Tweet

Building Rapport – Customer Relationships

Guest post by: Colly Graham

Article Overview: Being in rapport is the ability to enter someone else’s model of the world To be able to establish rapport is one of the most important skills a salesperson can have. (A buying environment is a rapport-filled, relationship based, interactive climate in which a person with a need gets informed support in the manner most comfortable to him/her regardless of the outcome.) A buying environment demands a comfort zone to establish trust and rapport – to create a “we space.” "When people are like each other they tend to like each other"

Building Rapport – Customer Relationships

Being in rapport is the ability to enter someone else’s model of the world and let them know that we truly understand that model.
To be able to establish rapport is one of the most important skills a salesperson can have. It is the ability to form a powerful common human bond and develop long-term relationships with customers.
Most sales people are trained to convince, persuade and manipulate the buyer by tricks and closing techniques. That was based on the assumption that the sales person knew best, and that the buyer had made bad choices in the past, had paid too much, got a product of inferior quality or received poor service. People will buy what they need. With that belief in mind; sales calls are easy, help the person find out what he needs, create an environment of agreement so that he feels comfortable with you, and if he needs what you’ve got and is in a position to buy it, he’ll buy it.
One of the fundamental rules of communication is that we to operate from the customer’s map. We need to create a buying environment. (A buying environment is a rapport-filled, relationship based, interactive climate in which a person with a need gets informed support in the manner most comfortable to him/her regardless of the outcome.) A buying environment demands a comfort zone to establish trust and rapport – to create a “we space.”
What are your personal beliefs around creating a relationship?
The knack then is to learn how to be in sync with strangers in order to feel comfortable. And rapport means being similar enough not to notice the difference. It is a highly individualised skill; different people will establish rapport with their customers in different ways. To some extent connecting is a matter of "chemistry" and chemistry is not always found between people.
If a salesperson is aware of the importance of building a bond, however, and makes an effort to do so, he or she will increase the likelihood of establishing rapport. Sincerity is the cornerstone of the salesperson's establishing a bond with the customer.

To get into rapport, we must learn to be comfortable on three levels:-

1. Physical (voice and language patterns)
2. Mental (shared interests)
3. Emotional (beliefs, values and goals)

"When people are like each other they tend to like each other"
Take any relationship between two people and you will find the first thing that created their bond was something they had in common. How do we create rapport? We do this by creating or discovering things that we have in common. This is called "mirroring".
The Secret of Rapport – PACING
Pacing means meeting the other person where he or she is, reflecting what he or she know and assumes to be true and matching some part of their ongoing experience. We can pace a person’s mood, body language and speech patterns (including speech, tonality, volume, and the words phrases and images the other person uses. You can pace their beliefs and opinions. You can pace their breathing patterns
Pacing is a way of building trust and credibility
The degree of rapport that you establish with a customer depends on your ability to MIRROR that person. Mirroring means getting into rhythm with the person on as many levels as possible. When you are mirroring that person in such a way that you are talking the way that he or she talks, sitting the way that he or she sits, moving in the general patterns that he or she is moving, breathing in the same general rhythms, and appearing to share the same values, you are establishing the basis of rapport.
Emotional Mirroring
If a person is emotionally down and you approach them with an enthusiastic, "back slapping", hail and hearty manner then rapport will not be established. The reverse is also the case, if the person is feeling on top of the world and you are obviously having a bad day, then the person will not want to be dragged down to your level of emotion. Meet the person at the emotion they are displaying. If it's frustration or anger you experience with them not at them.
Posture mirroring
Posture mirroring can be thought of as body language mirroring. Much of posture mirroring is done from the chin up. Posture mirroring is certainly not "monkey see, monkey do." This would look ridiculous and probably insult the other person. The technique called "cross over posture mirroring" is very effective at developing rapport with people.
If your customer crosses his arms then you cross your legs. If they rest their head in their hands, then you touch your chin. If your customer’s hands are in his pockets then you should put your hands in your pockets or fold your hands in your lap. Obviously matching the other person's body language should not be overdone. But done subtly, it can help to build rapport with a customer.
Tone and Tempo Mirroring
The tone and tempo of your voice are just another way that you can establish rapport. Tone and tempo is how you speak, not what you say but the way you say it. 38% of the impact of a message is how we say the words!! It's the speed, loudness, inflection and rhythm. Each of us tends to speak at a pace that we enjoy listening. The rate of speed varies among individuals and among cultures.
Values and beliefs mirroring
Values and beliefs mirroring means that you do not step on the other person’s values and beliefs. You should avoid using the word BUT because it negates everything you said before it. e.g..” You have a lot of great books in your bookcase, but I don't see any best sellers?" "It really is a lovely meal, but I'm not all that hungry". The best way to establish rapport is to not take exception or be argumentative, HOWEVER or AND is a better bridge if you wish to move from one supposition to another.
Shared interest
Shared interest can be an extremely strong rapport builder. You should demonstrate to a customer, for example, that you fully understand their problem and together you will work on finding a solution. If there is something that you can relate to that you also have an interest in e.g. children, football team, weather, etc. Then you can use this shared interest to build rapport. Be careful not to sound insincere and calculating!!

Studies have also shown that one of the skills that highly successful people in business have is the ability to build a strong rapport base before moving into influence strategies. This is a very valuable skill in selling and the foundation of all long-term business relationships.

Related Articles
  How To Close 80% Of Your Prospects
  Want to Know How to Sell All You Have to Do is Ask
  Increasing the Velocity of Your Selling Cycle
  When A Common Courtesy Is Uncommon
  Customer Service do you get it

Article Tags: assumption, belief, chemistry, comfort zone, cornerstone, different ways, estab, establishing rapport, fundamental rules, human bond, inferior quality, interactive climate, knack, likelihood, long term relationships, model of the world, personal beliefs, sales person, salesperson, sincerity



Related Forum Posts
Type of business with building - If you owned a building and Wal-Mart was opening its doors across the street in a previously unoccupied area (along with 12-14 small shops), what type of business would you start? Here are the considerations: 1. Money is a non-factor 2. Building is fairly large (10,000) square feet 3. Building is on the corner of a busy intersection (about to get much busier)
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: Seven Marketing Strategies To Attract The Affluent Buyer - Hello, Building confidence with positive communication skill is very helpful and it helps in attracting consumers. Regards, sarah_9
Re: Paypal process $315 million in payments per day. - I agree with you David, their Customer relations suck. This mean other payment systems like 2CO and WORLDPAY should work on their customers relations to take more slice of the market.
Re: Quick Ways To Utilize SEO Effectively - Hi Mary, It will only help if those websites are linking back to you, and then that's still not very affective. It's much better to generate one-way backlinks to your site. Building quality backlinks is the name of the game.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Selling with Humor (and a Sorry Butt)

The Neglected Art of Receiving

THE “SECRET RECIPES” OF LEADERSHIP

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.