It’s funny then that, according to research by Lee Resource and IBM, 80% of companies surveyed claimed that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. Ouch!

80% of companies surveyed claimed that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. Ouch!

It is undisputed that negative customer experiences cost your bottom line. Have a look at these CX statistics:

For every customer complaint, there are 26 other customers who have remained silent. (source: Lee Resource Inc)

A dissatisfied consumer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience, while about 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. (source: Lee Resource Inc)

Attracting a new customer costs 5-times as much as keeping an existing one. (source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC)

Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4 to 6 people about their positive experience. (source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC)

86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience. (source: Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report)

It’s no wonder then that customer-centricity and customer experience (CX) are hot topics in business right now. But just saying so is not enough. What about your business? Just how customer-centric is it?

Just how Customer-Centric is Your Business?

Before I go on I’d like to clear up a question I get asked a lot: What is the difference between customer-centricity and customer experience?

It’s simple, really.

Customer-Centricity creates positive Customer Experiences. In other words, for customers to perceive a business as being customer-focused it needs to be structured and managed like Jeff Bezos says, i.e. with the customer in mind. So, to be customer-centric, at every touch point in the organization you need to ask: “What does that look like from the customer’s point of view?” and then adjust your processes, KPIs and culture to do the right thing to create that positive customer experience.

So, how Customer-Centric is Your Business?

I propose that there are 10 Critical Customer Touch Points in the customer’s buying journey that can make or break your business.

These ten Touch Points are:

1. A Brand that Differentiates Your Business

I don’t mean that you have to be a household name or that your logo needs to be a certain color. The main thing is that you have a distinct brand that customers can recognize and identify you by. Most businesses should have this under control.

2. A well-defined Product and/or Service to Sell

How well can you articulate your product or service? How clearly can you explain to your prospects and customers the benefits of your product or service? Will your customers understand what it does for them, i.e. what’s in it for them? Or do you mostly talk about how it works?

3. A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) And A Killer Introduction That Engages Your Ideal Buyers And Makes Them Want To Know More About You

This is critical: It can’t be a motherhood statement such as “We really care for our customers.” It needs to be credible and you need to be able to back it up. What is your unique value proposition? I.e. can you clearly state what makes your business and its offerings unique and why a prospect should be interested in you? What makes you different from any other business out there?

And then, how do you convey that difference at the first point of contact with a new prospect? How can you intrigue and engage them right from your opening introduction? How do you get them to lean forward and say: “Tell me more.”?

4. A Clear Understanding Of Who Your Ideal Customers And Prospects Are

You would agree with me that there is little point in engaging with the wrong kind of prospects. You are better off dealing with the right kind instead, right? So, how clear are you on what your ideal customers look like?

5. The knowledge Of Where To Find Them

Once you know who your ideal Buyers are you need to know where they hang out. Do you know where to find your ideal prospects and customers?

6. The Understanding To Access And Engage Them Effectively

It’s not enough to know where to find your ideal Buyers. You need to know how to get to them and get them interested in your goods or services. How effective and scalable is your sales process? How well does it leverage your unique value proposition (see Point 3 above)?

7. The Know-How To Eliminate Your Competitors

Rarely will you be the only one in the race to a deal. Instead, you will most likely have to beat off any number of competitors. So, how do you fend them off and becomes your Buyer’s final and only choice?

8. The Skills To Create Effective Sales Proposals That Close Deals

In most B2B sales situations you are likely to be asked to submit a sales proposal to your Buyer. Do you get excited by the fact that the Buyer asked for a proposal and send it off to them asap? Or is there a better, smarter way? Further, how can you ensure that a) your proposal covers exactly what the Buyer needs, and b) that you have maximized your chances of your proposal being the last one standing, the one that gets accepted?

9. A Superior Pre, During and Post-Purchase Customer Experience

If you reflect on the customer experience statistics at the beginning of this article you will understand just how mission-critical your customers’ perceptions and experiences are to the success of your business at every step of the way. So, how successfully are you managing your Buyer’s interactions with your business?

