Keeping a shopper engaged in a store comes down to two moves: ask questions, and get the merchandise into their hands.
A bunch of questions do not mean the shopper is engaged, usually they are being interrogated.
One or two questions do the qualifying. Ask, listen, then ask them to clarify and explain. It must be a conversation where the shopper wants to do most of the talking and you do most of the listening.
Your listening is the engagement. Shoppers stay in conversations where somebody is interested in their answers.
The hands do the closing. Don't hold the item yourself, and don't point at it on the shelf. Whatever you sell.
Hand it to them, then give them something to do with it: turn it over, feel the weight, notice the stitching. A shopper holding your merchandise has started owning it, and people buy what they already feel is theirs.
Now the warning sign on the other side. After training, associates often ask, "How was I supposed to know why they didn't buy? They didn't say anything the whole sale." That's the answer right there.
Silence is deadly in sales. A silent customer means no communication is happening, which usually means you talked too much and listened too little. If you hand somebody an item and ask "What do you think?" without ever having discussed their needs, their wants, or whether any of it matches what they came for, you're flying blind, and the quiet is the instrument panel telling you so.
So watch for it today. When a shopper goes silent, don't push the product.
Back up. Rebuild the connection: a question, a clarification, something back in their hands. For those few minutes, make them the most important person in the store. They are.
They're the one paying everybody's salary.
