Up Close & Personal

The sales process has undergone a makeover in recent years to focus on a personal approach for building and maintaining strong customer relationships, rather than one-off transactions. So what does personalisation mean and how can sales teams use it to help close deals?

IMPACTING ON TODAY’S SALES PERFORMANCE Gone are the days when it was all about closing deals by any means possible. Sales leaders and teams still primarily measure performance on sales numbers – and this can drive a laser focus on getting those last deals closed by the end of the quarter – but the process has become much more sophisticated, and the opportunity for improvement is greater. Customer demand and development of new technologies now enables sales professionals to create closer ongoing relationships that can drive customer advocacy, loyalty, recommendations and repeat purchases.

Sales teams should be very context-specific in their interactions with customers. Too often we still see very generic customer service responses that look like they come straight out of a machine and miss the right tone of voice or personal touch to trigger the customer.

TECHNOLOGY AND CUSTOMERFOCUSED CULTURE The application of the right technology, reporting tools and coaching can assist in driving a customer-focused culture. This can stimulate a truly personalised approach whereby the salesperson understands and works to serve customer needs. CRM and marketing tools can inform sales teams about the context of the customer; reporting tools inform how the customer is using products and what the customer wants. Teams can use the information to offer tailored, contextually-based pitches on the next sale and, most of all, to prepare themselves before they engage with a customer.

This information can also help organisations determine how and where they may need to improve and how they can therefore deliver

contextually-driven coaching for internal teams. A real challenge is to agree on a format for everyone to use. You need to put energy into setting a new quality norm on how to use a set of applications and workflows that are integrated into a customer engagement platform. You need to know what best practice is and how to collaborate to get the best results. Buying good software is a first step; getting the culture right “Those who just chase deals, is also necessary. without considering what the ALIGNING SALES AND MARKETING customer wants to hear, will find it impossible to compete” Sales teams should work closely with marketing teams to align on approach and information. Using a technology platform that draws data from both departments, and others, can provide a full customer picture. Here, marketing provides insights that help determine the approach sales teams take. For example, if teams want to increase sales by lead generation, the tools could work to help determine which market segment is best to target, help determine a marketing plan, then sales would help nurture and close those leads.

It would help sales teams to have insights into how a prospect came to engage with them, such as through an event or a webinar, and what they were most interested in during that engagement. This provides context to aid a personalised approach to further engagement when looking to convert a prospect to a customer.

So, the right sales and marketing technology suite can help salespeople get a strong understanding of the customer. This is crucial in proposing the right solution, understanding motivations along the various touchpoints of the customer journey, and how the products being sold can address the challenges that the customer faces.

This better understanding of the customer results in improving sales results. It can enable sales teams to deliver a faster response to the customer, resulting in shorter sales cycles. If all customer data is used and understood, the salesperson can provide a higher quality of response and a better customer experience, which can be crucial today in customer advocacy.

Then, better collaboration with other internal teams ensures a continued high-quality experience for the customer as they continue their journey from an evaluating prospect to a paid customer. A good embedding of a modern sales culture is of evident importance while implementing new tools for sales, marketing and support.

There are also benefits internally, as the level JEAN-PAUL DAMEN is director, key accounts, Europe at of automation that the right suite of products for Zoho. Visit zoho.com sales and marketing provides ensures higher employee productivity for day-to-day tasks.

All aspects combine to help the sales team achieve its sales target as well as further target more customer happiness, bonding and more revenue on cross-selling and account growth.

MAXIMISING RETURNS THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGY Sales teams should always stay updated on new technology and how it can help improve sales performance. Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are being integrated into sales and marketing suites. They can help both internally, as well as with customers, by expediting many routine tasks. For example, when engaging with customers, CRM systems can have a lot of automation that helps with nurturing leads and providing valuable insights, such as what is the best time to call prospects, and to establish if certain activities are taking longer than they should. This enables corrective action to be taken to drive more successful business results. Automation frees up time so workers can focus on higher value, often more strategic activities.

A good example is a combination of chatbots and agents (humans!) that can respond to website queries, depending on what they are. Such combinations enable sales teams to offer a mix of manual and automated responses. The choice of tools depends on which is most appropriate to deliver the best and most efficient sales approach or customer service.

That said, you can buy the best products in the market, but you won’t get top results without proper guidance on how to use the software.

THE ERA OF PERSONALISATION In summary, personalisation in today’s sales and marketing suites gives you the ability to scale up, while maintaining the personal touch and tone of voice during the whole customer journey. Sales teams must act now to focus on a personalised strategy and use an integrated system that offers access to pooled customer data from across departments. It is only then that more contextual and intelligent approaches to prospects can be made, resulting in delighted customers and recurring business.

With such a wealth of information to provide context today, those who fail to deliver a more personalised approach will lose out to those who can serve customers faster, more efficiently and more effectively through directly addressing their needs from the first interaction. Those who just chase deals without considering what the customer wants to hear and how they want to be approached will find it impossible to compete.