10. The Ability To Keep Your Customers Loyal And To Win Their Repeat Business

Your customers’ experience does not end with a transaction. In fact, their post-sale experience is so critical that it will determine whether they will choose to come to do more business with you, or not. So, how do your prospects and customers perceive their interactions with your business at every touch point? Is their experience a pleasant one that will make them rave to their friends and colleagues about your business, or is it one that will more likely make them warn people off you?

There you have it. The 10 critical customer touch points that make or break your business.

The post 10 Touch Points That Make Or Break Sales appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Success starts and ends with your thinking, change your thinking and you change your results.

Would you like:

• to make more profit faster, easier and with integrity?
• more happy clients who pay the rate your solution is worth and refer you?
• to embrace selling and feeling confident each time you are with a client?

Here are our five secrets to immediate business growth.

 Secret 1: Sales = helping

Think of it like this – here are people that need something solved. These people may need what you have. If you don’t let them know you can help them you are doing them a disservice!

 Be positive about your solution

 Start each day and interaction with ‘I’m here to help’

 I need to let more people know how my solution can assist them in their lives/work by making them happier, saving or making money, saving or creating time.

 Secret 2. Understand your customer

Stop trying to sell! Stop trying to ‘persuade’.

Move your attention and your focus onto ‘understanding’ your client and how your solution can help them.

 Ask questions

Build an arsenal of open ended questions to keep your client talking about their situation. Have hundreds of questions practiced.

Be inquisitive, be curious

Your questions should be a natural expansion of what they are saying, It shouldn’t feel like an interview. There should be flow. It needs to be obvious why you are asking the question and tailored to that client. 84% of customers say being treated like a person/an individual, not a number, is very important to winning their business*

Secret 3. Stop talking and start listening

 The only talking you should be doing is asking fantastic questions. 90% of the time the client should be talking. You need to be listening.

Be present – By being prepared for the meeting and clearing all distractions in your mind you can focus 100% on what your client is saying

Listen and beware

We have a propensity to hear what we want to hear and jump to assumptions.

Aligning

The client has told you everything they want – NOW forward your solution that aligns with their values, motivation, desires, likes and dislikes.

 Secret 4. Do what others will not do

While I was blueberry picking with my 6-year-old he said ‘Mum let’s go through the middle  of the row’ which looked difficult. When I asked him why his response was ‘If you do what everyone else has done you will get what everyone else has got’. That’s what business development is about – finding other ways to seek opportunities.

Plan

The answer to your dreams is having continuous growth. Business Development professionals know how much time needs to be dedicated to growing the business. They know how many calls and meetings they need to do to exceed target.

Take action consistently

You don’t get thin by eating one healthy meal – and you don’t grow the business doing business development once. Put times in your diary. Stick to it. Be disciplined.

 Follow Up

 The average follow up needed is 12. Most sales people give up after three. The hard work has already taken place and then you lose it to a competitor simply because they happen to follow up more times than you. Learn about adding value with your follow ups so it’s  not a ‘I’m just follow up’ conversation.

#Secret 5. Be in charge of your own mindset (your state of mind)

Success begins and ends with your mindset. If you think that client won’t buy you are right. If you think you need to negotiate, you are right. If you think the market is tough, you are right. Conversely, if you think you can make 20 calls a day and the market is buoyant, you are right. If you think it’s easy, you are right. You really are acting out the sum of your thoughts.

 Re frame

One of the easiest ways to flip any negative mindset is to do a reframe. Quickly think of something worst. I read once that if we all wrote our problems on a piece of paper and threw them in a hat, once we saw what others have wrote we would soon grab our own out again. Good reframe hey? You can have that one on me.

Positive anchor

The client who said thank you, this solution really helped. An email you kept from a happy client. Feel the feelings and hear the words of happy, contented clients.

