The Hindu Business Line : Handling rejection

IN my experience of over two decades of brand sales and marketing, I have found that sales and marketing professionals get dejected whenever their brand is objected to and their offering is rejected. A very critical element of success in brand marketing is to be able to face and handle objections so that consumer rejection does not lead to team dejection.

Let us go to the root cause and discover the various reasons for this state of affairs and the solutions to increase brand sales, brand growth and brand profits.

Why does a consumer have an objection to a particular brand? Why is it that the consumer accepts a competing brand? Why is it that the marketing and sales team gets dejected when there is an objection or rejection? How can the team address this and convert this into a positive situation?

Objection

Firstly, let us look at the objection front. Consumers raise objections because they may find certain gaps either in their understanding or in the adequacy of information or just the fact that they don't like the marketers.

Objections are natural behavioural elements from consumers. Consumers may object to buying a product brand or a service brand if they do not comprehend what the brands stand for.

It is very important that the objection be clearly understood and addressed immediately. For this it is very important that the marketer must have thorough product or service knowledge and must communicate the benefits to the consumers. This would improve their understanding of the brand and objections would come down.

Further, they can be reduced if there is sufficient information given to the consumers and nothing done to mislead or confuse them. Marketers must consider objections positively and use them as opportunities to build their brands and increase market share.

Sometimes consumers object not to the brand but to the person marketing the brand. One must be very careful to ensure that a credible and appropriate brand ambassador who is acceptable to consumers is chosen. This will help reduce or overcome objections opening the path to grand brand sales.

Rejection

A brand could face rejection because of poor product or inferior service or merely because the consumer is not aware about the brand.

Brands face rejection from consumers for various reasons. If these reasons are eliminated there is a very good probability that consumers would not reject it. Inferior product or poor service could be a reason. Irrelevant or unnecessary products could be other reasons. Even unfamiliarity or lack of awareness could lead to a brand getting rejected. In all the cases it is important that world-class quality be offered to the consumer with proper awareness and need assessment so that the consumer is able to benefit and improve her standard of living and quality of life.

Dejection

Brand marketers get demotivated and dejected when consumers do not accept the brand or switch to other brands leading to the morale and sales going down. The right solution is to regularly train the brand marketing team and make them internally tough and at the same time externally sensitive to changing consumer needs. The marketing team must be alive to adapting its brand so that the consumer gets the best benefit which definitely would spread enthusiasm amongst the team and avoid dejection.

Thus we see that if the root cause of consumers objecting to the brand is tackled and the main reasons for brand rejection are solved, there will be little scope for dejection, especially if the marketing team is regularly trained and motivated to face these issues.

(The author is Managing Director of Samsika Marketing Consultancy.)

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