RELATIONSHIP

Building strong customer relationships can help a company drive sale, business sustainability and near to long-term growth. Successful companies build, maintain and sustain great customer relationships that naturally lead to customer loyalty and customer retention.

 

It is a known fact that it costs less to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. In a competitive landscape where margins are diminishing and costs of sales are increasing, it critical for businesses to retain customers. Ultimately, all businesses need to become the “Trusted Advisor” to their customers. Strong
customer relationships can be developed in the following ways:
> Become the “Trusted Advisor” to the customer to the point that you are the first person or company they call whenever they have a new business requirement or even when you may not be able to address their immediate business needs and requirements.
> Drive customer engagement consistently and make them “feel like being part of the family”. Seek for their opinion, advice and counsel when your company is developing new products and services, exploring new ideas or launching new business initiatives.
> Institute and solicit customer feedback so that you constantly in touch with the customer and their business needs and requirements. By regularly focusing on customer’s needs, wants and desires, you can better fulfil customer requirements but more importantly, you must act on the feedback.
> Keep the channels of communications open and stay in touch with the customers. For a long-term mutually beneficial relationship with the customer, seek to understand the customer and seek clarification when in doubt.

UNDERSTANDING

No matter how good your product or services is, the customer will not buy from you until he has a need for it or when you can convince him that he needs it. The challenge for the salesperson is to clearly understand what the customers want and to clearly articulate how the company’s products and services can address the customer’s requirements.

 

The salesperson has to clearly articulate the company’s Unique Sales Proposition (USP) that translates product and solution features into benefits to the customer. Over time. the USP may need to be updated in response to changes in the industry landscape.

 

When engaging the customer, the salesperson needs to find out more about customer by asking the following questions:
> Find out more about the customer. What kind of business are they in? Who are their competitors?
> Find out the compelling event for them to make a purchasing decision? Timing can be important.
> Find out their buying behaviour. When they buy? How they buy?
> Find out their budget and budgeting cycle. How much money they have to spend? What happens if they do not fully utilize their budget?
> Find out what they think of your company and your competitors? Customer perception can be a reality if you do not address their concerns.

NEGOTIATION
 

One of the most important skills to have and master for a successful salesperson is negotiation skills. Negotiation skills are needed in every stage of the sales cycle. Negotiation skills are needed in appointment setting, handling customer objections, pricing negotiations, knowing who to negotiate with, contract negotiations and deciding when to walk away from the business.
 

A strong salesperson must be able to withstand customer’s pressure and reduce price pushback by “selling” the value of the solution and linking it to the customer requirements. The salesperson must be confident enough to lead sales negotiations that ultimately lead to a “win-win” situation for both parties.

 

The salesperson must be able to handle sales objections to lead the sales closer to the “deal close”. The learned salesperson must know when to stop giving price reductions or concessions if the customer is getting into a purely pricing game.