The Importance of Product Knowledge
The foundational element and focus of sales training for most consumer products is the product itself, for obvious reasons. You can’t intelligently speak about products you don’t know and understand, much less sell them effectively.
That’s especially true of mattress sales. More so than any other home furnishings product, selling mattresses requires a lot of training and a superior command of product knowledge. Most shoppers don’t want to know everything about a mattress; they just want the sales associate to so they can learn enough to make intelligent choices. This article
will give specific ideas on how to enhance and expand product knowledge in a way that can facilitate the selling process.
How to really learn your product knowledgeWhile it isn’t necessary for sales associates to memorize every specification of every model, it’s important to know all the various components, materials and features of the products offered and to understand how each contributes to and affects the comfort, support and durability of each model.
Having said that, sales associates must keep mattress specifications at hand at all times and be ready to explain the details of any model at any time. Engineers sleep on mattresses too, unless they’re tossing and turning thinking about the specifications.
High-tech materials?
We know that most consumers think of mattresses as simple products made from simple materials, because, well they kind of are. Wood, steel and upholstery, that’s pretty much it.
Lying down on the jobThis one is really soft at first, but has a deep-down firmness. Oh, I see, it has two layers of Dacron fiber in the quilt, a layer of soft convoluted foam on top of high ILD foam and a compressed polyester fiber pad instead of a polypropylene mesh as an insulator.”
It’s important to focus on a few models at a time. Doing this in an effective manner will take time, but it’s worth the investment. The great thing about mattress sales is the downtime between ups affords the time to do it. During this analysis process, sales associates should record observations about each model to keep along with the specifications.
Objectivity is mandatory!Sales associates must go through the process of lying down on the mattresses with an open mind to extend product knowledge, understanding and familiarity to all the models to objectively get the feel with an attitude of discovery and discernment without making judgments about them.
Every bed on a sales floor is there for a reason. Potentially any given bed may be the right choice for your next shopper and there is no way of knowing which one that might be.
source :
http://retailernowmag.com/the-importance-of-product-knowledge/
