Hi, it’s Ben Lai from Sales Ethos. Today I’m going to continue on with the series of The Many Hats that Sales Professionals Wear. In this lesson we’re going to talk about how sales professionals are relationship managers. Some of you who are in key account management will already understand this quite well, but nevertheless, it is an important skill that we need to continuously work on and improve. So I’m going to give you three tips on how you can do this better.
Sales Professionals Are Relationship Managers: Manage Expectations
The first thing that you need to do to be effective in sales and in customer service is to manage the service and the product expectations. This starts right from the beginning of when you’re actually presenting the product. You need to make sure that you’re making realistic promises. You may even consider under promising so that you can easily over-deliver. One of the classic examples of this is with e-commerce companies, they’ll say that your package is going to arrive in two weeks, but then it arrives in three days. You’re pleasantly surprised and you’re really happy as a result. So when it comes to managing customer service and relationship management, setting realistic promises is the key to customer happiness.
Sales Professionals Are Relationship Managers: Maintain Personal Relationships
The next thing that you need to do is a little bit more obvious than that, which is to build and to maintain personal relationships with your clients. So from this perspective, you need to constantly think of ways to make your clients happy. What are the things that you can do on a human level that will make them like you more and therefore like your company more? The obvious result of this is that they will buy more from you and they will give you more referrals.
One of the things that you can do, for example, is to find ways to express gratitude. Saying thank you for your time. Thank you for doing business with us. That’s a simple gesture. But if you want to go beyond this, set regular meetings with your clients. So if there are high tier clients, for example, you may want to see them monthly, or you may want to pick up the phone and call your client every three months depending on their level of commitment to your company and their investment. If you have regular touch points, this is one of the great ways to maintain personal relationships with your clients.
Just as a quick note. If you are in sales or in sales management, you want to look for ways to improve and to get better results on what you’re doing, I’m offering a complimentary consultation. Please leave a comment below or send me a note via the link and we’ll explore the options and see what we can do together.
Sales Professionals Are Relationship Managers: Continuously Add Value
Now the third thing and the third tip to improve your customer service and your relationship management skills is to continuously add value. Now as you know, every relationship requires investment, but in sales we need to constantly look for ways to add value to our contacts. This may be in the form of doing our research and giving industry updates to our clients, keeping them on top of what’s happening in the industry, whether it’s yours or their industry, or looking ways to wine and dine your clients. That’s another great way to maintain good relationships and to invest on a very human level in your relationships with your clients.
Conclusion
To summarize, if you want to be effective in customer service and relationship management, you need to manage the expectations of the service and the product, you need to build and maintain the relationships on a very human level, and you need to find ways to continuously add value to your clients. Do these things, and you will find that you’ll be much more effective in your sales. My name is Ben Lai from Sales Ethos and remember that integrity plus skills equals success.
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Sales Ethos is the only provider of sales training for introverts. We also provide sales coaching, sales process consulting, and sales training in Melbourne & Adelaide.
Transcript by Rev.com