Prepare for video sales calls the same way you would for in-store appointments, and you’ll get better results every time.

It could be a while before customers want to spend more than a few minutes inside public spaces. That can cut into shopping and relationship-building time – both important ingredients for a luxury sale. Thank goodness the whole world quickly figured out how to jump on a video call!
It’s time to pull out your little black books and start clienteling again! And as you reach out to your customers, make sure you offer to do a video chat to show them new products and explore their current needs. From the level of overall jewelry sales, it appears that many people are interested in giving themselves a jewelry pick-me-up, and you should certainly be there to help them do it.

Before each call, imagine you are about to do a sales conversation over the counter. What do you need to get started? Do you have a few items of jewelry to show? Those could be in a tray on your desk, ready to hold up for the camera. Do you have your notes about the last conversation with the customer, a record of her previous purchases, and her most recent wishlists from your website? Does the customer have a gift certificate she hasn’t used yet? Prepare for a video call the same way you would for an in-store appointment.

If you’re going to do some screen sharing (which we highly recommend), get the screens you want to share open before you launch the call. And if you’re not used to doing screen sharing, practice with a co-worker before your customer call. Confidence is everything in sales! At a minimum, the two screens you should have ready to share are your ecommerce site and your VDB webapp. Of course, if you already have VDB integrated into your website (link previous 3 words to INTEGRATIONS page), you only need to share one window!

So just imagine this: You’re on the video call with your customer, and you’re discussing diamonds for the custom ring you are designing for them. You mention a cushion cut, but they can’t quite picture what that is. No problem! Since you already have your VDB webapp open on your computer (or it’s embedded in your website, and you have your website open on your computer), you say, “Let me share my screen, and I’ll show you!” You use the screen share option of your video conferencing system, then go into the VDB app and select “Cushion shape” from the shape selector.

The customer can see the screen you’re working on, and she says, “Oh! Put in 1.0 – 1.25 carat” in the carat size selector. For color, you select E, F, G, and H - because you’re looking for good value, and you know you can find that in these color ranges. For clarity, you select VVS2 to VS1. Of course, all the time you’re giving her a little bit of diamond education, explaining each selection as you click on it. You skip to GIA, because this customer knows about GIA certificates, and they give her a sense of security. And now, you click Search. Voila! You get hundreds of instant results, each with pictures, and many with 360-degree videos. Your customer can see what a cushion cut is, and she can start falling in love with individual stones. Because you’ve set your markup mode to reflect your store markups, she can also see all the correct prices. You click on a few diamonds, and look at the 360-views, playing around with turning the diamond to the left and right – just as you would if the customer (and the diamond!) were physically in the store with you. You’re ready to keep on searching, but she sees the diamond she wants. You ask her if she wants to see it first, but she says, “No! Let’s get going on making this ring. Just bring that one in for me.” No problem! You click the Buy button and make your order.

A little bit of preparation and high-quality interaction go a long way when selling, and that’s twice as true when it comes to selling virtual tools. You’ll be happy to see how much of a difference it makes, and you may be pleasantly surprised to find out just how fun selling this way can be!