No Pacing Statements In Korean Selling Techniques

Park, Hee Young

According to Dr. Moine, the best salespeople use pacing statements--including descriptive pacing and objection pacing--to establish trust with the customers. However, most Korean salespeople jump immediately into their sales pitch without any descriptive pacing and respond to their customers objection. Then what causes to this feature of Korean salespeople? The product-driven orientation and the high context culture in Korea prevent Korean salespeople from employing pacing statements.

Korean salespeople barely use pacing statements. Pacing statements mean sellers' statements to play back the customer's observations, experience or behavior including descriptive pacing and objection pacing. For example, best sellers for getting in sync with their customers say the following: "It's a nice day, isn't it?" or for the customer's objection "I agree with you." However, these pacing statements are not employed by Korean sales people. Here is one of the examples that show this feature well. One day I visited a car store to buy a car. When I walked into the store, the car dealer first said, "Hello. What kind of car are you looking for?" Actually I don't have much knowledge about cars and I responded to him looking around the exhibited cars. "Well, What do you have?" He brought a pamphlet introducing various models produced by his company, Hyundae and started to explain about the cars. He recommended a semi-sedan named Verna to me although he did not ask about my need or taste and he talked passionately about all the advantages of the car as if one candidate makes an impassioned speech to secure votes. When he finished his speech, I said, "It is a bit expensive. I think Atoze (the smallest car made by Hyundae) is more economical." He immediately responded. "No. You got the wrong idea. Atoze needs more gas and it will make you spend more money." In this story the car dealer does not make any descriptions of my experience and he does not agree with my resistance first before supporting his opinion. The car dealer do not represent all Korean sellers, but until now I have not often seen my friends who have heard the statements like "It's getting hot these days, isn't it?" or "You're right," from a Korean seller. Therefore, it is sure that many Korean sellers do not tell the customer something to get an agreement contrary to the best salespeople's pacing referred by Dr. Moine.

One factor that leads Korean salespeople not to use pacing statements is the product-driven orientation, where sellers simply show many advantages about their product to the customer. Korean salespeople tend to just present much knowledge about their products without considering the customer's needs. The car dealer that I visited explained many things about the cars made by his company but through the whole sales pitch he did not ask about my situation. This approach makes Korean salespeople focus on selling products, not on having an affinity with the customer by pacing statements. They do not consider about who would buy their products and they regard the customers as an identical group. That is, to them an individual customer does not have more than the meaning of a stranger who buy their product, and so they do not feel the necessity of playing back each customer's experience, descriptive pacing. They jumped into their sales pitch like this: "Hello. What are you looking for?" There is no description of the weather or the customer's experience. This lacking interest in the customers also makes the salespeople not consider what resulted from their disagreeing with the customers' objection and respond to it with their knowledge about the products.

Another thing that keep Korean sellers from agreeing with the customer is the high context culture in Korea. Koreans tend to touch or contact more than to communicate verbally. Richard Saccone's description of a Korean married couple in The Business of Korean Culture shows well Koreans' non-verbal feature. In quarrel the spouse does not like to discuss the problem and rather gives a gift or makes a kind gesture to solve the problem. This preference toward non-verbal communication influences Korean salespeople to employ little verbal skill for a persuasion, pacing statements. Based on Dr. Moine, to persuade someone first you should build trust with him/her, and for that the best salespeople use pacing statements. However, Korean salespeople live in the high context culture so they are not accustomed to persuading the customer with the verbal skill of pacing statements. Instead of pacing statements they pet the customer with a touch or a gesture. For example, the car dealer politely bowed to me at right angle when I entered and left the store. Many Korean saleswomen especially use a little touch on the customer's hand or arm. This non-verbal language comes from the high context culture that is different from American verbal communication culture.

When you visit a Korean store, you might not get affinity toward the Korean sellers because they are not apt to use pacing statements. They focus on not the customer but the product and they are accustomed to the non-verbal culture in Korea. These factors make Korean sellers unfamiliar with pacing. Now from this Korean sales pitch you can understand a feature of Korean culture.