Add a Touch of Service to Your Sales

0
41

Share on LinkedIn

Service-orientated sell­ing is a proven approach to pro­vid­ing a world-class cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Using high-pressured sales tac­tics may result in short term suc­cess to meet a quar­terly goal, but to sus­tain long-term com­pany suc­cess, cus­tomer rela­tion­ships must be fos­tered. Instead of bom­bard­ing cus­tomers with lim­ited time pro­mo­tions, try the sales as ser­vice method for tele­phone sales and watch rev­enues increase.

Telephone sales trainingTele­phone sales train­ing that focuses on com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills devel­op­ment can quickly turn mediocre employ­ees into suc­cess­ful sales­peo­ple. The most impor­tant skills taught? Ques­tion­ing and lis­ten­ing skills! The abil­ity for an employee to hear and accu­rately under­stand a cus­tomer is inte­gral to service-orientated sales. Fre­quently, sales­peo­ple focus on clos­ing the sale. But when using a service-orientated approach, the key is to focus on what the cus­tomer really needs — and then ful­fill it with the appro­pri­ate prod­uct or service.

Increase Cus­tomer Sat­is­fac­tion with Effec­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Skills

To effec­tively approach sales as ser­vice, employ­ees must accu­rately iden­tify each customer’s need. Three impor­tant com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills that will enable employ­ees to effec­tively meet cus­tomers’ needs and ensure their sat­is­fac­tion are strate­gic ques­tion­ing, active lis­ten­ing, and con­firm­ing understanding.

  1. Strate­gic Ques­tion­ing. Employ­ees skilled at strate­gic ques­tion­ing can quickly iden­tify cus­tomer needs by using open and closed ques­tions. Appro­pri­ate ques­tion­ing quickly high­lights the rea­son for the cus­tomer’s call, and effi­ciently gath­ers infor­ma­tion needed to meet and exceed cus­tomer expec­ta­tions of service.
  2. Active Lis­ten­ing. When, employ­ees actively lis­ten they are able to quickly deter­mine the facts and feel­ings per­ti­nent to each customer’s call. When employ­ees give the cus­tomer their full atten­tion they can effec­tively fac­tor in the customer’s tone of voice and vol­ume to assess emo­tional state to deter­mine how he or she will respond to prod­uct or ser­vice ben­e­fits. Active lis­ten­ing also aids employ­ees to remem­ber key details so the cus­tomer will not have to repeat infor­ma­tion later in the call and allows the employee to pick up on hid­den needs to bet­ter ser­vice the customer.
  3. Con­firm Under­stand­ing. When employ­ees con­firm under­stand­ing they not only ensure that they are pre­sent­ing the best ben­e­fits to the cus­tomer, but also increase cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion by show­ing the cus­tomer that their needs have been heard and will be addressed.

Using the above com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills will dif­fer­en­ti­ate your sales team from com­peti­tors. The pri­mary goal of service-orientated sell­ing is to be of ser­vice. Plain and sim­ple. If your team could use a touch of ser­vice in their sales strate­gies, con­sider invest­ing in tele­phone sales train­ing that includes service-orientated sell­ing tech­niques. Depend­ing on the dynam­ics of your team, this approach may be quickly embraced, or accepted after a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the ben­e­fits. Regard­less of back­ground and expe­ri­ence, all employ­ees will receive value from tele­phone sales training.

Updat­ing tra­di­tional sales tech­niques to a service-orientated method adds value to the company’s prod­ucts and ser­vices. The value may take many forms, but ulti­mately when employ­ees endeavor to make customer’s lives eas­ier, cus­tomer loy­alty increases.

Top 3 Ben­e­fits of Sales Train­ing for Cus­tomer Ser­vice Employees

  • Increased rev­enue
  • Increased cus­tomer satisfaction
  • Increased cus­tomer retention

Tele­phone sales train­ing will add a touch of ser­vice to your team’s sales strate­gies. Remem­ber, cus­tomers chase after ben­e­fits, not fea­tures. And good cus­tomer ser­vice adds value.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Rachel Miller
Rachel Miller is the Customer Engagement Manager at Nimble - a simple, affordable social relationship manager.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here