Winning customers in the new era of selling

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Winning customers in the new era of selling

Posted by: Ryan Groves
Category: News

2020 was the year where the world turned upside down in the way we all work, live and interact. We’ve also seen that buyers’ expectations have also changed. Customers expect a better, more personalised experience across the channel of their choice. Not just email or phone but through their preferred social media platform too. And we all need to be ready for that.

We’ve seen that over the last 12 months teams have had to quickly adapt to new ways of finding, engaging and ultimately selling to their customers, both old and new. We see that 66% of salespeople are already looking at ways they & their businesses can improve on new customer acquisition, upselling and cross-selling.

With customers being savvier, possibly more than ever, creating that first impression and building on that in the New Era of Selling has never been more critical. This is why we believe in the four steps to evolve your sales process during this time of balancing old & new customers whilst ensuring you deliver a seamless buying experience:

  • Win new business with a better buying experience
  • Empower partners to become trusted advisers
  • Nurture relationships to retain & renew customers
  • Expand customer relationships through cross-sell and upsell

 

STEP 1: Win new business with a better buying experience

It goes without saying that the stronger the relationship you can build with your customer the more successful you will be. Obviously, this year, meeting your customer and building that face-to-face interaction hasn’t been an option but that doesn’t mean you can’t still build a personal or tailored approach to your interactions with them:

  • Use unified customer data to understand their needs & interests. This will help tailor your content & ultimately the direction of your conversations.
  • Activate automation process to help the Sales Team follow up on marketing leads at the right time, combine all data to ensure these conversations are as informed and relevant as possible and avoid delays in quoting by streamlining the entire process.

 

STEP 2: Empower partners to become trusted advisers

Making sure your partners are as equipped and invested in your business is just as important as your own teams. They’re also the face of your brand & with up to 75% of commerce happening through partners, their benefit to your business can make all the difference:

  • Move away from traditional ways of assigning leads. With the world becoming more remote the use of geographical territories is disappearing so use this chance, with some AI to route those leads to the partner best suited to win the deal rather than the one that’s closest.
  • Increase transparency between you and your partners – with visibility of your automation and CRM they will have a better understanding of your customers’ needs and can respond in a timely manner.

 

STEP 3: Nurture relationships to retain and renew customers

The general rule of thumb says that it is more cost-efficient to maintain a relationship with an existing customer than winning a new one (although in an ideal world we would do both) but this also requires dedicated time and investment. To help grow current customer relationships there are ways to help with both: 

  • Use AI and inter-connected Salesforce platforms to alert the relevant teams with there is any major change or development with an existing customer.
  • Track and monitor all renewal dates and have automated communications in place to re-engage with customers before they come to the end of any contract or agreement.

 

STEP 4: Expand customer relationships through cross-sell and upsell

Once you’ve built a trusting relationship with your customer, you’re in the perfect position to take them further on their business journey whilst finding and recommending ways to solve more of their business problems – research shows 89% of buyers are more loyal and receptive to companies they already trust.

 Once you feel you have established the kind of customer relationship & there is the potential to upsell or cross-sell:

  • Bring in the rest of the sales team or internal specialists to work on a joint account plan which you can present back to the customer
  • Connect all your customer data & use some of the AI tools to give the greatest overview of current goals, pain points and potential areas to resolve.
  • Look at potential alternatives or offers that may be available to the client whilst still aligning to their budget. Through the integration of the Salesforce platforms these can all be collected together with your Managers visibility who may be able to make certain offers available to help further close the deal.

No matter how the world moves, one constant is that creating a personalised buying experience creates a better, smoother and ultimately more fruitful journey for both you and the customer. The human connection between Sales and the customer should never be under-valued, but with the right technology, tips and systems in place they can take care of the mechanics, data collection and research which leaves you more time to establish a strong and most importantly informed customer relationship.