Advantages of Customer Service and Relations for Sales Persons

CUSTOMER SERVICE– For Sales Persons

Customer service is a process of ensuring customer satisfaction with the product or service that you offer. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other ways. Though we may not realize it at the moment, good customer service has a huge impact on the growth of your sales.

Usually, organisations have a Customer Service Department, yet in my opinion it is a fantastic opportunity for a sales person to harness on for growth of his sales. In the greed for getting new leads and generating business, we often forget that you have literally created a code that you have generated which can give you more predictable leads and easier conversion of prospect to a sale.

Sales + Customer Service = Positive Customer Experience.

When a customer buys a product or service from your company, he also purchases the experience that goes with buying it. An experience is a whole process of deriving a benefit from the product.

Sales persons need to recognize this opportunity and act on it religiously.

Advantages of Customer Service and Relations for Sales Persons by The Sixth Element

Bare Essentials of Customer Service

1. Courtesy Call: A call made- by means of a visit or a phone call made by the sales person to the customer with an intention to maintain the connect and if be so,

solve any queries of the customer with regards to the product or service you have sold to the customer. Provide the service by giving or requesting the required information. Be polite and helpful during the call. Keep the call brief and succinct. The courtesy call should always be a method of communication that helps the customer in some way.

2. Product Delivery: Ensure, that you organize the product delivery well within the time committed. If at all there is any delay due to unavoidable circumstances, inform the customer the situation and give

him the correct picture. Being honest in this context may not always earn you brownie points, but will definitely save you from negative marking.

3. Customer Feedback: Customer feedback should be at the center of your customer-relations strategy. It is not uncommon for successful companies to devote a ton of time and resources to collecting meaningful feedback through customer surveys.

And as a sales person you should grab this opportunity to start building your relationship with the customer. Feedback may be as per your liking or not, gives the customer a chance to voice out his/her opinion. Mean while you capitalize on the opportunity to start an interaction.

Here are a few reasons why customer feedback is so important.

• Helps you understand your customer better
• Helps you maintain a healthy relationship with the customer
• Helps you customer retention

4. Problem Solving: There are always chances that a customer may have problem either with the product or service or handling or delivery to name a few. Let the customer view the event as a problem, but for you its is a golden opportunity.

As a sales professional you need to jump into action to solve a customer’s problem. It’s an opportunity to help him and build a good relationship as well as it is a learning process for sales professionals.

While solving the problem, you learn what the customer wants and what he doesn’t want. Keeping this in mind, your task at hand is to to build customer loyalty and generate leads.

“Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.”―Ken Blanchard

Advantages of Customer Service and Relations for Sales Persons by The Sixth Element

CUSTOMER RELATIONS- For Sales Professionals

Customer relations for sales persons is the key to sales growth. It involves establishing a relationship with the customer and sustaining it by practices and strategies to maintain a your interaction with current and potential customers. You study data, buying behavior and analyse the customers’ history in turn to improve business relationships with your customers, specifically focusing on customer retention, product or service repurchase, referrals that ultimately drives sales growth.

Advantages of Building Good Customer Relations

Customer Retention- Customer retention is to retain its customers. The customer tends to return to, continue to buy or in some other way not defect to another product. Selling organizations generally attempt to reduce customer defections.

A sales person’s ability to attract and retain new customers is related not only to the product or services, but also to the way it builds and maintains a relationship with his existing customers, the value the customers actually generate as a result of utilizing the solutions, and the reputation of the sales person creates within and across the market.

Repurchase- Maintaining a healthy relation with your customer indeed makes you his first choice for advice on further purchases or repurchase of the same or a

similar product. Remember, you already have an established relationship with your customer. The customer trusts your judgement at this point which is a sheer advantage, which in turn makes up a base for repurchase of a product from the same line or a product from a different line.

Referrals- Since the relationship is nurtured and has grown, the trust has grown. Your existing customer, in discussions or when asked about the

product, company, genre thinks about you first and instantly refers you. At other times, even if you ask for referrals, he does not hesitate and is more than happy to share leads with you. This is a great route to generate more leads and easier ones to convert to sales.

Good Ambassadors- You loyal customer propagates your service to his circle of friends, family, colleagues etc. just because

of the the pleasant experience he has had with you and your product or service. This is someone your customers can connect and engage with. The overall experience and your relationship is what makes him talk about you and your product or service.

Problem Reduction- Essentially the Sales person in any industry should be proactive at reducing complaints, which increases

customer satisfaction. Due to an established relationship the customer chooses to turn a blind eye to minor issues and is willing to let go of them.

Service over Price- This is the ultimate advantage, where your happy customer

chooses your services over the price that has to be paid. This comes with trust built in the relationship that you have established and nurtured.

Some Tips to keep it going….

• Stay in touch.
• Greet your customer on special occasions.
• Inform regularly- updates, promotions, schemes etc.
• Courtesy calls.
• Send thank you notes or a gift when a referral realizes into a sale.
• Wish him on festivals- Make it personalised and not generalised.