A Study in Cancellations

Preventing Buyer’s Remorse

If you want to find the salesperson in any organization with the highest cancellation percentage, look for the one that boasts most loudly about how great they are at “handling objections” and “closing” their customers. Unfortunately, those that define themselves as “great closers” often have the highest cancellation problems as a percentage of their sales as well.

One of the catch phrases you may hear in business when a customer seemingly cancels a contract for no apparent reason is that they had “buyer’s remorse”. This term is, at best, a weak attempt by the salesperson to shift the responsibility for a cancellation away from them and put the onus on their customer. This really makes no sense. What reason would a customer have to feel remorseful (i.e.; guilty, regretful, etc.), provided that they have made a decision to buy something based upon receiving all the information they would need to make an intelligent decision in the first place?

Cancellations, plain and simple, are frequently a byproduct of poorly executed sales presentations bolstered by hardcore closing tactics. Incompetent salespeople tend to rush through their presentation to get to the “handling objectives and closing” phase, missing countless opportunities to establish buyer need, build maximum product value, and strengthen the overall “buyer commitment” toward retaining the product or service they just purchased.

Realistically, regardless of how good you are, there will undoubtedly be some circumstances beyond your customer’s control that will cause them to cancel an agreement from time to time— an unforeseen financial emergency for example. If you have done your job well, however; thoroughly establishing the benefits of your product or service before your customer says “yes”, it will be far less likely that they will experience any “cancellation remorse” after you have made the sale.

The bottom line is this: Let go of hard core closing tactics and finger-pointing at your customers when a cancellation comes through. Instead, spend more time mastering your presentation and polishing your delivery. You'll not only close more sales, but you will also have far fewer instances of “buyer’s remorse” to have to explain away in the future.