your sale will remain in place and your customer will go home happy. Learn more here.

 

Check Guarantee Insider's Guide

Topics: Home Furnishings, Check Guarantee

Written by Tom Lombardo