strawberry margarita before dinner?” I didn’t think much of it
until other customers took their seat at a table close by. The
same server approached them and said, “Hi, my name is Bob.
I’ll be your waiter tonight. Here’s a complimentary snack to get
you started. Would you care for a strawberry margarita before
dinner?” Several minutes later, more customers were seated at
another table nearby. Again, the same server. Again, the same
greeting. I found myself imitating him every time he approached a
new table after that until my wife was kicking me under the table!

Obviously he had been instructed to speak those lines to

each new table of customers he greeted. The restaurant was
striving for consistency, and in doing so stripped him of his
individuality. He displayed no enthusiasm in his voice, no
excitement, no energy. His greeting was the same at every table.
If we fall into the rut of using the same greeting or approach
with all of our customers, we will become boring, as mundane
as we sound and we will lose the oomph we need to close the
sale. We might have the energy and enthusiasm at nine-thirty in
the morning but by the end of the day we are tired and just
want to go home. Inevitably, we will issue greetings that come
out more like grunts.

In my seminars, I encourage the participants to vary their

greetings as soon as they return to their stores. What they gen-
erally find is that this reduces the customer’s propensity to
respond with the dreaded “Just looking.” When they approach
their customer with a greeting other than “Hi, how are you
today?” their customer responds differently as well. Sound too
simple? Experiment. Visit your local mall. Walk into 10 or 15
stores and listen to the salespeople’s greetings. I assure you that
in most cases you will hear the bored, unimaginative approach.
If you do, by chance, encounter a greeting that is different, pay
attention to your own response to it. I can almost guarantee that
it, too, will be different.

With the increase in competition, it has never been more

important to differentiate yourself from your competition. A
small thing like your greeting makes a significant difference in
how people will respond to you.

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Greeting Your Customer