How do front-line sales professionals (Relationship Managers, face to face sales, client managers, Etc) effectively connect through high impact conversations?

Challenges to achieveing great sales conversations

There is no doubt that achieving sales targets, regardless of how they are achieved, has become the principle means of measuring success in many companies around the globe, regardless of what they all say they do for their customers.

That then becomes the root of the problem.

From that, we have observed that many conversations with customers are often driven by the sales person’s self interests on the basis of a product promotion, the profitability of a product, the amount of commission or incentive the sales person will receive or urgency to hit a specific target, a business need to increase market share etc. regardless of whether or not that is the right solution for the customer. 

Essentially there is rarely anybody taking a look at the overall picture for the customer, or even conversational guidelines to ensure that sales staff work together in the customer’s best interests.

So how do we  connect effectively and maxmise performance?

There are many well established approaches to selling; relationship selling, customer value selling, needs based selling etc. to suit different business needs and the current economic environment. Terms may change, tough times come and go, but the best practices of having a quality conversation that focuses on the clients best interests versus the sellers to maximize sales performance is still regarded as critical to success.

This would apply to anyone who manages a portfolio of customers on a relationship basis rather than a transactional one and seeks to enhance their ability, knowledge and behaviour to deliver a meaningful sales conversation that engages the client and deepens relationships with both new and existing prospects.

What will make this work?

In order to make programme that changes the focus from “us” to “them” successful, frontline sales professionals people need to be able to:

Assess their own communication strengths and weaknesses and the impact they have on others

Adapt and respond to the communication style, drivers of emotional needs and life stage of their clients

Develop compelling value positioning statements for opening conversations with prospects and existing clients over the telephone and in person

Ask for and gather information using bridging statements and reflective listening techniques to identify opportunities to create value for clients

Summarise and align solutions to the customers’ true needs to establish greater rapport with the client

Keep the client engaged in the conversation when handling client uncertainty or resistance to opportunity

Demonstrate conversational closing statements to confidently ask for the business

For related materials please see:

Maximising sales performance and skills.

Building and rebuilding trust.

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

Some Get it and Some Don’t. Why?

There has been  a lot of recent news and write ups of success (and failures) on retail customer service/experience programmes. 

A few success stories:

Tony Hsieh of Zappos (of course!).

Nordstrom’s department stores.

Wegman’s supermarkets.

Why are some retailers more successful than others and generally more successful than other industries at customer experience?

Because the successful ones focus on and reach out to the customer. The customer is King. The service culture is instilled in the business and comes from top down.

They engage and focus on the client and all aspects around the client.

To back this up, a recent retail survey by the Retail Council of Canada (along with Wharton and Verde) titled “Discovering WOW,”  shows that, of the top five categories of great shopping experiences, the top priority for loyalty and customer experience is ENGAGEMENT.

Statistics and Gaps 

The following statistics and information from a CMO Council  study tells us something….

“38 percent said their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers.”

“Only 31 percent rate their company’s commitment to customer listening highly.”

“Many companies have are discovering that they have no idea what their clients’ real customer experiences are. ”

It tells us that there are a lot of gaps when it comes to customer experience.

Filling the Gaps: Success in the Insurance Business Through Engagement and Client Focus

One insurance company has filled the gaps and understands why it is important..

Aviva (Norwich Union) are the fifth largest insurance company in the world and the largest in the UK. They deal with “real moments of truth”- floods, fires, accidents, death- and need to get customer experience right.

Aviva’s worldwide mantra is  ”Prosperity, peach of mind, health & wealth. ” They need to live up to this to survive. And during these tough times it is even more important,  since the insurance industry’s reputation  is jaded and there is lack of trust overall.

Darren Cornish, Director Customer Experience, Norwich Union, worked with Beyond Philosophy (a leading customer experience consulting firm in the UK) to help them fill the gaps.

Quoting Mr. Cornish on his work with Beyond Philosophy:  ”The best thing to do before designing any form of startegy is to go out and talk directly to the customers (and to the staff)- the front line.”

He found out that there was a degree of disconnect and it all distilled into two principles- customers want to trust us and want Norwich Union to “do what we say we do. ”

He also discovered that Norwich Union (and the insurance industry in general ) did not seem to demonstrate  that they cared- they were not interested in “me  (the client) as a person”.

Customers were often seen as a number. Customers felt like THEY were the victim. This killed the trust factor.

So what were the first steps? Engage senior management- work it from the top.

He discovered that “Our processes have been designed from the inside for efficiency and not with the customer in mind. The measurement and the incentives in place were damaging the customer experience. The IT systems needed to be shifted towards the customers. Marketing and communications were all about acquisition and not  customer connections.”

Norwich Union went on to build a successful customer experience program through engagement and client focus.

“I am a broken record when it comes to saying, ‘We have to focus on the consumer.’…I don’t think the answers are just in the numbers. You have to get out and look.” - A.G. Lafley, former CEO, Procter & Gamble

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore