PERSONAL SALES IN TRADE AS A COMPONENT OF COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE CLIENT
Authors:   Alfred Nobel University, Orlova Viktoriia M. , Kuzmenko Oksana V. ,   Alfred Nobel University, Serhieieva Olena R. ,   Alfred Nobel University
Published: August 2022

The article is devoted to the study of personal selling as an effective component of communication with the customer in trade. Personal selling is carried out in the process of direct communication, taking into account the mutual needs and characteristics of the participants and aims to sell and establish long-term relationships with customers. The process of personal selling is complex, which requires special skills and abilities in making sales. Not only the verbal but also the non-verbal side of communications is very important. The stages of personal selling are considered, which reflect the main aspects of communication with a potential customer: finding customers, establishing contact, identifying customer needs, product presentation, dealing with objections and getting out of contact. The features of each stage of personal selling are outlined. Personal selling depends primarily on the behavior of the sales manager during the conversation with the customer. Stages of personal sales characterize such competencies of sales managers as the ability to build trust, effective communication, customer focus, convincing reasoning, focus on results. The analysis of personal sales in a commercial enterprise based on the results of customer surveys showed that none of the stages of sales in general does not correspond to a high level of quality. Only the “Get out of contact” stage corresponds to a good level of quality. Respondents praised the ability of sales managers to encourage the customer to enter into an agreement, to provide alternatives if the customer is not ready to make a purchase decision. Sales managers also provide information about discounts, promotions, additional services, related products. The stages of personal selling “Product Presentation” and “Working with objections” correspond to a satisfactory level of quality. The information that sales managers brought to the attention of customers at the presentation stage was necessary, important, interesting. However, there is a problem with providing complete information on customer issues. Skills to confidently position and justify the price at the stage of dealing with objections are also poorly manifested. Stages of personal selling such as “Establishing contact” and “Identifying needs” have an unsatisfactory level of quality. Non-verbal gestures of sales managers were low, their language was fast, and many professional terms were used. Among the shortcomings, respondents note the lack of active listening skills, there is a problem with determining the real needs of the client. To improve the personal sales process, it is proposed to conduct training for sales staff to effectively use each of the stages by mastering various techniques and techniques of sales and improving methods of communicating with the customer, ensuring continuity and integrity of the personal sales process. In addition to directly increasing sales, training acts as an element of the development system of sales managers, helps to improve the psychological atmosphere in the team and reduce staff turnover. To control the process of personal selling, it is proposed to use the method of “Mystery Shopper”.