Customer experience,
Communication &
Collaboration
I have been sharing a lot of content on the importance of empathy in face to face interactions. When a friend asked “How can we use empathy to show our customer’s we really care ?” I was motivated to pen this article down. When and I founded our intention was this, to infuse e-commerce with customer empathy, so brands could connect with customers digitally.
My recent shopping expedition in an ultra luxury store at Dubai mall, left me wanting for more! One simple but meaningful action was missing and it left me feeling unwelcome. Hospitality has mastered the art of addressing customers. It’s time retail catches up. I wrote an article on linkedin to share the value of acknowledging and addressing someone as an individual.
Fast track your understanding of what your customer needs with the use of Customer Personas. This tool helps fast track the process of building empathy for varied needs of others and you can do it as a fun activity with you team during a sales training session!
If your a sales professional, training manager to a business owner, you want to read this article to understand how Personas can help you.
Link to Article:- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sonaligogia_luxurysales-luxurybranding-luxurysellingskills-activity-7178390279752728578-BIMD?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Here is an example of when luxury works hard to differentiate! A few months ago I learnt that Dubai Mall has banned all queing outside luxury stores. Queuing while creating aspiration can be an unpleasant experience for a luxury shopper and leads to loss of sale. In contrast, at the other end of the mall the far away from the luxury stores, taxi queue has become unbearably long and takes hours, even for senior citizens in line. Hoping Dubai mall will take notice and improve the situation for non luxury shoppers as well! Some needs are just human across customer categories!
No matter what stage of career or role you play in your organisation, empathy is a key skill that will define your growth. For luxury brands, proactively bridging the empathy gap between their teams and the customer is all the more important. Whether it's real or imaginative empathy, there are ways to cultivate it mentioned in this article I wrote.
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Read our article for more such tips on luxury selling skills
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I have been reflecting on the new definition of luxury and what it means for the customer experience, when I found unexpected inspiration from the last few weddings I attended.
From grand venues to intimate boutique weddings, The Big Fat Indian Wedding has evolved beautifully. Personal touches, exceptional service, delightful surprises, and attention to detail came together in a quiet and intimate way to create unforgettable experiences.
⚜️Read my article to know more and comment and share your last unforgettable wedding experience!
👉🏻Link in bio 👈🏻
Nobody is dismissing the traditional attributes of luxury. A new set of values represents how brands are responding to customers' changing needs, younger customers, and global customers.
Read the article...
➡️Link in bio
Also, watch our new luxury selling skill series on YouTube.
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🚀Get ready to unlock the next level of Retail Selling Skills with Sonali Gogia in Episode 16, Manage Angry Customers
Managing customer emotions is a reality, every salesperson needs to be well versed in.
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Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube,
✔️Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE To keep up with the series and to learn more tips and techniques by Sonali Gogia
🔗Click on the link on our bio. 🔗
🌟New videos every Saturday
🤝If you’re serious about fostering a safe space for ideation and innovation, allowing newer and more junior team members to speak freely is critical. I cringe at the memory of a design thinking workshop when a senior manager kept shooting down ideas aggressively till I was left with a silent room and had to intervene.
💡Qualifying ideas has its place in the innovation process, and doing so prematurely and aggressively can stifle creative problem solving.
🫂Instead, leaders need to master the art of neutral responses in the ideation phase to encourage participation.
🫂 When a group of people come together it’s quite likely their ability to empathise with the problem varies based on their experience. In a typical customer experience cross functional workshop it’s natural that the front line teams have deeper empathy than other functions. The challenge is to get them to address the problem with the same heart.
🔧 Here are some tools for this: create customer personas together, share customer feedback with all, encourage the back office to walk through the customer journey like a mystery shopper, and bring a customer to the workshop to share testimonials.
💫As a leader, you will find at some point large group discussions lead to deadlock. Some people are not so open, and others dominate
⏳️Time management is more challenging, as larger numbers means longer discussions. It’s also harder to control the direction or achieve depth.
🌟Breaking the group into smaller teams of 3-5 people facilitates deeper discussion, as every individual gets a smaller platform and safe space to share. Better yet, it's easier to align smaller teams, so when they discuss, debate and make a united decision, you can start to narrow down the discussion when you reunite with the larger audience.
Revolutionize your sales game with these three powerhouse add-on strategies! 🚀💼
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Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube,
✔️Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE To keep up with the series and to learn more tips and techniques by Sonali Gogia
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🌟 Unlock a world of tailored perfection!
Connect add-on recommendations seamlessly to your customer's unique needs. Whether it's enhancing their experience or providing that extra touch of convenience, we believe in personalized solutions.
