Add a Touch of Service to Your Sales

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 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.