Engaging in conversation with our customers is something we do every day. It’s expected of us as business professionals. Our conversations can inform, persuade, intrigue,support, encourage or dissuade.
In this age of social media, if we are lucky enough to find ourselves involved in conversations with our customers, we need to be careful of the words we choose to use if we hope to preserve the customer relationships we work hard to create.
Words are powerful.
They complement or compromise the message we are trying to get across to those who are listening.
One of the biggest message compromisers is the word “but”. When used in a sentence it has the tendency to negate anything that comes before it. Consider which example has a more customer friendly tone:
Example 1: That’s a really great product, but we don’t carry it here.
Example 2: That’s a really great product! Unfortunately, we don’t stock it but I could look into the possibility of this for you.
Eliminating just one little word from our conversations, will have a huge impact on the amount of respect, cooperation, and loyalty we have with our customers.
So, ditch the “but”. It doesn’t add to your message and takes away from all the good you’re trying to communicate in your conversations.
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