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In my previous posts, i talked about my relative’s encounter in a reknowned beauty salon and the sales tactic used by unethical sales reps. So what happened to Lynn? Well after being bombarded for more than 15 minutes in a room by a tenacious “consultant”, Lynn almost succumbed to the hard sell tactic. Lucky for Lynn, her daughter turned up in time to ward off the assault. In the end, Lynn saved herself more than a thousand dollars and wondered why she allowed herself to be cornered by this predator. Her hour of therapy and rejuvenation had ended in frustration.

The unethical sales rep…or company?

When sales reps use hard sell tactics to push their products, it merely reflects the company’s policy of rewarding staff for meeting sales quota at all costs. Service providers sell their service best by doing a great job and make their customers so happy that they willingly spend more money on additional services. Ethical service providers do not corner their customers in rooms and bombard them with unsolicited sales pitches.

Dealing with hard sale tactics

Here are my suggestions for fending off sales reps who use hard sell tactics:

1. If you’re not interested in spending more money, don’t allow yourself to be cornered in the first place. You can see it coming when the “consultant” invites you into a room. Just tell her politely that you’re running late for an appointment and need to go off now.
2. If you are interested in what she has to sell you, make sure you ask for a brochure itemising the products or services in the package before the sales pitch starts. Ask the sales rep to go through each item, stop and ask her questions whenever you have doubts. Good sales rep know their products – reputable companies train their sales reps so that they know about their products.
3. If the sales rep repeatedly brush off your requests or questions, tell her that you simply must know for sure what you’re getting before spending the money. If she refuses to co-operate, simply stand up, tell her that you’re not interested anymore and walk out of the room. Don’t fall into the trap of responding to her probing questions. This is another tactic commonly used by unethical sales reps to prolong the sales pitch. Note that i’m not referring to questions posed by well-meaning sales reps who genuinely want to address your concerns.

Unethical sales rep asks questions merely to corner you because they know that most people have a hard time saying “i’m not buying because i don’t care for your attitude!” (by the way this is an extremely sanistised version of what i would say). By questioning you continuously, they hope that you will eventually pay up just to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

Don’t allow yourself to be bullied by unscrupulous salesmen – stand up to them and they are likely to leave you alone.

In my previous post, i talked about my relative’s extremely unpleasant experience at a reknowned beauty salon. Jane (the staff) wants Lynn (my relative) to upgrade her facial package from one that costs $630 for 10 sessions to another that costs $2,270 for 20 sessions which by the way is a whopping 50% discount. And since beauty and skin care products are just a rung below nuclear physics in complexity, Lynn should not bother herself with the details and trust the sales pitch. Just hand out her credit card and sign up like a meek and dumb lamb.

Hard sell tactic: Confuse and Convince

Any reputable company will have brochures itemising all products or services offered in their packages. So why aren’t these printed materials used? I’ve a theory for this. It’s called “Confuse and Convince” and it’s quite simple:

1. First you overwhelm your prey with information by verbally running through only the benefits – unless you’re good old Jane in which case you won’t even want to stress out your customers with such mundane details.
2. Then you tell them that they simply have to sign up now. In fact you should be on the alert whenever you hear “it’s now or never” or “the sale will end tomorrow”.

Users of this tactic avoid using itemised brochures and especially comparison charts because this is like giving potential customers bullets to fire back at you. These are some reasons why unethical salesmen dislike printed materials:

1. When customers can see the differences in words in addition to hearing about them, they are able to retain and manipulate the information better. They can then better decide whether it’s really worth spending more money.
2. Health-conscious customers can ask questions regarding the side-effects of skin-care products. Do you know that quite a number of ingredients used in cosmetics are carcinogenic if used in high concentrations?
3. Customers can bring the brochure back and think about it thus avoiding impulse purchase. This also helps customers who don’t understand the product well (say financial products) to ask for second opinions.

I’m sure Janes the world over cannot understand why someone would want to understand the cost and benefits of a purchase before splurging money on it. I can almost hear them sigh in annoyance, “it’s mere peanut, why think so much?? Just give me the money!!”

There are more victims than you think

Lynn’s experience is more common than you think. I have heard of hard sell in the beauty industry but i thought it only happens in heartland salons. Lynn’s experience has proven me wrong. According to statistics compiled by the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), 46 complaints were filed against companies in the beauty industry between Mar 2004 and Feb 2005 – ranked 3rd among all industries. Of the common complaints, hard sell (i.e. using undue pressure to get the person to buy item) is ranked second. I’m sure this incident is merely the tip of the iceberg. I’ve sent CASE an email to find out more about complaints in the beauty industry which i’ll update here.

If you think beauty salons are the ultimate sanctuaries, you’re dead wrong. These days predators and scavengers of all kinds stalk the corridors and rooms of beauty salons, waiting to pounce on unwary souls. Like hyenas roaming the African safari, these predators have the uncanny ability to sniff out weaker preys. Once they target you, they will harrass you until you succumb to their attacks.

Have you ever experienced this?

Just last week, a relative of mine was attacked by one particularly vicious species.

Lynn was having her regular facial session at a prominent local company which styled itself as a “Total Lifestyle Wellness” service provider. Not content with that, this company also “aspires to be the global leader in spa, face, skin and body care industry”. In short, you will expect to walk out of their doors a happier person. Apparently this particular company found its lofty visions hard to live up to.

After Lynn finished her facial, a staff, whom i shall call Jane, ushered her into another room. It was in this splendid isolation that the assault began. Jane started by telling Lynn how inadequate her current package is. She then went on to sell the benefits of this OTHER package. Nothing wrong with recommending a better product to your customer and there is no better time to do it then after you have performed a service.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini calls this weapon of influence “reciprocation”. The rule of reciprocation says that it is human nature to feel obliged and want to repay in kind what another person has provided us.

In this case, Jane has just given Lynn a facial and even though Lynn had paid for the service, a little piece of her nags, “Jane has just given me a good facial, it is not nice to reject her. Afterall it IS a better package isn’t it?”

Is it?

The upgraded package costs $227 per session compared to $63 per session for the basic one. However when Lynn asked for a comparison between the two packages, Jane replied with a “even if i tell you, you won’t understand”. Superb stuff for customer service trainers out there.

Listen carefully to the “discount”

It is standard practice in the beauty and spa industry to sell such services in packages with a certain number of sessions. Jane explains that the normal rate for this upgraded package is 10 sessions at $227 each thus 10 sessions will cost $2,270. But since Lynn is such a nice customer, the company will “give her a 50% discount”. At this stage, any normal person will be thinking “hmmm 50% discount…that means i’ll pay $1,135 for 10 sessions instead of $2,270″. Wrong. Apparently the people at this company have a warped mind. Jane went on to elaborate that the 50% discount means “instead of paying $2,270 for 10 sessions, we’re giving you 20 sessions”. Sounds familiar? If this is not a blatant, unscrupulous attempt to confuse and misrepresent, i don’t know what is.