Selling is never easy. But salespeople often make it even tougher for themselves by letting customers get away empty-handed.

It isn’t that customers don’t find what they want or what they’re looking for—it’s just that they don’t want to deal with the salesperson. With the 800-pound Internet gorilla lurking over every sale, today’s customers are much more demanding when dealing with salespeople. If the experience doesn’t meet their expectations, they’re gone.

More often than not, misreading customers causes them to look elsewhere—resulting in missed sales for your agency. But it doesn’t have to happen. Here are six ways to avoid it:

1) Understand what type of customer you’re dealing with. Wrapped up in every customer is a handful of different customers who behave differently depending on the situation. Your first task is figuring out which of these customers you’re dealing with at the moment so you can respond correctly:

• THE “I WANT TO KNOW MORE” CUSTOMER. This customer requires patience. Ask clarifying questions and get them talking. Don’t push, but gently pull them along until they’re comfortable.
• THE “I HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS” CUSTOMER. This person wants to be the salesperson, so let them feel they made the buying decision on their own. Let this customer talk and tell you all about it. Don’t cut them off.
• THE “I KNOW WHAT I WANT” CUSTOMER. By listening carefully to these customers, you may find inconsistencies in their thinking. If you ask follow-up questions, these customers may recognize what they thought they wanted was not a good idea after all.
• THE “I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND” CUSTOMER. Here, the salesperson becomes a resource, offering options and comparisons and making note of the customer’s responses to help them recognize the best solution.

2) Think individuals, not groups. It’s tempting to lump people into groups: doctors, servers, business owners, blue collar, boomers, Gen Z, old people, Hispanic people. In reality, we know that all Hispanic people, accountants and electricians are not the same. For example, out of the nearly 80 million millennials in the 18- to 35-year-old age bracket millennials, a segment of 6.2 million boast an annual family income of $100,000 or more. These affluent millennials are quite different from their 62 million non-affluent peers.

Be cautious when making marketing and sales assumptions about any particular group. Basing decisions on opinion, inaccurate information or hearsay leads to misreading customers—and missing sales.

3) Don’t stop at first impressions. A marketing manager called me about meeting to discuss working with his company. After a 400-mile drive, he arrived in a near-ancient pickup truck wearing ragged jeans, a wrinkled shirt and dirty boots. The first impression left little doubt: This meeting was going to be a waste of time.

Oftentimes, we instantly pigeonhole customers without even realizing it—and that can be a mistake. First impressions may not tell the whole story. The man in the dirty boots is a good example: He was for real; his company became our largest account.

Never get carried away with first impressions, and be prepared to discard those that don’t fit.

4) Always offer options. We can all learn a lot to learn from companies that do a great job capturing customers by offering options. The Honda Accord, for example, comes in several trim levels, each with a basic price: LX, Sport, EX and EX-L. Choices engage customers so they don’t go away.

But to be effective, options must be realistic and not so numerous that they become confusing or frustrating to customers. A financial advisor may present three scenarios for a client’s consideration, while a real estate agent may show a client several styles of homes. Options should foster discussion and further interaction.

5) Don’t tell customers what to think. “Do you love it?” asked the interior decorator after delivering the reupholstered sofa cushions. The couple murmured a few words, “It’s bright and different.” But at that moment, one thing was certain: They didn’t love it.

Far too often, salespeople make the mistake of trying to “guide” customers, telling them what to think: “This a great buy.” “Isn’t this a perfect floor plan for your family?” “Don’t you just love the color?” “This is going to look great in your home.”

Customers want help and suggestions, but they don’t want salespeople telling them what to think. It’s a huge turn-off.

6) Forget about customer loyalty. It’s only human to believe we have loyal customers. When some leave, we make excuses about why. It’s not easy watching customers leave—it feels like rejection and negates everything we’ve done for them. Breaking up is painful, particularly after making customer care a top priority and bending over backwards to satisfy.

We think customers show their appreciation by being loyal to a company, brand or salesperson. But what we label “loyalty” may be something quite different. It may be nothing more than convenience, price, laziness, inertia or habit. Nothing more.

In other words, customer loyalty is an illusion. It lets us think the interchange with customers should result in their loyalty—and that’s a big mistake. Today, absolutely nothing stands in the customer’s way from getting they want, the way they want to get it, where they want to get it.

Misreading customers costs sales. Preventing it requires battling our assumptions, particularly those that influence how we think about customers and what we expect from them.

John Graham of GrahamComm is a marketing and sales strategist-consultant and business writer. He publishes a free monthly e-bulletin, “No Nonsense Marketing & Sales Ideas.”