The Sales Café

By Elisabeth Watson

“Your hold time will be approximately 87 minutes.”

Who likes to hear that? Certainly not your customers.

We spend so much time (or we should) on training customer service people or sales reps or both. We study our potential customers’ responses to every possible method of engaging with them. We tweet, we follow, we friend, we call, we don’t call, we do whatever we think is possible to convert a prospect to a customer.

And then we put them on hold.  Or process their return in 4-6 weeks. Or refer their questions to someone who has no understanding of the product or how they use it.  After the romance of the sales cycle, that is more than a little abrupt.

We’ve done the hard part, convincing someone to buy from us, but then we often drop the ball. Revenues, especially new revenues, are the Holy Grail and it’s easy to forget that the cheapest and the easiest sales come from our existing customers.  And no matter how relevant our collateral or how effective our message, referrals are our most credible sales resource. It’s vital that we make it easy for our customers to pass along those referrals, long after they’ve signed the contract and committed to our products and services.

So how do we ensure that our customers have a great experience throughout the lifecycle?  By applying that old management adage, what gets measured gets done.  We need to evaluate each aspect of the customers’ experience from their perspective and look at how it impacts the customer experience—from that first call through every interaction.  We forget that our cost centers touch the customer, too. As Nigel Blair-Johns, Operations Manager at HP often reminds me, “Paying the bill is part of the customer experience.”  If our invoices are inaccurate or not timely, paying us can cost the customer money, not to mention frustration.

I know, I know, you can’t spend money and time on those cost centers. You need to focus on revenue. This economy is brutal.  I understand.  But.  Yes, but.  You can start with something as simple as your attitude.  Look at each of your processes from your customer’s perspective.  Just for a minute, stop channeling your accountant and consider ALL of your organization’s customer touch points.  Are any of those customer experiences less than great?  If so, that experience is hurting your customer retention, not to mention your brand.

Are you thinking that good service costs more than bad service?  Maybe, maybe not.  A customer-focused invoicing process, supported by reasonable technology, might mean fewer interactions, electronic funds transfers, and improved DSO (Days Sales Outstanding). That translates into lower costs and faster access to cash, which will enable you to return to channeling your accountant.

Reviewing, analyzing, and updating your processes, in the context of your customer experience, could not only improve your top line, but will help your bottom line as well.  What if you cut your fulfillment and invoicing costs by 20%?  What if accounts receivable process made your cash available 3 days sooner?  What if you cut an FTE from your invoice processing staff?  Or redeployed that FTE from problem resolution to reporting or fulfillment?  What if you could cut your accounting error management by 5%? That would be good news, but what’s even better?  Lots of pleasant encounters with—and, maybe even a few referrals from—those people you worked so hard to sell, your customers.

Guest blogger Dave Batt, CEO and Founder of StreetSmarts, Inc., discusses the challenges in sales effectiveness in a Sales 2.0 environment.

I reviewed some interesting findings from the Corporate Visions Inc. Quarterly Sales Messaging Report Q3 FY09 (www.corporatevisions.com) which surveys thousands of business to business marketing and sales professionals. The survey highlights the continued challenges around sales effectiveness, in that 74% of salespeople publicly admit to rewriting messages and tools created by marketing. There still seems to be a divide amongst many sales and marketing teams and the fact that selling time is being absorbed by sales people recreating marketing assets is not only inefficient but potentially dilutes or even damages a brand. It means sales professionals don’t feel confident in the messages they are being asked to deliver or don’t feel they are credible or compelling enough within the rapidly evolving competitive landscape.

Another key area of concern highlighted in the survey findings is that a staggering 87% of salespeople are looking for more coaching from their managers. The key area where sales teams felt there were gaps was how best to differentiate the company and communicate what makes the company’s solution different. Clearly classroom training alone is not the answer as things change quickly and most people will not contest that what is learned in the formal training environment is not used indefinitely or quite quickly forgotten. And one on one coaching is not really a scalable answer either. How can sales managers hold the hands of each and every sales person though each and every stage of the sales cycle?

The key to better enable sales teams and drive higher overall sales effectiveness is a more holistic approach to the whole sales and marketing function. What is needed is self help in an ongoing manner for sales and empowerment of the sales force to continue to learn and develop at their own pace. Marketing and sales are so often considered as separate functions in many organizations but customers assume they are dealing with a company and not a set of departments. What is needed is better collaboration to close the sales and marketing divide, where marketing assets are ranked and rated by the sales recipients so marketing have the insight from the field to make corrective action and build stronger business alignment. Though the use of enabling technologies this is now entirely possible and also means that consistent market messages are achieved, rather than recreating assets and creating several versions of the truth.

About StreetSmarts

StreetSmarts^® 5.6 is based on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that unites company-wide knowledge and enterprise social networking components to deliver business value for enterprise wide knowledge based and line of business initiatives such as sales effectiveness channel enablement, training reinforcement and transforming intellectual capital into actionable knowledge through information management.

Because of its adaptive, lightweight nature and built in usability features, StreetSmarts^® is able to provide a working solution specific to each client’s business requirements in a matter of days, rather than months of complex software deployments.   In addition, this also allows clients to quickly react to changing new business practices and external market conditions without the need for massive customization or programming. For more information on StreetSmarts^®, visit www.streetsmarts.com.