Alongside with the cliche of professionalism, it seems that in today's world of sales, we are often being coddled into buying things through our emotions. What is more, companies invest tens of thousands of dollars to teach their employees how to create desire in their customers, selling based on wants instead of needs.
Despite the advent of the internet where product details are widely available, people still buy stuff through their emotions. The less emotionally inclined customers, and even staff, will be blacklisted due to their incapability to sell, or even buy the "professionalism" projected.
This thread is created to discuss the issue of buying, thus spending through emotion, and how to regulate that. Also, this thread serves as a discussion to counter "softskilling" - the process where fake empathy is used to seduce customers to keep paying for an erstwise overrated and under-performing service.
That being said, the resistance met in sales processes is a rock-paper-scissors issue with plenty of politically correct statements, so no counter is actually foolproof. It is how one understands the situation, and how one applies the usual counter to it.
Some phrases of speech used :
"I understand, however........" = "I don't understand, and I don't really care, just listen to me."
"I empathise with your situation, and will do my best to resolve it" = "I don't really bother about how you feel, but I'll still
try to solve the problem."
Patterns of script :
Greet- > Empathise -> Concern for related services -> Assist -> Concern for related services -> Close
These are the more common ones I have heard until I am sick of it. It is annoying to hear someone drone on with such human aspects until the main point (product) is hidden underneath a pile of cliches.