SITTTSL005 – Sell tourism products and services
In this unit of study you will learn to
- Identify customer product needs
- Suggest products that meet customer needs
- Provide specific information and advice
- Sell the product
- Follow up sales opportunities
Introduction
The ability to successfully sell products and services to customers is very important to any business. Without sales no business can survive. So it is important to make the most of every sales opportunity and there is an art to doing this well.
Before any sale can be made to a customer you, first, need to have a sound idea of what it is they are after. A customer can spend many thousands of dollars to tourism products and service and, in the end, have little to show for it other than a photo album full of photos; and some (hopefully) great memories. So it is important to ensure that they not only get what they paid for – but that their entire experience is one that they will remember fondly for many year.
Selling products and services is like an endless cycle: first you need to learn all about the products and services your organisation offers, then you need to approach customers in your store with confidence and find out what their specific needs are. Once you know what they are looking for you can then, using your product knowledge, recommend products and services that match their needs and handle any objections that might arise before, finally, closing the sale. The process then starts over again with the next customer.
The whole process follows a pattern made up of a range of sales techniques, including
- Opening the sales process – building a rapport with the customers and identifying their needs
- Using strategies to focus customers on specific products
- Understanding the difference between tangible and intangible products and how to sell them
- Selling add on and complementary products and services
- Recognising buying signals; and
- Closing the sale
We will look at each of these sales techniques as we move through the unit.
Identify customer needs
Before any sale can be made to a customer you, first, need to have a sound idea of what it is they are after. A customer can spend many thousands of dollars to tourism products and service and, in the end, have little to show for it other than a photo album full of photos; and some (hopefully) great memories. So it is important to ensure that they not only get what they paid for – but that their entire experience is one that they will remember fondly for many year.
Identifying Needs and Expectations
As you will learn as we move through this unit not all customers are the same and not all customers will have the same needs and expectations when booking tourism products and services. Different types of customers will be covered in more detail in Section 2 – “Suggest products to meet customer needs” but for now, in looking at how best to serve customers you must address not only what they need when they are buying a product or service but also ensure that the product or service meets their expectations.
What is the difference between a need and an expectation? The heritage dictionary states:
- A need is; “something that is necessary to your physical or mental comfort”.
- An expectation is; “a great hope that something will happen” (or) “An anticipation of success or fulfilment”.
For example;
- in order to live I need to eat, but I expect my food to be fresh and well prepared
- when staying in a hotel I need to have a comfortable bed and (depending on the price I paid) I expect the room to be of a certain luxury and have a private bathroom
So to make sure that customers are happy you first have to find out what their basic needs are and then find out what they believe should happen to fulfil this need to their satisfaction.
Not every customer you deal with will have the same needs and expectations. Fulfilling these will depend a great deal on the type of customer you are dealing with and there are a number of things that will need to be taken into consideration. These considerations will be covered in Section 2. …. continued in learner guide ….