How to forge relationships within the showroom and other memorable sales experiences

Retailers recount their experiences in the course of going about business in their stores:

• Four generations of our family served the same customer

Recently, an elderly gentleman visited our store to purchase jewellery for his grand-daughter. As we got talking, he revealed that his own wedding jewellery had been made by my grandfather. Coincidentally, my son was also present in the store at that time and was helping the gentleman with his selection. The customer was truly pleased and elated that he had dealt with four generations of our family.

– Bikash Singh, Owner, Mahendra Singh Saraff & Bros, Darjeeling

• Customer elated with our repair work in diamonds

A new customer walked in,wanting some old diamond jewellery to be repaired for an upcoming wedding in their family. I suggested getting those pieces remade using their old diamonds. When they saw the result of our work, they were so overwhelmed that they ended up buying the entire wedding jewellery from our store. In the end, the customer related her experience of going to a few other stores for the same repair work, only to be turned down by them. She was glad that she had come to us.

– Akshat Rastogi, Partner, Ratandeep Jewellers, Moradabad

• Sisters wanted to sell jewellery, were convinced to buy instead

One day, two sisters came to our store with a mix of silver and gold jewellery. They wanted to sell the jewellery, as there was apparently no one in their family to wear them. During the interaction, I showcased our beautiful new jewellery designs to them. After some time, I observed that they liked the jewellery shown. So, I started convincing them to buy new jewellery from the collection. Finally, they purchased jewellery worth more than Rs 5 lakh that day.

– Asha Thakur, Senior Sales Executive, Punjab Jewellers

• Customer happy to find quality diamond jewellery in Mathura

In January this year, a customer visited us to buy diamond jewellery. Talking to him, we came to know that he preferred to buy diamond jewellery from Surat, but a friend had suggested the name of our store and thus he had come to us. We showed him some of our latest diamond jewellery collections. He was highly impressed with the designs as he was not expecting such a huge variety and quality of diamond jewellery in a small place like Mathura. The customer bought three diamond jewellery sets that day.

– Yashu Agrawal, COO, PK & PK Jewellers Mathura

• Old customer came back to buy, called our brand ‘lucky’

We had an old customer who made purchases from our store every 2-3 months for the past 4-5 years. However, after a couple of years, he stopped buying from us. Recently, the same customer visited the store to buy jewellery.  I asked him the reason for his absence and he told me that he had been upset with the conduct of one of our salespeople. He also told me that our store was ‘lucky’ for him as he regularly used to buy something or the other in gold from the store and never faced any financial issues. However, in the last two years, he could buy jewellery only once, due to financial problems. He bought again from our store and promised to come back after a few months.

– Daxesh Soni, Owner, Parasmani Gems, Ahmedabad

• Our honesty impressed a customer and made him happy

A couple of years ago, a new customer came to the store to buy gold jewellery. After selecting the jewellery, he gave us a gold bar and asked us to exchange it with the jewellery. The gold bar was of around 10 tolas, which came to 116 grams. After completing the sale process, when I showed him the final bill, he was amazed as he always thought that 10 tolas amounted to 100 grams only.  He appreciated our honesty and left happily.

– Rohit Bitla, Owner, Bitla Jewellers Solapur

• Even in a business setting, personal relationships are formed

In 2020, as were celebrating our 41st anniversary, an elderly lady walked into our store. She went to the diamond section, where I approached her and started talking, and soon realized that she was one of the very first customers of the store. She bought diamond bangles and matching earrings. That’s when my grandmother entered the store, saw the customer and they greeted each other as if they had been friends forever. I was very inspired by this incident, and resolved to forge relationships like that.

– Shraddha Keshri, Director, Hira Panna Jewellers, Patna

The Retail Jeweller India Magazine