Customer service and responsiveness seems to be a lost art these days. It is so difficult to find examples of that fading skill when you’re walking past trade show booths or visiting franchise business. 
First of all, it is very rare to be given a sincere greeting. You are most likely to be given a mass produced experience at the expense of your individual needs.
Trying to get decent customer service with a phone company or a satellite provider is almost impossible – and is almost understandable, given the mass volume of clients whom they do business with.
This can also be true at a trade show. The goal of the trade show management clearly seems to be to cram as many businesses into as small a space as possible. It is sensory overload for the potential client, with all of the large graphics and myriad trade show booths, with quick talking sales representatives vying for the attention of each and every customer. It is a mass production of a sort, and many clients walk away feeling just like you do when you walk into a franchise business – “what about me?”
The magic to fighting that feeling is to individualize your dealings with potential customers and to think about their needs – get outside the box of your trade show displays. This approach does not have a magical solution; rather, it is a multitude of the little things that add up into a truly impressive interaction with the client, the individual attention that you always hope to receive when speaking with a company representative.
Here are a number of things that you can remind yourself of on every day of a trade show to make sure clients walk away remembering your name and the special treatment you gave them:
- Never, EVER, say “Hi, how can I help you?” or “Hello, how’s it going?”: Both are the treatments that you get from mass production companies, and they instantly signal that you don’t actually care about how it is going or how you can help them.
- When clients are walking by your trade show booths, approach them with a “Hi” or “Hello”, but vary the followup.
- “Are you interested in —?” or “Do you —?” (depending on your product) is much more direct and attention grabbing. It gets right to the point and it begins the real conversation between you and the client, which is about their potential interest in what you are selling.
- If the client offers information in response, you have something to talk – and even joke – about. You want them to feel as if you are their friend from the beginning. This personal touch often gets them coming back. They feel emotionally invested enough to thoroughly investigate their own interest. And that is really all you are asking them to do.
- When clients are walking by your trade show booths, approach them with a “Hi” or “Hello”, but vary the followup.
- Ask questions about their own lives, don’t make a sales pitch: The instant sales pitch can be such a turn off. If you ask them about their life and their interests, and they open up, you are signalling to them that you seem emotionally invested in their happiness and well-being.
- This individual touch is different than the vast majority of trade show participants out there, and it makes you memorable and sincere. Quite a turnaround from the mass produced approach of 90% of the trade show booths out there.
- Perform clandestine market research: When you get clients to reveal information about themselves, and you follow it up with informed questions that dig deeper, you get free market research. Even if the client ends up passing on your product, you start to see a pattern in buying trends and can either improve your salesmanship or make your branding more efficient.
- Gathering information always improves your job, and this makes no client contact a complete loss. You can also ask them about any interesting trade show displays they have seen that day. This gives you market research on what your competitors are doing right, straight from the people they just pitched to.
- Invite them to the party, not bake them cookies: The idea of giving out free treats is a good idea, but the reality is that you are usually giving out free items with low reward. The clients don’t always stop and establish meaningful contact.
- Try holding a “party” (with your choice and budget dictating the refreshments) just after the close of the trade show floor. Invite real contacts from the day: the best potential clients will make the effort to show up and you get them away from the bustle of the trade show booths.
- You show them how your company treats real clients, and you establish a more friendly rapport. The best part is that you end the day on a high note with your best clients. A fantastic way to end a trade show day.
- Pull them in, not push them papers: The very idea of pushing papers at clients is an imposition of your bubble space into their personal one. It’s not wrong to have brochures, but make them available within your trade show displays.
- Invite them in with your friendly approach and have them sign their own contact information. They feel they are volunteering to hear more, they can pick up the brochures at their own will, and they feel they are helping a friend.
- In other words, they are choosing to be the agent of the sale and you are guiding them to information that will help make them happy. You will even save money on brochures. It’s a different mindset, not used by many trade show booths, and will impress your clients that you’re paying attention to their needs.
So many trade shows involve customers walking around and being assaulted by the “bubbles” of pushy sales representatives who are impersonal and leave no lasting impression. Stand out from the pack while making a personal impression outside of the box of your trade show displays. Invite prospects inside, and they are more likely to want to stay there with you.