How to avoid a customer closing the door with a “I’m just looking” response.

Try this:

“Hi, is there something specific you would like to look at, or would you rather just look around for a while?”

This works for 2 reasons:

Reason 1 -

“For a while” leaves the door open for further interaction later in their visit by implying that you’ll be back to assist them when they have ‘looked around for a while’.

Reason 2 –

You have avoided a defence response and stayed on the same side as the prospect. If you said, “Is there something specific you would like to look at?” there is a high chance that the response would be “I’m just looking”. This closes the door making any interaction in the future much harder.