Gratitude

Start your day with gratitude. It’s no surprise that if your standard of living has increased ten fold from when you were young then you probably start each day with knowing  how lucky you are. Always be grateful for what you have and acknowledge your skills that got you where you are today.

The post 5 Sales Tactics To Know appeared first on Head Of Sales.

The sales rep paused for a moment, ensuring all eyes in the room were fixed on him, before clicking through to his first slide. A kaleidoscope of company logo’s sprung up on the screen, wowing the audience with the vendor’s customer base and depth of industry experience. An audible gasp rippled through the room as a 2nd logo slide replaced the first, with even more customer logos. Whispered conversations broke out as the user community remarked on how lucky they were to be embarking on a project with a vendor of this experience.

When the sales rep casually mentioned his company was 100% Australian owned, you could feel the excitement beginning to build to a crescendo.

“We’ve won countless awards for our projects” he continued, sensing the audience were now eating out of the palm of his hand.

“Did I mention we’ve got very low employee attrition rates and are regarded as one of the best businesses for employee satisfaction in our industry?” he concluded, with an air of supreme confidence.

The spontaneous burst of applause took even the sales rep by surprise, as the CEO jumped out of her seat, hand extended and pen poised, ready to sign the waiting contract.

At least that was how it was mean’t to go…unfortunately even the best laid plans can sometimes go astray. What really happened went something like this:

• Sales rep puts up first logo slide – an audible groan emerges from the back of the room and what sounds like the word ‘Bingo’. This group have spent the past week sitting through PowerPoint presentations and have seen the same logo’s represented again and again across all three sets of vendor slides.
•  Sales rep puts up second logo slide – CEO looks at her watch, gives a disapproving stare to her key project sponsor, whose job it was to properly brief the vendors and makes a quick note on her iPad.
•  Sales rep explains his company is 100% Australian owned – The entire room collectively asks themselves “So what?”
•  In quick succession, the Sales rep highlights the awards, low attrition rate and high employee satisfaction which his company enjoys – By this stage half the room have zoned out completely and the other half are feeling bad for the rep, as they watch their CEO getting more and more irate.

For those sales professional who conduct dry-runs before an important customer presentation (and I hope that’s most sales professionals) you could do a lot worse than taking 3 or 4 pieces of cardboard and a marker pen and writing the following:

During your presentation dry-run, ask your colleagues to play the role of the customer. Every time you make a statement, particularly one which relates to your business or your solution, anyone in the room should be encouraged to hold up their ‘So What’ card, if they fail to see how your statement is relevant to them as a customer. Let’s look at a couple of quick examples:

• We’ve got lots and lots of customers, look at all their logos on the slide behind me

So what?

 “I’d like to highlight 3 specific customers from this slide to talk about, due to the similarity in the business pains they were experiencing and the fact that these might represent good customers for you to speak, when we move into the reference phase of your review process”

• We’ve won lots of awards for our projects over the years

So what?

 “We’re incredibly proud of the industry awards that we have received over the years, because we have won them in conjunction with our customers and they recognise the commitment of teams in delivering an exceptional project outcome. I sincerely hope the project we’re about to embark on might be nominated for an industry award also”

• We have a very low employee attrition rate in our business

So what?

 “Our employee attrition rate is well below industry standards. What that means for our customers is far greater continuity in terms of the resources working with you to deliver on your project outcomes. It also means that we have built deep domain and industry expertise in our business, which we leverage to deliver an even better outcome for our customers.”

Remember, as a prospective customer of yours:

• It’s not my job to care, it’s your job to make me care.
• It’s not my job to search for the relevance, it’s your job to highlight the relevance.
• It’s not my job to make the link, you need to ensure you create the link for me.

Add this 1 simple step into the way you prepare for presentations and it will transform the way your audience connects with your message. Oh and if you do try it, please send me a picture of your ‘So What’ sign for my collection!

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