I found out about the power of specificity when a store manager telephoned to complain about a mystery shopping report. The mystery shopper had said that suggestive selling had not been done, but the manager disagreed. He claimed his staff member should get the points for suggestive selling because he was present at the time and had heard his staff member say, “Would you like anything else?”
In my view, “Anything else,” should forever be banned from the retail lexicon. It is not a suggestive sell and its use should score zero in a mystery shopping report.
McDonalds’ sales folk never say, “Would you like anything else?” What they do say of course, is, “Would you like fries with that?” “Fries” is very specific. The power of the suggestive sell is in the use of the product name – fries in this case. The memory of previous pleasant consumption evokes a yes response, or perhaps a no if the customer’s memory is of waistline expansion. On the other hand, “Anything else? “ is not specific. It evokes nothing. The answer to “Anything else,” is most often NO by default because the customer cannot think of any “thing.”
