If you work selling a product or service, you have to know what exactly it is you sell. Obviously you know that you sell cell phones, or cars. But you have to be more specific, which cell phones or which cars. Don’t let me hear you say, “I sell Mazda cars” or “I sell Samsung cell phones.” You have to know which model numbers, what features and how they differ from your competitors products, that’s product knowledge.. Let’s examine why it’s so important to have product knowledge.
Why is it so important? Let’s use an example from my work. A customer came in and after probing I discovered that he liked to text message a lot, didn’t really care for a camera, and that he would be using it to travel around the world. the first two features you could probably fake by just looking at the phone. How would you know which phones are quad band. How would I even know he needed a quad band phone by finding out that he would be using it as he travelled around the world? That is why it’s important to know what you sell. I could have gotten him a phone with a keyboard and no camera, but what if I recommended a phone with only tri band. Then he couldn’t use it around the world, my credibility with him has gone down the drain along with potential for referrals or repeat business.
How else are you going to recommend a product to your customer and know how it is of value to them? Customers want something that will enrich their lives or make it easier for them somehow, not something that they don’t need. You may think that the customer will learn to love the extra features a product has but more likely they will regret buying it when learning how to utilize those features becomes a burden to them. Remember, the features you like and think are useful may not apply to your customer. That is why you need to have product knowledge or knowledge of your services, so you can recommend exactly what they are looking for or need.
How do you gain product knowledge? Read the instruction manuals, read the box or packaging it came in, look online. All those methods will usually tell you the features of a phone. If you’re lazy, then simply ask one of your coworkers. The method I liked to use was to pull out the demo phone and play with its features and test it out so I could really get a hands on feel for it.
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