Video sales calls are here to stay.
We’ve all been on calls where we have our camera on and the client doesn’t, and this can have a direct impact on our sales cycles and rep performance.
In their recent research paper, “How the Use of Camera during Virtual Sales Calls Impacts Relative Performance”, Dr Kristen M Getchell and Dr Vincent Onyemah researched how the camera on / camera off scenario impacts sales reps’ emotionally, and can thereby impact their performance.
The data they gathered indicates that sales reps can feel that the client having their camera off while the rep has there’s on can give the reps feelings of a power imbalance in favour of the client. It can also give them a sense of being disrespected, and distract them because they are lacking a lot of non-verbal feedback from the client and wondering if they are actually being paid attention to or not.
All of these factors can affect the sales reps’ performance, motivation, and extend our sales cycles.
In order to mitigate these situations the paper suggests several verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage the client to also turn their camera on. Of these suggestions the one I liked best was simply waiting a bit in silence with your camera on. This can non-verbally prompt the customer to follow your lead and also turn their camera on during the meeting.
The paper also says that due to the feeling on power imbalance many reps will turn their camera off to match the customer and feel that they have balanced the playing field. This surprised me.
When I am training sales reps for video calls I tell them to always keep their camera on, even if the client does not follow suit. Non-verbal cues are extremely important, and even if you can’t see the client’s cues you want to ensure that they can see yours.
What has worked for you? What verbal and non-verbal cues does your team use to encourage clients to turn on their cameras during video calls?
Let’s learn from each other.
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