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Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube,
✔️Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE To keep up with the series and to learn more tips and techniques by Sonali Gogia
🔗Click on the link on our bio. 🔗
🌟New videos every Saturday
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😕Why do we often feel dismissed by or end up dismissing the people we are closest to?
For sure, it’s a natural tendency to take the people around us for granted and give more importance to others. We display this through unconscious behaviours like looking at our phones while they speak or walking away before they finish their sentence or even an eye roll!
Without meaning to we can genuinely end up hurting our loved ones.
🫂It’s not necessary to take someone’s advice, but I do believe as a communication expert, it’s good to at least give them a respectful ear. Show them you are listening and acknowledge and appreciate their desire to help. That itself makes the other person feel valued.
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Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube,
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🌟Episode 14 of retail selling skill series is now out on youtube. New videos every Saturday.
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🤝Of course, a salesperson is motivated by the desire to close the deal! And when you put in effort and things don’t work out you’re going to feel disappointed.
🗝 It’s key to keep those feelings to yourself and train your mind to have a long-term view of sales. Take every client interaction as an opportunity to cultivate a relationship. If you conduct yourself with grace no matter what the outcome, the client will never forget you.
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Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube,
✔️Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE To keep up with the series and to learn more tips and techniques by Sonali Gogia
🔗Click on the link on our bio. 🔗
🌟New videos every Saturday
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💬Seems kind of obvious? Then why do we still need to request people to switch their videos on in zoom meetings, keep laptops and phones away in face to face meetings and to actually pay attention to there team members without cutting them off?
🗣If a team member is behaving this way, they may justify their behaviour by saying they are still listening. But listening without demonstrating through your body language that you are listening is inadequate. For genuine collaboration, you need to foster a safe space where each individual feels respected and valued. That is the true definition of active listening.
Go watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube
🔗click on the link on our bio 🔗
🗣The use of language solely as a mode on communication can lead to misunderstanding, especially in multi functional and multi cultural teams.
📝 Visual tools like Gantt charts, flow charts, and mind maps help bridge that gap by providing a platform for discussion that stimulates the additional sense of sight.
🫂When cross functional teams view the customer experience from the eyes of the customer, visual tools like customer personas and customer journey maps help flesh out minor details of the interaction with different kinds of customers.
Go to watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube
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💥It's easy to jump into problem solving when it's part of routine business and lose sight of the big picture. Cross functional collaboration can lead to conflicting goals, pushing responsibility, and interdepartmental friction. Start your discussion by reinstating the larger mission that unites everyone.
🚀For example, in customer experience strategy sessions, everything starts with the customer. Setting that vision for the team, reminding them that no matter what their roles are, customer satisfaction is everyone's responsibility, aligning intention.
Go watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube
🔗click on the link in our bio 🔗
🌟"Closing the deal: where exhaustion meets exhilaration!
Every successful sale is a journey, and the reward is not just in the sale itself but in the unforgettable customer experience.
✅️ Dive into the art of retail selling with Episode 12 of our Retail Selling Skill Series on YouTube. Uncover the secrets to making every customer interaction unforgettable.
🔗click on the link in our bio🔗
Don't miss out – subscribe, like, and share the knowledge! 🔒💎
🌟Need to warm up people before a collaborative session?
🧊 Ice breakers work well with a room full of strangers as well as colleagues who know each other. So choose your ice breaker accordingly !
💬 Sometimes, asking people to share facts about themselves, true or false, can bring a lot of laughter and discovery to the team. Asking people to pair up and introduce each other builds instant bonds!
🗣Asking fun and discovery polling questions is a quick way to lighten the mood. Ice breakers can be used even in internal meetings to put people at ease.
🤝 Collaboration is most effective when every team discussion ends with an action plan with clear allocation of responsibilities.
🚀It's more effective when people are given the opportunity to voluntarily assume responsibility, as opposed to a directive approach where the team leader assigns it. Imagine a scenario where an individual may have an issue with taking up a task. They are in an awkward position of raising their concerns in front of others.
💫 Asking people to attach their name to tasks also puts them in a position of ownership.
🫂No matter how egalitarian your work environment is, when diverse people come together to collaborate, you see varied levels of participation.
🎤There are the dominant vocal ones and the yes men who agree often and then the quiet ones who hesitate to speak their minds. While there are many ways to create a safe environment for collaboration, a tried and tested tool I have used, especially when facilitating groups from diverse cultures, is silent brainstorming.
📝 Giving people sticky notes to write their thoughts in silence before sharing allows each voice to be heard. It also gives people who think in their native language time to articulate their thoughts and balance out participation.
👇What I learnt in 2023
➡️ Stepping out of your comfort zone is tough, but worth it
We left the ease breezy pace of Goa for the air conditioned towers of Dubai. In a matter of 6 intense months we found a lovely home, friends like family and opportunities for professional growth. the move brought a lot of new experiences - good and bad into our lives. Looking back I am just grateful we had the opportunity to try something new, change in itself is invigorating.
➡️ Your never too old to fail, and it’s okay
After twenty years of driving, I am failing miserably at local driving tests. It’s intimidating but I am determined to keep at it. It’s been a long time since I actually felt nervous before a class. On the bright side it makes me feel like I am twenty again !
➡️ Never rest too comfortably on past laurels
I had reached a point in my 20+ year career, where I didn’t need to work hard at proving myself. Credibility has been established and projects would just appear. Putting myself out there, building a network from scratch takes effort, but also humility. Overcoming rejection and keeping my sight on my larger goals has helped me develop more resilience.
➡️ Good people are everywhere, you just need to reach out
So grateful to have met so many wonderful and helpful people in such a short time. Professionally people have been so open to dialogue and discovery. Personally new friends and old connections have enveloped us with a warm hug. Our lives have been enriched with intellectual and cultural diversity.
That said, it’s easier to thrive in a new environment when you have the unconditional support and encouragement of old friends, family, clients and colleagues who are with you every step of the journey.
👉Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube
Episode 12 will be out on Saturday 13th Jan
🔗Click on the link on bio🔗
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✅️ Some of us have the natural gift of sales and can effortlessly interact with customers.
The rest of us work at it!
Mastering the ability to connect and close sales takes practice!
👉🏻Watch our retail selling skill series on YouTube
Episode 11 is now out on youtube
🌟Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE
🤝 Close ended questions are great when you need specific information but also help wrap up discussions. Navigate a collaborative session from one topic to the other by using a close ended question like “So we all agree that this plan should be implemented in June?” Move towards action planning with “Who would like to take the lead on this ? Or simply summarize key points and check for agreement with a “Did I capture all key takeaways?”
👤 It nudges people to be conclusive and decisive by signaling its time to move on in the discussion.
🌟Often when we need diverse teams to come together to ideate, they take time to warm up.
If you find ideas aren’t flowing, try probing the audience with open ended questions. “How did you like it?” “what do you feel about this?” “How can we go about this?” “why do you think..?” are examples of open ended questions that provide the audience space to share their thoughts freely.
🚀Remember to target your questions to different team members,making eye contact one by one and they will be compelled to respond.
� � No matter what role you play in team collaboration, as a facilitator, leader or contributor you want people to lis📌 No matter what role you play in team collaboration, as a facilitator, leader or contributor you want people to lis when you speak.
🤝The easiest way to engage them is to make eye contact with everyone turn by turn. Sometimes we tend to lock eyes with the person we are comfortable with and pitch our entire idea to them. That ends up isolating everybody else and they are probably tuning you out. Deliberately moving from one set of eyes to the next will include the entire team in the conversation.
🎄✨ Merry Christmas, dear friends!
🌟 As the joyous season wraps us in warmth, I, Sonali Gogia, your Communication and Collaboration Coach, extend heartfelt wishes to each one of you.
✨Gratitude fills my heart as I thank you for showering love on my posts. Your support makes this journey truly special!
🛍 This Christmas, embrace the gift of connection! Join me in spreading cheer not just through presents but through meaningful communication.
🎤 Check out my Retail Selling Skill Series on YouTube, find daily inspiration in the 31-day quotes on LinkedIn, and catch quick tips on communication and collaboration techniques on my Instagram Reels.
🎄💬
Ever wondered how to probe effectively in sales? 🤔
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Unlock the key to understanding your customers needs by asking open-ended questions. 🗝️💬 Probing is the secret sauce to tailor your pitch and close deals with precision. Learn more in Video 9 of our series! 🎯🔥
Master the art of probing to create personalized shopping experiences that keep your customers coming back for more! 🛒💼 Don't miss out on exclusive insights – in our retail selling skill series on YouTube. subscribe, like, and share now! 🚀👍
Click the link in our bio and subscribe to stay ahead in the retail game! 🌟🔗
🗣 If you are driving team collaboration you need to actively balance participation.
Be vigilant about the team dynamics - who are the overactive contributors that are dominating the conversation opposed to the quiet ones who haven’t spoken at all.
🤝 In a typical cross functional or cross cultural environment, you will find imbalance. Some functions are less accustomed to vocalizing their thoughts versus others. Some participants may take time translating their thoughts from the native tongue before speaking up.
👀 Use eye contact and the skill of transitioning between points and questions to move from one person to the next, to give everyone a turn.
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